The company wanted a more impressive name than Mineral City for its resort, so Colonel Stehlin and his wife, Elizabeth ("née" Morton), went to the library in St. Augustine to research various possibilities for a new name. Since Florida had been under Spanish rule at one time, they looked on an old map and found the name Pontevedra on the Atlantic coast of Spain at approximately the same latitude as Mineral City. The Galician name of the town was derived from a Roman bridge ("ponte vetera" or "old bridge") that spanned the nearby Lérez River centuries earlier. Colonel Stehlin submitted the name to the National Lead board for approval and Mineral City became Ponte Vedra.