Category History, Heritage & Cultural Memory

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, […]