Feb 25, 2025 · In May 1539, Conquistador Hernando de Soto’s army of soldiers, hired mercenaries, craftsmen, and clergy made landfall in Tampa Bay. They were met with fierce resistance of indigenous people protecting their homelands.

De Soto National Memorial is a national memorial located in Manatee County, approximately five miles (eight kilometers) west of Bradenton, Florida. The national memorial commemorates the 1539 landing of Hernando de Soto and the first extensive organized exploration by Europeans of what is now the southern United States.

Jun 10, 2024 · De Soto National Memorial, a unit of the National Park System, is located at 75th St. NW Bradenton, FL. Click here for the National Register of Historic Places file: text and photos.

In May 1539, de Soto left Havana, Cuba, with nine ships, over 620 men and 220 surviving horses and landed at Charlotte Harbor, Florida. This began his three-year odyssey through the Southeastern North American continent, from which de Soto and a …

Aug 5, 2024 · The memorial originally included a nine-foot tall bronze statue of De Soto, but it was removed in the 1970s due to vandalism. It is now at the South Florida Museum and Bishop Planetarium in downtown Bradenton.

Mar 19, 2011 · Sculpture of Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto in the Fordyce Bathhouse (now National Park Visitors Center) in Hot Springs, Arkansas. The sculpture is located in the former Men's Bathhall and was a centerpiece of a fountain.

The DeSoto, historic hotel in Savannah, Georgia; DESOTO patrols, conducted by the U.S. Navy to collect signals intelligence in hostile waters; DeSoto Records, a record label; USS De Soto County (LST-1171), a post-war Landing Ship Tank of the US Navy De Soto station, Los Angeles; De Soto Avenue, Los Angeles

For information about the park, visit the National Park Service website for De Soto National Memorial: On a sweltering day in May of 1539, Hernando de Soto and an army of over 600 soldiers splashed ashore in the Tampa Bay area. They had been ordered by King Charles V of Spain to sail to La Florida and "conquer, populate, and pacify" the land.

Originally, Enrique Perez Comendador cast and sculpted a nine-foot bronze statue of Hernando de Soto. Today they house in the South Florida Museum and Bishop Planetarium after someone vandalized it on the memorial grounds.

Sep 29, 2009 · Dwarfed by the nearby cross, this memorial commemorates all priests, past and present, serving in Florida. The Hernando de Soto Catholic Memorial, also known as Holy Eucharist Monument, and the Memorial Cross, just across the bridge from here, are owned by the Catholic Diocese of Venice, Florida.