ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – Tourism in St. Augustine got a delicious boost last winter, when UF researchers introduced a free exhibit to the city about the history of chocolate called “Sweet Beginnings: Unwrapping St. Augustine’s Chocolate Legacy.”
Since Dec. 7, more than 40,000 visitors have toured the showcase at the Governor’s House Cultural Center and Museum and learned about the extensive research of professors like Clarissa Carr.
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“We were asked, ‘How did you get such amazing visitor numbers?’ And truly, it’s chocolate. Chocolate really just draws people in on its own,” said Carr, a research assistant professor in UF’s College of Design, Construction and Planning.
Carr collaborated with Governor’s House Library Collections Coordinator Laura Douglass Marion to launch the exhibit.
In the display, history unfolds through six beautifully designed panels, taking viewers on a journey from the ancient roots of cacao cultivation to the fateful 1641 hurricane that first brought chocolate to St. Augustine.
Expanding global chocolate research
The exhibit was created thanks to a $14,000 Forrest E. Mars, Jr. Chocolate History Grant, awarded to UF in February 2024.
The researchers recently returned from the annual Heritage Chocolate Society Meeting, hosted by Mars Wrigley and AMERICAN HERITAGE Chocolate.
Carr loved working on this grant so much that she decided to find a new angle and apply again.
This is where Anthea Grant, a UF Master of Historic Preservation student from Trinidad and Tobago, came into the picture. Trinidad and Tobago used to be a cocoa-producing country, but cocoa production slowed when oil and gas were discovered.
“It’s picking back up now,” Grant said. “And associated with cocoa production in Trinidad, there are cultural traditions – like life on the estate, singing, dancing, drumming, telling stories, and a traditional dance called ‘dancing the cocoa,’ which is primarily what my thesis is based on, because it is at risk of, you know, dying.”
For more information on the “Sweet Beginnings” exhibit, visit staugustine.ufl.edu/visit.html.
For the full story on the history of chocolate, go to https://news.ufl.edu/2025/04/the-sweet-history-of-chocolate/.