Unearthing Florida: Nuestra de Soledad

Human burials under the floor of a catholic church in St. Augustine highlight the dramatic cultural shifts that occurred there centuries ago.

I’m Dr. Judy Bense, and this is Unearthing Florida…

Originally built by the Spanish sometime shortly after 1572, the chapel ...

Unearthing Florida: Nombre de Dios

In 2011 archaeologists from the Florida Museum of Natural History uncovered an extraordinary find- the possible ruins of the oldest stone church in the state.

Originally built in 1677, the church at the Spanish mission of Nombre de Dios in St. ...

Thomas Wolfe House

Thomas Wolfe left an indelible mark on American letters. His mother's boardinghouse, now the Thomas Wolfe Memorial, has become one of literature's most famous landmarks. He composed many passages and created many characters based on boyhood remembrances experienced in this ...

Masonic Temple

The Ancient Free and Accepted Mason is a fraternal order with a worldwide membership, thought to have arisen from practicing stone masons and cathedral builders in the early Middle Ages. The lodge, first formed in early 18th-century England, is the ...

Unearthing Florida: Bureau of Archaeological Research

Have you ever wondered what happens to all the artifacts that archaeologists unearth in Florida?

The State of Florida’s Bureau of Archaeological Research, or BAR, in Tallahassee has a wonderful conservation lab and collections facility. This is where the artifacts found ...

Asheville Hotel Building

Asheville Elks Lodge #608 (now known as the Asheville Hotel Building) opened their new home on June 14, 1915, (Flag Day) with great fanfare and attention. Located at the corner of Haywood and Walnut streets and designed by Smith and ...

Unearthing Florida: Newnan's Lake Canoes

When lakes dry up, amazing things are sometimes brought to light; such was the case at Newnan’s Lake, where ancient canoes were exposed.

2000 was a very dry year, and as Florida’s lakes and sinkholes shrank, sunken water craft were revealed. ...

Arcade Building (Grove Arcade)

Dr. Edwin Wiley Grove envisioned the Arcade Building, built between 1926 and 1929, as a massive commercial mall with covered pedestrian thoroughfares and rooftop terraces surmounted by a skyscraper tower. It was the most ambitious project conceived by Grove, a ...

Church of St. Lawrence

Rafael Guastavino (1842-1908), an architect and builder of Spanish origin, came to Asheville to work on the Biltmore House in the mid-1890s. After completing his work at Biltmore, Guastavino settled in nearby Black Mountain. He soon declared the city needed ...

Battery Park Hotel

The 14-story Battery Park Hotel stands as an architectural and historic monument to Asheville's tourism and development boom of the 1920s. The hotel was erected in 1924 by Edwin W. Grove "as a capstone of his excavation and leveling of ...