Museum of Industry

Skyler Browder
Posted: 4/16/2020

I am sure that everyone here has visited the T.T. Wentworth, Jr. Florida State Museum or the Museum of Commerce. They are some of the main museums that everyone enjoys visiting when they visit us, but would you be shocked if I told you there was a diamond in the ruff? The Museum of Industry would be that diamond. The Museum of Industry or MOI is one of the four major museums that we have on site and discusses the industries of Pensacola through the 19th century.

MOI is located right across from the Museum of Commerce and is not hard to miss. In front of the museum is the T.R. Miller Company locomotive with accompanying flat car and caboose. Inside of the museum you will learn about the industries that helped grow Pensacola. The industries include lumberjacking, brick making, railroads, and commercial fishing. The museum itself explains how all of these industries helped propelled Pensacola into a major hub of commerce along the Gulf Coast.

The industries of 19th century Pensacola were intertwined and helped sustain each other, so the museum layout is as well. When you walk into the museum you take a step back in time to see all of the different industries coexisting next to one another. First you see the brick making style of Pensacola. Next, to the right is the docks of Pensacola Bay, and to the left is a fishing boat just coming into harbor. Further to the right, just past the docks you can see the lumber industry. Once you walk through the lumber industry you walk right onto the loading station for the T.R. Miller locomotive sitting right outside, displaying the different stops the train would have traveled.

The Museum of Industry is one of my favorite museums we have. I enjoy being able to understand why Pensacola was, and is, one of the most important cities on the Gulf Coast to this day. While yes, you can learn that from an overall history of the area, the Museum of Industry gives the patron a look at the type of people who made up Pensacola’s past. The people who helped push the lonely frontier city of the 19th century and before were rough and hardworking people, but they paved the way for the people of the 20th century forward to live in a prosperous and beautiful city we live in today.