Originally built in 1609 in honor of Our Lady of La Leche—a Marian apparition popular among the Spanish settlers in the area—it is the oldest shrine in the United States.

[1][2] Spanish explorers, under the command of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and the spiritual chaplaincy of Fr Francisco López de Mendoza Grajales, OFM, arrived in northern Florida in 1565.

[3] The settlers brought with them the Spanish devotion to Nuestra Señora de La Leche y Buen Parto ("Our Lady of the Milk and Good Delivery").

The name comes from the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary nursing the infant Jesus, hence the reference to "la leche"—i.e., (breast) milk.

Upon its coronation ceremony in October 2021, it became just the sixth-such Marian image in the United States.