Old City Gates

St. Augustine's 1821 yellow fever epidemic, which struck within weeks of the United States taking control of Florida, filled the mass graves of the nearby Huguenot Cemetery with victims. Local legend holds that a teenage girl who died of the fever was found near these coquina gates and left unclaimed, possibly by a family fleeing the stigma of infection in their household; visitors report seeing her, dressed in white, dancing near the gates' columns in the early morning hours. The name commonly attached to her today, Elizabeth, appears to be a more recent addition to the older legend, with some researchers tracing it only to the early 2000s.