Hypolita Street

Hypolita Street is the southern end of the “Colonial City Historic District,” also known as the “Town Plan Historic District” which includes evidence of European habitation back to c.1572, but the first urban city plan dates to 1596. The Colonial City Historic District includes the streets that were inhabited and enclosed within defensive walls for the Colonial Period (1565-1821).

Hypolita Street is also a part of the “Restoration Area of St. Augustine,” a six-block section of the northern part of the Colonial City. This section of St. Augustine contains buildings from three centuries and was settled following the construction of the Castillo de San Marcos in 1672. This is the part of town settled by the Minorcans who fled Turnbull's Planation in the 1780s.

From 1894 to 1899, The St. Augustine Record, under it's original title of the Daily Herald, was produced and printed at 18 Hypolita Street (no longer exists). Starting in 1891, the first true fire department for St. Augustine was also located off of Hypolita Street in a building previously built by the Flagler Business System as the headquarters for the railroad and Model Land Company. After these moved, the building served as the city hall with space for the governmenr offices of fire, police, the jail, and more; plus, a dry goods store. This building stretched from St. George Street to Spanish Street. The fire and police departments did not move until 1973! After the city building was torn down, Columbia Restaurant was built.

In 1965, the Spanish government built Casa del Hidalgo and the Hispanic Garden on Hypolita Street to highlight 400 years of Spanish Colonial history and culture.