Pensacola, Florida: History and Archaeology Under Five Flags

Abstract

Pensacola is “The City of Five Flags.”With settlement dating back to 1559, Pensacola today retains traces of a richly layered history that encompasses Spanish, French, British, and American occupation. Participants in the 2011 NCPH annual conference were offered many opportunities to explore the city’s diverse history through an impressive line-up of tours that form the heart of this year’s conference reviews section. Unlike previous conference reviews sections that have covered many diverse sites in the host city, this year’s section focuses on tours, which allowed us to offer multiple perspectives on sites that add depth to our coverage, perhaps at the expense of breadth. By doing so, however, we believe we have gained a greater understanding of the issues facing public historians in Pensacola and of the unique solutions they have created through networks of interested parties that transcend some of the traditional barriers, especially those between archaeologists and historians, that can impede cooperation. We begin this section with three different tour experiences centered on Pensacola Historic Village. Located in downtown Pensacola, the village is an excellent example of the city’s commitment to cooperative partnerships in the management and oversight of historic properties. All of our reviewers point to the collaboration between West Florida Historic Preservation, Inc. and the