Everything about Matanzas River totally explained
Matanzas River is a body of water located in
St. Johns and
Flagler Counties in
Florida. Contrary to its name, it isn't actually a river at all but a narrow saltwater bar-bounded
estuary sheltered from the
Atlantic Ocean by
Anastasia Island.
The Matanzas River is roughly 20 miles (32 km) in length and extends from St. Augustine Inlet in
St. Augustine, Florida southward to approximately 8 miles (13 km) south of the
Matanzas Inlet on the southern tip of Anastasia Island. The river is part of the
Intracoastal Waterway.
The Matanzas River was considered the "backdoor" to the city of St. Augustine and control of the river was considered a strategic necessity for early Spanish colony at St. Augustine. The Spanish build
Fort Matanzas in the
18th Century to control access to the river from Matanzas Inlet.
The Matanzas River supports an extensive
tidal marsh habitat. Extensive conservation efforts including the Matanzas marsh,
Faver-Dykes State Park, Princess Place preservation area, Pellicer Place preservation area, Pellicer Creek Aquatic Preserve, the
Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve, and the Moses Creek conservation area have been established to preserve the
ecosystem. The preserved areas include
salt marshes, mangrove tidal wetlands, oyster bars, estuarine
lagoons, upland habitat, and marine environments. The Matanzas River faces several pollution issues, mostly related to
urbanization in St. Augustine and the northern portion of Anastasia Island.
Two major bridges cross the Matanzas River, the
Bridge of Lions and the Mickler-O'Connell Bridge, both between St. Augustine and Anastasia Island.
The Matanzas River derives its name from the massacre of a group of 250 shipwrecked
French Huguenots from
Fort Caroline, lead by
Jean Ribault, by Spanish settlers led by
Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. The Huguenots were executed near the present site of Matanzas Inlet in
1565. Menéndez had been ordered to kill all
Protestants he found in the New World. "Matanzas" means "massacre" in
Spanish.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Matanzas River'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://matanzas_river.totallyexplained.com">Matanzas River Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |