Retiring Superintendent Gordon Wilson is pictured here, at middle, during his first stint working in St. Augustine in the late 1970s. | Courtesy Gordon Wilson
Published on September 5, 2025 at 3:56 pm
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After a nearly 50-year career with the National Parks Service, the chief executive of the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States has retired.
Gordon Wilson took the job in 1992 as superintendent of Castillo de San Marcos and Fort Matanzas. Since then, he has given tours to hundreds of thousands of visitors — including two different Spanish kings.
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Wilson, 70, also had a front row seat as St. Johns County’s population grew from just 50,000 when he first worked a two-year stint as a park ranger in 1978 to nearly 350,000 people today.
It’s the job of the National Parks Service to ensure that institutions don’t change as the places around them do, and Gordon says his work was all in service of maintaining history for future generations.
“The mission that we have is really pretty simple. We take places that are important to the people of this country and the world, really … and we take care of them,” he says. “We give the visitor an experience and a chance to enjoy it and understand why it’s important.”
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In the last few years, Wilson says, the number of visitors has only increased at St. Augustine’s national monuments. He believes that’s because national parks offer visitors plenty of opportunities to unplug and “recharge our batteries,” especially as St. Johns County continues to grow.
“There’s so many ways to do that in national parks and state parks, as well,” Wilson says. “And any open space like that serves a really important function in our lives.”
The monuments that were under Wilson’s charge have faced a number of challenges in recent years, from budget cuts to storm damage.
The National Parks Service is currently under a hiring freeze — something Wilson says isn’t that uncommon when a new president takes office — but the “Big Beautiful Bill” championed by President Donald Trump also stripped $267 million from the National Parks Service.
Still, while some worry about the future of the country’s parks, monuments and other protected lands, Wilson is optimistic. He says some changes wouldn’t hurt the agency, either.
“I think that because the national parks were created because people wanted them, people wanted to preserve these special places that alone will, I think, be what drives the flourishing of the national Parks,” Wilson says.”We provide something that’s really important, and they’re really important in more stressful times.”
‘We should never forget the folks like you’
The superintendent of a national monument wears a lot of hats from helping with day-to-day operations to working on plans for long-term projects. In recent years, Wilson has been involved in plans to build a $20 million seawall around the Castillo de San Marcos and fix up storm-damaged infrastructure at Fort Matanzas.
It’s that variety at work that charmed Wilson 50 years ago when a park ranger spoke to one of his classes when he was a student at the State University of New York College at Cortland.
After an internship at the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park, Wilson says pursuing a career with the Parks Service just made sense.
“Once I saw the variety of what people did and the resources that we worked in and protected, it just really was a no-brainer after that for me,” he says.
Now, as he hangs up his hat and begins life as a retiree, Wilson looks forward to seeing the world and having a little more free time.
“I don’t have a specific plan in mind other than just enjoy every day, one day at a time, and do what I can to make things better around me for the people that I do have impact on,” he says.
In the lead-up to his official retirement Sept. 3, Wilson was recognized by both the city of St. Augustine and St. Johns County for his long career with Fort Matanzas and the Castillo de San Marcos.
“We should never forget the folks like you who, day in and day out, deal with the public, welcome the public, educate the public, interpret to the public what’s important about our city,” Mayor Nancy Sikes-Kline said during a recent St. Augustine City Commission meeting where Wilson received a certificate of recognition.
“And I am very, very grateful for you and that service,” Sikes-Kline continued.
As of Friday, Wilson said the National Parks Service had not yet appointed a new superintendent for the Castillo de San Marcos and Fort Matanzas.
