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De Soto National Memorial Established In 1939, the Shaw's Point area was chosen by the United States De Soto Expedition Commission as the general area in which Hernando de Soto disembarked in 1539. That same year the Florida Chapter of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America donated a memorial stone to commemorate the de Soto landing. Manatee County citizens petitioned the National Park Service to establish a memorial, and on March 11, 1948, Congress established De Soto National Memorial. Although scholars no longer believe that the location on the Manatee River was the site of Hernando de Soto's landing in the Tampa Bay area, the De Soto National Memorial serves to commemorate the historic landing as well as interpret the significance of his four-year, four-thousand mile expedition throughout the southeastern United States.
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