History of Pensacola, Florida  The history of Pensacola, Florida, begins long before the Spanish claimed founding of the modern city in 1698. The area around present-day Pensacola was inhabited by Native American peoples thousands of years before the historical era. The historical era begins with the arrival of Spanish explorers in the 16th century. In 1559 Tristan de Luna established a short-lived settlement at Pensacola Bay; it was the first multi-year European settlement in what is now the continental United States but was abandoned after two years. In the late 17th century the Spanish returned to the area to found the modern Pensacola as an outpost from which to defend their claims to Spanish Florida. The city's strategic but isolated position, combined with continued European rivalries played out in North America, led to it changing hands among different Western powers a number of times. At different times it was held by the Spanish, the French, the British, the United States, and the Confederate States of America. This area was first documented as "Panzacola" in 1686, when a maritime expedition, headed by Juan Enríquez Barroto and Antonio Romero, visited Pensacola Bay in February 1686. Barroto and Romero had orders to survey the entire northern Gulf coast from San Marcos de Apalache (near Tallahassee) westward, looking for the new French "lost colony" of Fort St. Louis, which René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle had established at Matagorda Bay in 1685. The area was largely devoid of indigenous Native American inhabitants. Given the area's advantages, it was frequently a destination for hunting and fishing by Creek people from present-day southern Alabama and Georgia. The best-known Pensacola Culture site in terms of archeology is the Bottle Creek site, a large site located on a low swampy island north of Mobile, Alabama. This site has at least 18 large earthwork mounds; five of which are arranged around a central plaza, in a pattern typical of many moundbuilding cultures. Its main occupation was from 1250 to 1550 CE. It was a ceremonial center for the Pensacola people, and a gateway to their society. This site would have had easy access by a dugout canoe, the main mode of transportation used by the people; they traveled primarily by the waterways rather than through the thick vegetation. The Fort Walton Mound archaeological site is located about 40 miles east of downtown Pensacola.