Garden & Alcaniz

Located at 223 E Garden Street was once a large ice plant, The Moore Ice Company. Ice production in Pensacola started in the late 1860s in conjunction with the Red Snapper fishing industry. As other industries grew, supplying ice became a big business. In the early 1900s, Captain T. H. Moore bought smaller ice companies and became known as the Ice King of the South. His business is credited with making ice more affordable to citizens and industry across the South.

Historical research and early maps indicate that the land in and around St. Michael’s Cemetery was in use as a burying ground beginning in the mid to late 18th century. The earliest surviving above-ground markers in St. Michael’s Cemetery, however, are associated with Pensacola’s Second Spanish Period (1781-1821). The cemetery is an open-air museum that is a testament to the diverse history of Pensacola.

Pensacola drew immigrants from around the world. The cemetery is the resting place of Captains of Industry, victims of Yellow Fever epidemics and steamship explosions, along with those who died in childbirth, as infants, and of old age.

There are approximately 3200 marked graves in the cemetery with subsurface anomalies possibly several thousand unmarked graves. Tombstones in the cemetery reflect not only status and ethnicity of individuals but also reflect society as a whole on the Florida Gulf Coast frontier. One has only to walk down the extant colonial roadbed at the south end of the site to experience the strong sense of place and identity in the cemetery.

Learn more about the history of St. Michael's Cemetery.

St. Michael's Cemetery is part of the African-American Heritage Trail and the Colonial Archaeological Trail.