Florida, Escambia County, Pensacola
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received West Florida from Spain
and raised the flag of the U.S.
July 17, 1821
—
To recall the flags of five
nations which have been raised in
turn ten times over Pensacola
Spain 1559-1719+1723-1763+1783-1821
France 1719-1723
Great Britain 1763-1783
United States of America 1821-1861+1862-
Confederate State of America 1861-1862
Recalling that here was the center
of life of the town and of the
Province of West Florida during the
greater part of the Colonial Era
(Colonial Era • Notable Events • Patriots & Patriotism • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
received West Florida from Spain
and raised the flag of the U.S.
July 17, 1821
—
To recall the flags of five
nations which have been raised in
turn ten times over Pensacola
Spain 1559-1719+1723-1763+1783-1821
France 1719-1723
Great Britain 1763-1783
United States of America 1821-1861+1862-
Confederate State of America 1861-1862
Recalling that here was the center
of life of the town and of the
Province of West Florida during the
greater part of the Colonial Era
(Colonial Era • Notable Events • Patriots & Patriotism • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
It is said that there are two seasons in the Copper Country: "winter's here" and "winter's coming." The region's northern latitude and unsheltered exposure to Lake Superior combine to guarantee heavy "lake effect" snowfall. The Keweenaw Peninsula regularly receives 200 inches of snow each year. By comparison, Minneapolis average 47 inches, Chicago 40 inches and Detroit only 38 inches per year. Even the lake effect snows of Buffalo, New York, only averages 93 inches per year.
A native of Aberdeen, Scotland, John Innerarity was the nephew of Spanish Pensacola's leading merchant William Panton. He arrived in Pensacola in 1802 to become managing clerk of the Panton, Leslie and Co. trading post. However, his uncle had died in 1801, and he entered the employ of the company's successor John Forbes and Company. He married Victoria, the daughter of Captain Marcos de Villiers of the Louisiana Infantry Regiment. The Spanish government granted Innerarity a large tract of land on Perdido Bay in 1815.
Starting in the mid-1500s, the Pensacola area became a pawn in a European power struggle in the New World. Adventurers from Spain, France and Britain competed with each other to establish a foothold on the Gulf of Mexico. Spain established several sediments in the Pensacola area from 1559 to 1821. Except for brief French periods and one British colony, Spain claimed the Pensacola area until the United States acquired Florida in a treaty.
Feel the grooves inside this rare cannon barrel. This Rodman cannon was cast in 1861 as a 10-inch smoothbore, which fired round cannonballs. To keep up with modern technology, the U.S. Army in 1884 inserted an 8-inch rifled sleeve into the old cast-iron barrel, because rifled guns had longer ranges than smoothbores, Steel later replaced cast iron, and the old guns were sold for scrap. The piece on the right is a smoothbore. The piece on the left is part of a rifled bore.
On the night of June 20, 1899, a fire broke out near a gunpowder magazine on the fort's northwest side. A bucket brigade fought the flames, but the blaze grew in intensity, forced the soldiers away from the cistern, and at 5:20 a.m. ignited 8,000 pounds of gunpowder. The explosion demolished the bastion and showered debris across Pensacola Bay. Flying brick fragments killed Pvt. Earle Welles and injured Pvt. Henry Hopgood, who had sought shelter behind a woodpile.
If you had been here on November 22 and 23, 1861, you would have been in the midst of a fierce Civil War battle. Union troops at Fort Pickens bombarded Confederates who, in January, had occupied Fort McRee straight ahead across the bay and Fort Barrancas and the Navy Yard on the mainland to your right. The Confederates fired back, but the Union, aided by cannon fire from two warships, heavily damaged the Navy Yard and nearly demolished Fort McRee. Needing troops elsewhere, the Confederates left the posts in the spring of 1862, and the Union moved most of its troops on Santa Rosa Island to the mainland. 
Established in 1861 on land given to the city of Brookhaven by Rev. Milton J. Whitworth, founder of Whitworth College, this cemetery is among Brookhaven's first and largest burial grounds. Rose Hill Cemetery is the final resting place for over 5,000 people, including 22 unknown Confederate soldiers.
First erected in 1896 in memory of Elias Bowsky, 3rd Bat. Co. E, 45th Mississippi Infantry, by his brother George, this twenty-foot-tall monument was deeded to the Sylvester Gwin Camp U.C.V. in 1924, and now serves as a memorial for the Confederate soldiers who died and were once buried at Whitworth College.
On the brink of war with Spain after the USS "Maine" battleship was sunk in Havana Harbor, Cuba, in February 1898, the U.S. Army installed a minefield in the Pensacola Harbor entrance. Leaving a 1000-foot opening, the Corps of Engineers placed two booms—across the channel from Santa Rosa Island and Period Key. Buoyant and underwater mines were laid behind the booms. A searchlight swept the minefield. The system remained in force until a major hurricane damaged facilities in 1926, and the U.S. Navy took over Pensacola's underwater defenses.
Fort Pickens was past its prime. New rifled artillery could penetrate its brick walls. The U.S. Army resuscitated the antiquated brick fort in 1898 with reinforced concrete Battery Pensacola. The fort within a fort had two 12-inch rifles on carriages that could disappear behind the walls after firing 1,070-pound shells at ships eight miles away. The Army built several other batteries on this end of Santa Rosa Island in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Fort Pickens played a critical role in an 1800s homeland-security program. Pickens was the largest of four forts the U.S. government built to protect Pensacola Bay and the Navy Yard. The fort succeeded, not against a foreign invasion, but against the Confederates during the Civil War. To learn more about the fascinating history of this defensive fortification, follow the sidewalk straight ahead and begin your self-guiding tour. The fort closes at sunset.
On September 16, 2004, Hurricane Ivan roared across the Gulf of Mexico with 130-mile-per-hour winds and struck Santa Rosa Island and the national seashore's Fort Pickens head-on. A 14-foot storm surge washed across the island, destroyed piers and roads, flooded the fort, and damaged most of the park buildings, including this museum building. Curators, conservators, and other specialists quickly went to work sorting, washing, and preserving over 300,000 cultural artifacts that had been on display or in storage on the island. The museum building was put on new footings in 2007.
The appearance in 1908 of oil and gas in water wells in this vicinity prompted the Texas Company (later Texaco, Inc.) In June 1909 to begin leasing large tracts of land. After a surface geological survey, a wooden derrick complete with cable tools and steam engine was erected by contractor F.J. Winston on a prospective location on the Jim Cottle Ranch and on Sept. 23, 1909, drilling operations began. Equipment breakdowns were frequent and sometimes lengthy, but finally, on Nov. 9, 1910, after 13 months of drilling, the Cottle No. 1 struck natural gas at a depth of 2660 feet. This discovery opened the Moran Field, and was the first commercial gas well completed in this vast west Texas area.
Pioneers came to this area as early as the 1860s. During the Civil War (1861-65), they built the temporary fortress settlement of Mugginsville on Deep Creek. At one time, a branch of the Western Cattle Trail passed nearby. Population increased after the arrival of the Texas Central Railroad in 1881. The town of Moran was established by Swope Hull, who opened a grocery store at the rail crossing on Deep Creek in 1883. He was postmaster of the community’s first post office, called “Hulltown”, which opened August 29, 1883. Hull bought 160 acres between Post Oak and Deep Creeks and platted a townsite in March 1884. Most of the property was bought by I.B. (Bem) Scott, who sold his interests in 1890 to M.D. Bray (1845-1926), a prominent local merchant and landowner.
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