Pensacola residents have great stories to tell, and the new place for them to be told saw its grand opening Thursday.

Voices of Pensacola, a multicultural resource center emphasizing the city’s diverse history, was created by The University of West Florida Historic Trust with support from Gulf Power Co. and Southern Company. The center features pictures and audio or video stories of individuals sharing their cultural background, as well as the Hilton-Green Research Room, where visitors can read, research and reflect. Visitors can also record and share their own stories.

“Pensacola’s a real gumbo. We’re a cornucopia of great flavors from around the world—the Mediterranean, Europe, Scandinavia, West Indies, Africa,” said Jerry Maygarden, UWF Historic Trust board chair. “We are literally a diverse community with a rich past, and now we have a place to house our past and tell the stories about our people.”

Located at 119 E. Government St., Voices of Pensacola is scheduled to open to the public Oct. 7.

Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward said he’s been pushing historic and cultural tourism to tell the city’s story.

“If you don’t highlight the culture of your community and where you came from and where you’re going and all that rich history of Pensacola, we’re going to be missing the boat,” he said. “Being America’s first settlement, it’s incredibly important that we tell that story.”

UWF President Judy Bense said the university is dedicated to the region, and that’s why Voices of Pensacola fits well with its mission.

“It focuses on the real people of Pensacola,” she said. “There is no end to the number of stories that can be uncovered in Pensacola; this place will showcase them.”

Socrate Gentile, a native of Italy who came to Pensacola for flight training and eventually retired here, has pictures featured in Voices of Pensacola and was pleased with how the place turned out.

“I think it’s a great idea, and they did a great job doing this,” he said.

A process seven years in the making, the UWF Historic Trust transformed the building, previously called the Beacon Building, into Voices of Pensacola with the help of a $605,000 gift from Gulf Power Company and Southern Company.

“It’s incredible for us,” said Stan Connally, president of Gulf Power. “There’s so many layers of the culture of Pensacola, and this is the one place you can come to and it’s all here.”

Maygarden stressed what investments in preserving Pensacola’s history could mean for the city.

“An investment in historic preservation and archeology, comparable to what we do to promote our beaches, would generate an economic return equal to our beaches any day,” he said. “It needs to be a part of our economic future.”

The building, built in 1912 for the wholesale grocer D. Kugelman & Co., has also been home to other wholesale grocers, wholesale liquor companies and the Pensacola Cigar and Tobacco Co. In 1990, the Pensacola Historical Society purchased the building and renamed it in honor of G. Norman Simons, the late curator of the society and local historian.

“It was a hub of activity, and I’m proud to say that it’ll be a hub of activity once again,” Maygarden said.

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