Category History, Heritage & Cultural Memory

Reading Time: 4 minutesPerched on a rugged cliff where wind and sea constantly collide, the old lighthouse has long been a beacon for sailors and a subject of fascination for landlubbers. Beyond its practical purpose of guiding ships safely to harbor, this lighthouse holds stories whispered through generations — tales of mystery, disappearance, and strange lights in the […]

Reading Time: 3 minutesLong before modern cities emerged across North America, diverse Native American cultures built thriving communities, complex ceremonial centers, and extensive trade networks. Many of these settlements are well known today, but countless others remain lost — hidden beneath forests, deserts, and farmland, or erased by time and development. In this article, we explore why so […]

Reading Time: 2 minutesNearly 300 protestors and counter-protestors turned out to Pensacola’s Lee Square Saturday as part of a rally organized in support of the city’s most prominent Confederate memorial. The rally comes after Mayor Ashton Hayward last week called for the monument’s removal. The 50-foot monument — dedicated to Confederate president Jefferson Davis, Pensacolian Confederate veterans Stephen […]

Reading Time: 3 minutesPensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward on Wednesday publicly called for the removal of the Confederate statue at Lee Square, becoming one of several Southern mayors in recent years to endorse rethinking or relocating Confederate monuments. Hayward made the remarks during a radio interview with Andrew McKay of NewsRadio 1620, framing the issue as one of historical […]

Reading Time: 3 minutesRemember Pensacola Beach before cars, traffic, and high-rise hotels? Before restaurants and bars lined the shore? For locals and longtime visitors, the island once felt almost untouched — miles of open coastline, dunes rolling toward the horizon, and only a handful of structures breaking the landscape. The opening of the first bridges to Gulf Breeze […]

Reading Time: < 1 minuteFort Pickens will host a schedule of “living history” programs in celebration of Memorial Day next week, Gulf Islands National Seashore officials announced Tuesday. The event is presented in partnership with the Walton Guard. Rangers and volunteers will present special programs about soldiers stationed at the fort during the Civil War, as well as commemorative […]

Reading Time: 3 minutesBeing a bustling harbor city and under five flags at various times, Pensacola has “wet the whistle” of many throughout its history. Today, the City of Five Flags has an ever-growing appetite for craft beer and libations, but that wasn’t always the case. Pensacola first got its taste for brews at the turn of the […]

Reading Time: 3 minutesThe heyday of railway travel may long be gone, but the nostalgic allure of architecturally inspiring infrastructure and traveling the country by rail has ensured we’ll never tire of seeing the grandeur and timelessness of our historic station buildings. With the recent publicity of an admitted long-shot effort to bring Amtrak’s Sunset Limited back to […]

Reading Time: 3 minutesOnce again, hurricane season is upon us. As a yearly ritual, residents along the Gulf Coast use this current time of calm for preparation…and a little history. Some of the most famous storms in the chronicles of hurricane history made landfall in Florida. The Sunshine State — and notably, the Gulf Coast — is certainly […]

Reading Time: 3 minutesWhile stories fill history books about immigrants who came to Colonial America and thrived, not as much is known about those who didn’t succeed. Through exhaustive research, Jen Knutson, a graduate research assistant with the University of West Florida’s Division of Anthropology and Archaeology, is telling the story of one of those ill-fated groups – […]