Reading Time: 11 minutesIn July 2017, developers unveiled an ambitious plan for one of the most recognizable buildings in downtown Mobile. The former Merchants National Bank tower, later known as the First Alabama Bank and Regions Bank Building, would undergo a restoration valued at approximately $30 million. Its upper floors would be converted from aging offices into apartments, […]

Reading Time: 10 minutesIn August 2017, Julian and Kim MacQueen left Pensacola on a journey that combined aviation, hospitality research and personal adventure. The couple planned to cross six continents in their recently delivered HondaJet, visiting hotels and communities along the way. They called the project “Around the World in 80 Stays,” a reference to Jules Verne’s novel […]

Reading Time: 9 minutesLong before Florida became known for beaches, citrus groves, retirement communities, and theme parks, cattle moved through its pine forests, marshes, prairies, and palmetto scrub. The people who managed them did not always resemble the cowboys later made famous by Western films. Florida cattle workers were commonly called cowmen or cow hunters. They rode small, […]

Reading Time: 8 minutesIn March 2018, the University of West Florida attached a historic Florida name to one of its academic departments. The former Department of Government officially became the Reubin O’D. Askew Department of Government. It was the first academic department in UWF history to receive a formal name. The designation honored Reubin O’Donovan Askew, a Pensacola-raised […]

Reading Time: 10 minutesModern Pensacola Beach is known for waterfront hotels, restaurants, beach houses, entertainment venues, and a steady flow of vehicles crossing onto Santa Rosa Island. Historic photographs show a very different landscape. In images from the 1930s and 1940s, the Casino resort, its fishing pier, a water tower, and a few supporting buildings appear surrounded by […]

Reading Time: 8 minutesFor half a century, Trader Jon’s was one of the most recognizable places in downtown Pensacola. The small bar on South Palafox Street became known far beyond the city for its eccentric owner, crowded walls, naval aviation memorabilia, and generations of military customers. By 2016, the original establishment had been closed for more than a […]

Reading Time: 8 minutesFor generations, historians knew that Tristán de Luna y Arellano had attempted to establish a Spanish colony on Pensacola Bay in 1559. Documentary records described the expedition, and archaeologists had already found ships associated with Luna’s fleet beneath the waters of the bay. One important piece of the story, however, remained missing: the location of […]

Reading Time: 7 minutesPlaza Ferdinand VII is one of the most recognizable historic spaces in downtown Pensacola. Visitors pass its monuments, trees, and walkways while exploring a district closely connected to the city’s colonial past. Yet the plaza also witnessed one of the darkest events in Pensacola history. On July 29, 1908, a white mob removed an African […]

Reading Time: 7 minutesPensacola’s waterfront has never served a single purpose. It has been an Indigenous homeland, a colonial landing place, a commercial port, a military frontier, a workplace, a fishing ground, and a public landscape. The protected waters of Pensacola Bay gave the city economic and strategic value, but they also exposed it to hurricanes, warfare, changing […]

Reading Time: 8 minutesForgotten cemeteries often look quiet, abandoned, or disconnected from modern life. Grass covers old paths. Names fade from stone. Some markers lean, crack, or disappear beneath trees and vines. To a passing visitor, these places may seem like empty ruins. But for local history, they can be powerful records of family life, community change, migration, […]

Reading Time: 9 minutesIntroduction: Why Old Railway Lines Still Matter An old railway line is rarely just an abandoned strip of land. It may look quiet now, covered with grass, rust, weeds, or broken sleepers, but it once carried movement. People travelled along it for work, school, trade, migration, holidays, and family visits. Goods moved through it. Stations […]

Reading Time: 9 minutesChristmas in Pensacola has never looked exactly like the snowy holiday scenes often imagined in movies and greeting cards. The city’s holiday season has always carried its own Gulf Coast rhythm: mild evenings, historic downtown streets, church gatherings, family meals, waterfront air, parades, lights, and public celebrations that bring residents into shared spaces. Over time, […]

Reading Time: 7 minutesA local-history story often begins with a specific reason to publish. An anniversary arrives. A building faces demolition. A monument returns to public debate. A neighborhood changes faster than longtime residents can explain. For a few days, the story feels urgent because the past has stepped into the present. Then the article moves into the […]

Reading Time: 6 minutesSEO Title: Community Memory in Print and Local History Meta Description: How school publications, local-history outlets, and community records preserve the everyday details that shape civic memory. An old student newspaper rarely announces itself as history. It may carry a short column about a club meeting, a photograph from a school performance, a note about […]

Reading Time: 7 minutesThe history of a region is never complete if it leaves out the communities that helped build its social, cultural, and economic foundations. Early African American communities were not simply present in the background of local history. They created institutions, sustained family networks, shaped labor systems, and built enduring traditions that influenced the development of […]

Reading Time: 6 minutesSome local-history stories stay with readers long after the details fade. Others are read once, appreciated politely, and forgotten almost immediately. The difference is rarely the age of the source material or the importance of the event alone. More often, it comes down to whether the story helps people understand what a place means, not […]

Reading Time: 6 minutesSome structures do their job so efficiently that people stop noticing them. Others begin the same way and then take on a second life. They appear on postcards, shape weekend plans, anchor local festivals, and slowly become shorthand for an entire region. The New River Gorge Bridge belongs to that second category. It is not […]

Reading Time: 5 minutesCities are living organisms. Streets change, skylines rise, neighborhoods evolve, and buildings disappear. Yet among all the transformations that shape urban landscapes, the demolition of historic homes carries a special kind of loss. These houses were more than structures of wood, brick, or stone. They held stories—of families, craftsmanship, architectural traditions, and community identity. Over […]

Reading Time: 9 minutesCivil War monuments sit at the intersection of history, memory, identity, and public space. For some people, these statues and plaques are reminders of family sacrifice, local heritage, and the tragedy of a divided nation. For others, they represent a public endorsement of values and power structures that caused harm and exclusion. The controversy is […]

Reading Time: 4 minutesWhen scaffolding rises around a historic theater, it signals more than construction. It signals a city deciding what kind of future it wants. The faded marquee, the peeling velvet seats, the cracked plaster ceiling — these are not just architectural details. They are fragments of memory. Yet restoring a historic theater inevitably raises a difficult […]

Reading Time: 4 minutesThe history of European presence in Florida has long been shaped by written chronicles, expedition reports, and later historical interpretations. For centuries, these sources defined who the “first Europeans” were, when they arrived, and where they traveled. In recent decades, archaeology has begun to refine, challenge, and sometimes complicate these narratives. New discoveries across Florida […]

Reading Time: 2 minutesIn early 2018, U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz publicly criticized then–Attorney General Jeff Sessions following a shift in federal policy related to marijuana enforcement. The response came after the Department of Justice moved to rescind guidance that had limited federal prosecution in states where marijuana laws had been relaxed. The policy change drew reactions from lawmakers […]