Old City Hall

Spenser Andrade
Posted: 5/12/2020

Sitting on the western border of the Pensacola Historic District is the T. T. Wentworth, Jr. Florida State Museum. Sandwiched between two picturesque parks, Plaza Ferdinand VII and Museum Plaza, the Wentworth Museum is the UWF Historic Trust’s flagship museum and a prime example of Pensacola’s adaptive historic preservation efforts. The stunning architecture of the building includes elements from the Mission and Mediterranean Revival movements. These architectural styles enjoyed their greatest popularity during the early 1900s. One of the most frequently asked questions about the Wentworth is about the history of the building. Before becoming the museum it is today, the building originally served as Pensacola City Hall.

A Sanborn map of Pensacola showing the location of city hall in 1903.
The yellow square at the southwest corner of Jefferson and Zarragossa
would later become the site of the 1908 city hall.

Commonly called “old city hall” by some locals, the building was actually Pensacola’s new city hall from 1908 to 1986. According to the 1900 city directory, Pensacola’s former city hall was located at 405 South Jefferson Street. This building housed the city government, police and fire headquarters, and the jail. Nothing of this building survives to this day, and the address is currently the location of the Pensacola Museum of Art’s staff parking lot. Nonetheless, the 1908 city hall provided enough space for the city government to operate during a time of social and economic boom in the region. The building remained largely unchanged for the next fifty years. Minor additions to the building included the addition of elevators, new entry ways, and air conditioning in the 1950s.

The newly constructed city hall as it appeared around 1910. In the top-right,
an inventory of freshly-cut logs waiting to be shipped floating in the port

By the 1960s, the city government and services outgrew the capacity of the building. The city provided additional workspace by acquiring satellite offices around downtown. During the 1980s, as part of Pensacola “Direction 85” public works plan, the city secured funding for a new city hall on Main Street. Groundbreaking for a new Pensacola City Hall began in January 1984 and construction was completed in mid-1986. The 1908 city hall was acquired by the state and thoroughly renovated into a museum after receiving the Wentworth Collection. The namesake of the collection and museum is Theodore Thomas “T. T.” Wentworth, a long-time Pensacola resident. Mr. Wentworth stored and displayed a massive collection at his museum near his house in Ensley, Florida, a small community just north of Pensacola. Throughout his life, Wentworth amassed over 150,000 items. By the 1980s, his collection outgrew the capacity of his museum, and Wentworth donated his collection to the State of Florida. The newly renovated museum opened in 1988. Recent improvements to the building include modernized signage, window projections, new lamppost fixtures, and color-changing architectural lighting.