Ponce de Leon discovered Florida while searching for the Fountain of Youth

According to a popular legend, one of the accomplishments of Juan Ponce de Leon was he discovered Florida while searching for the Fountain of Youth. Even though there were legends of life-giving waters long before Ponce de León on both sides of the Atlantic, his hunt for them was not associated with him until after his passing.

Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés stated in his Historia General y Natural de las Indias from 1535 that Ponce de León was searching for the waters of Bimini to reverse his age. Francisco López de Gómara's 1551 book Historia General de las Indias contains a similar narrative.

Then, in 1575, Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, a shipwreck survivor who had spent 17 years residing among the Native Americans of Florida, released his narrative. In it, he pinpoints the Florida waters and claims that Ponce de León was supposed to have searched there.

Despite Fontaneda's skepticism that Ponce de León had actually traveled to Florida in search of the waters, the tale was incorporated in Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas' 1615 Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos.

According to the majority of historians, any hypothetical hunt for the fountain was far less important than the pursuit of wealth and the growth of the Spanish Empire.