Beginning in the late 19th century, photographs and postcards featured the market as a quaint relic, images that often placed local African-American men in front of the building for added effect.

[4] In 1883 the building was described in a tourist guide, but without much confidence: "Four years ago it was used as a meat market, but since, the Council and a private gentleman have rescued it from what must have been degrading to this proud piece of Spanish antiquity, of which very little is known.

The reader will please understand that the compiler of this Guide does not hold himself responsible for the slave-market story, but, in the words of the old sergeant at the fort, will say: 'I'm only giving it to yeas it was given to me, d'ye moind now?

"[9] In 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was staying at a house in St. Augustine while Lyndon B. Johnson wrangled Congressional support for what would eventually become the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The cops looked on but did not act, other than to unleash a police dog on a white King aide named Harry Boyte.