TAMPA, Fla. — Did you know Europeans were living in the United States decades before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock?

Spanish settlers already lived in St. Augustine.

And now the first map to ever name the state and show the Gulf of Mexico is at the Tampa Bay History Center.

Rodney Kite-Powell is the Director of the Touchton Map Library at the Tampa Bay History Center in Tampa.

He has been studying maps for 20 years, and this is in his top three maps of all time.

“This map is the really the earliest and most accurate map of the Gulf of Mexico,” Kite-Powell said. “And it's also the first printed map to have the name Florida on it.”

The 1524 map from the travels of explorer Hernán Cortés is part of the Tampa Bay History Center’s latest exhibition — "Mapping the American Sea: A Cartographic History of the Gulf of Mexico." It on display through April 2025.

“This map helps us really kind of reset people's perspective about what American history is,” said Kite-Powell.

It also holds an illustration of the first north America city recorded — Tenochtitlan modern day Mexico City.

The other  two maps in Kite-Powell’s all-time greatest list are part of the Touchton Map Library Collection.

One is the first time any European drew Florida on a map. It was 1511.

And the name then for the recorded land mass —Bimini.

“The Spanish knew what was going on in the Caribbean and what became known as the Gulf of Mexico and, of course, here in Florida,” said Kite-Powell.

It corrects the mistaken notion of European contact only beginning with English colonial pursuits.

The final map on Kite-Powell’s list is on display in their “Treasure Seekers” Pirate Exhibition is the first U.S. city ever recorded — St. Augustine in 1588.

Pilgrims didn’t hit Plymouth Rock until 1620.

“A lot of important things happened in Florida, and it set the stage for other steps in our history. And so as we're looking back at American history, let's not start in Chapter Two,” said Kite-Powell. “Let’s start in Chapter One — Florida.”