Voices of Pensacola, a multicultural resource center at 119 E. Government St., emphasizing the city’s diverse history, is scheduled to open to the public today.

It 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.

The center will highlight Pensacola’s deep ties in cultural heritage tourism.

Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward said at the center’s grand opening on Oct. 2 that 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.”

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.