Direct oceanfront one bedroom/one bath condos with private balconies overlooking Crescent Beach, FL Ocean-front condo rentals just minutes south of St.
01/06/2025
Did you make it downtown to see the Night of Lights this season? There's still time!
🌟Nights of Lights St Augustine is in it's 31st year. ✨ Ever wonder how/why it got started? Well, I'll tell you! (and you can read about it in the attached article)
Former St. Augustine City Commissioner Bill Lennon said that back in 1993, he and his family would stop after Mass downtown and enjoy the lights of a sign posted at the foot of the Bridge of Lions that said "Feliz Navidad" at Christmastime.
"I started looking around and the city was dark. Every business owner had closed or was on vacation," he said. "I thought about what it would be like to follow the edges of the buildings here and put them in lights."
Former Mayor and City Commissioner Len Weeks liked the idea. Weeks at the time was a member of the Tourist Advisory Board and chairman of the Chamber of Commerce's downtown council, as well as owning his own restaurant and being a city resident and construction contractor. "I was just a concerned citizen who wanted to promote St. Augustine," he said. "When this came up, I realized that it was a good idea. I just picked up the ball and ran with it."
Lennon said Weeks "worked hard at soliciting money (for business owners to light their own buildings) and people started coming around." Weeks said, "It wasn't an easy battle. Some in the community were against it because they didn't want it to look like Disney."
After a while, people realized it enhanced downtown architecture, and its financial impact grew every year.
The city hired the Atlanta lighting contractor who lit Gatlinburg TN but included a provision that the work had to be done in a month.
Witnesses reported seeing Weeks and his work crew hanging lights on the Bridge of Lions during a driving rainstorm.
He also worked hanging lights around windows of the Visitor Information Center, City Marina, the Plaza de la Constitution's gazebo and U.S. Post Office.
"Sometimes I took my 6-month-old daughter along in a stroller when changing burnt-out light bulbs. I kept the fresh bulbs in the stroller," Weeks said. ( I believe this is where the tradition started of having one red bulb in the mix: he would plant one to keep his growing daughter busy as he did his work)
Now thousands of people come each day during the festivities, to see the lights, sings carols and embrace the winter magic.
Article from 2013 interviews
https://www.jacksonville.com/story/entertainment/local/2013/11/25/how-st-augustines-nights-lights-tradition-began/15807973007/
