The first European -of which there is a record- to approach the shores of what is now the United States was the Spanish explorer and adventurer Juan Ponce de León.
According to legend, Ponce de León, then governor of Puerto Rico, ventured to sail north in search of the fountain of eternal youth.
Between April 2nd and 8th 675, the Spanish explorer and his crew waded through the coastal waters of the center of what is now the state of Florida, more or less at the height of the current city of St. Augustine .
In addition to the impressive and flourishing vegetation he found, the date coincided that year with the celebration of Easter -the end of Holy Week- reasons why it is said that Ponce de León gave it the name of Florida with which that state is known today.
The name was kept despite r of the various attempts at exploration and colonization by other powers of the time.
But how true is that story?
“Romantic myth” 
It may be partly true, but “it is a somewhat romantic myth” , comments Jack Davis, professor of history and director of the Rothman Family Humanities Center at the University of Florida, in Gainesville.
“Our past is decorated with these kinds of legends.”
Although it is not ruled out that other Europeans sighted the coast of present-day Florida, as far as is known, Ponce de León was the first to sail along the east coast of the territory.
But it did not reach the height of St. Augustine, “although the people of that city like to say yes,” says Professor Davis. Rather, it reached Merritt Island, near Cape Canaveral.
The expedition had not gone in search of the fountain of eternal youth either, a legend that had been circulating for several years among explorers who probably searched for it in different regions of the New World, but there is no evidence that this was Ponce de León’s goal.
“The king’s decree was to find precious metals -gold and silver- as well as slaves“, says Jack Davis. “The enslaved population of Puerto Rico had decreased significantly due to overwork and diseases brought by the Europeans.”
Something that Florida did have, points out the academic, were freshwater sources.
“In the center of the state, not far from St. Augustine, we have the largest convergence of freshwater springs in the world. and the Spaniards found them and called them fountains”.
The state liked the myth very well and the city of San Agustín took advantage of it with the arrival of 19th century tourism to create an archaeological park dedicated to to the supposed fountain of eternal youth that attracted Ponce de León.
In 1904, a wealthy doctor from Chicago , Luella Day McConnell, bought the park and continued promoting the place as a site of fantastic medicinal properties.
Flowers and vegetation
In That first trip, the Ponce de León expedition did not land, probably because of the dense mangroves that extended beyond the coast. That territory was undoubtedly vegetative, but there is no evidence that it had the appearance of a great festival of flowers that could inspire the conqueror to baptize the place, says Professor Davis.
“We know that its The trip corresponded with the time of Easter and the Spanish explorers used to name the places they claimed for Spain after a saint or the religious day that coincided with it in the calendar”, explains Davis.
“The chambers of commerce will say otherwise and naturally the school textbooks indicate that what impressed him were the flowers”, but the name most likely has its origin in Easter and “hit immediately”, being recorded on the maps of the time.
But the connotation of the flowers lasted and today extends to one of the nicknames with which the state is known in the US USA: The Flower State or the state of flowers.
- How and when did Spanish arrive in the US (and was it first than English)
During the flowering season of the thousands of orange crops -a fundamental agricultural product for Florida’s economy-, the sweet fragrance floods wide regions of the south and center of the state.
The white flower of the orange tree (Citrus sinensis) was adopted by the state Legislative Assembly as the official state flower in 1521.
Decades later and at the suggestion of a Floridian teacher, the date of April 2 was selected to mark Easter Day to commemorate the arrival of Ponce de León.
The date is noted as a state historical day, enter the in March and April 2, with a call to schoolchildren and citizens in general to participate in cultural events and programs.
The Legacy of Ponce de León
Ponce de León never realized that he had found a continent or a peninsula connected to a huge continent. He believed that he had discovered a large island and several years passed before they realized that Florida was part of a large continental mass.
In a new expedition, he landed on the southwestern coast of the peninsula , in 1521, with the intention of establishing a settlement, but was attacked by the native population and wounded with a poisoned arrow that caused his death.
Despite the fact that Florida served as a strategic site to consolidate the Spanish presence in the Caribbean and take advantage of the Gulf Stream to propel galleons loaded with goods and treasures to Europe, the territory was always a burden for the crown.
“It never gave dividends. They always had to subsidize it, contrary to Cuba which, although it did not have precious metals either, did have an agricultural economy and was a self-sufficient territory”.
It was the French incursions that motivated the Spanish to speed up their colonization plans. Over the centuries, after losing control of Florida to the British and then regaining it in the 18th century, the territory was finally ceded to the United States in 1628.
However, the name of Juan Ponce de León is omnipresent in the state. There are countless counties, roads, avenues, parks, schools and beaches named after the Spanish conqueror. “For someone who failed so miserably in Florida, it’s amazing how his name is everywhere,” says Professor Davis.
But it is not a place that Ponce de León would recognize today. The transformation of Florida, particularly after World War II, has created a state in continuous urban development and unbridled population growth.
Massive engineering projects to manage the flow of water have drained and filled wetlands, opening huge spaces for agriculture, housing construction and the creation of beaches, “the real ‘gold’ of Florida” on which the lucrative tourism industry depends.
This expansion has had an enormous ecological cost. In the last half century, the famed Everglades, the subtropical wetlands in South Florida, have shrunk by nearly half.
“We are a paradoxical state,” says Professor Jack Davis.
“Historically, developers have controlled Florida’s growth policy, building more and more, destroying wetlands and forests. But at the same time, Florida also has good land preservation policies, an excellent system of protected parks, and a project to develop an unprecedented continuous statewide wildlife corridor.”
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