 Years of in-depth research followed.NSCDA-FL research committee members studied city maps, historic newspaper articles, letters and journals; compared details in related houses such as St. Augustine's Second Spanish Period Don Manuel Solana House; analyzed artifacts found underground; and consulted the findings of historians and architects.Their discoveries led them to focus on a little-known time in St. Augustine's history — the boarding house era, which was at its peak during the 1830s and 1840s.