<P> After the war ended, the building was deactivated by the Coast Guard and returned to operation as a hotel . Large crowds that had stayed away from the city during the war returned, but the boom did not last . </P> <P> In 1964, the city was thrust onto the national stage with demonstrations that brought Martin Luther King Jr. to St. Augustine during the civil rights movement . On March 31, 1964, more than a hundred students from the all - black Richard J. Murray Middle School marched downtown and sat - in at the dining room of the Ponce de Leon Hotel . They were met by police with dogs and cattle prods and arrested . It was the first mass sit - in of the St. Augustine movement . Additional incidents took place at other segregated locations in the city, including the Monson Motor Lodge and the local Woolworth's, all of which contributed to passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 . </P> <P> The hotel saw declining visitor numbers in the following years, and in 1967 it was permanently closed . </P> <P> In 1968 the hotel became the centerpiece of the newly - established Flagler College . Beginning in 1976, with the nation's bicentennial anniversary, Flagler College embarked on an ambitious campaign to restore the hotel and other Flagler - era campus buildings to their original grandeur . In 1988 the College celebrated the centennial of the Ponce de Leon Hotel, and a decade later students created the Flagler's Legacy program, which provides guided historic tours of the former hotel to thousands of visitors annually . </P>

When did the ponce de leon hotel close