Hunting 'America's First Settlement'

PENSACOLA, Fla. -- Six years before Spanish explorers landed at St. Augustine, Don Tristan de Luna y Arellano founded Florida's initial European settlement at present-day Pensacola in 1559. Two years later the Spanish settlement was gone, besieged by a hurricane and other problems.

Centuries have erased all traces of the land settlement, but 14 years ago divers found one of the sunken ships.

As the 450th anniversary approaches of de Luna's ill-fated voyage to the city that touts itself as "America's First Settlement," unearthing de Luna artifacts and solving the mystery of the original settlement's exact location remains an obsession for professional and amateur archaeologists alike.

"We don't call them 'de Lunatics' for nothing," joked April Holmes, a University of West Florida archaeology graduate student spending her summer excavating a 1750s Spanish fort in downtown Pensacola.

Researchers plan to return to the water this fall to search for another ship in de Luna's fleet. They believe their underwater work could provide clues about the location of the elusive settlement.

"If we find another ship in the same area as the first ship, it could say something about the location of the land settlement," said John Bratten, a professional archaeologist who specializes in underwater research at UWF.

Kaleb Curren, a private archaeologist who owns a Pensacola consulting firm, has searched for the settlement since the 1980s. In 1995, he publicly theorized it was 50 miles east of Pensacola on Choctawhatchee Bay.

"Many of our theories and hypothesis we call our 'Luna-tic Theory of the Month.' It's a needle in a haystack but it's fun work," he said.

Curren believes the underwater work could lead to a cluster of anchors, which might indicate the onshore settlement's location. He said finding the settlement would be hugely significant for historians and archaeologists.

David Dotson, an amateur archaeologist and Pensacola native whose efforts to find the de Luna settlement have taken him to France and Spain, agreed. The sporting-goods store owner says he and his partners have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on their de Luna search. They plan a book on the search, which they have narrowed to a 20-acre undisclosed site by searching through hundreds of French, Spanish and Mexican historical maps and other documents.

"I take offense at people who call Luna theorists de-Lunatics. What's wrong with having a quest for Pensacola's history?" he said.

"There is a sign on the bay front that says 'America's First Settlement' and the number one question all of the tourists always ask is 'What the hell does that mean?' The Luna site can be found if people want to find it," he said.