St. Augustine –

America’s only college for the deaf, convinced the Florida legislature in  to approve

$, for the state’s first school for the deaf and blind. By donating $ and five

acres on San Marco Avenue a mile north of its famed Spanish fort, St. Augustine, “The

Oldest City in America,” won the bidding to be home to the school, and the first stu-

dents began classes in . In fifty years, the five acres had grown to fifteen, yet the

campus was still modest: a dozen low wooden dormitories and classroom buildings con-

nected by cinder paths winding between mossy oaks and tall palms-a quiet world far

removed from the winter resort’s social splash.