Sentinels of the Spanish Coast

Sentinels of the Spanish Coast. . , An Early Warning System , The Spanish were well versed in the art of war. They built watchtowers around St. Augustine in order to spot potential danger early enough to muster an effective defense. These two examples of mid-sixteenth century watchtowers are from a map of Drake's 1586 Raid on St. Augustine drawn by Baptiste Boazio, an Italian mapmaker and illustrator in London from 1585 to 1603. , Sharp-eyed Lookouts Needed , The modern telescope or spyglass as we know it today was invented in Holland in September, 1608 by a spectacle maker named Hans Lipperhey. Since these were unavailable in the New World, watchtowers in the early years of Spanish Florida were manned by the sharpest-eyed men available. These sentinels probably used their naked eyes. A man standing on open ground can spot an object nearly 3 miles away, but a 30 foot watchtower could boost a man's visual limit to over 19 miles. Keeping watch for ships was incredibly important, be they Spanish resupply ships, French ships bent on destruction of the city, or English privateers looking to loot the town. , The Inlet Over Time , The view to the southeast from the top level of the tower vividly illustrates the commanding vista that a lookout would have had. , St. Augustine's present inlet was dredged in the early 1940's by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as part of the war effort during World War II. , In prior centuries, the inlet channel meandered more to the southeast, as indicated in the photograph. Historically, the inlet was rather shallow and difficult to navigate, and large ships such as galleons could not usually cross it.