In the last twenty-three years the Palm Coast Historical Society has been a steady and reliable resource of information for history seekers. We have special teams that sort through documents, newspapers, and data to organize the history for easy retrieval. Just like a library we use a catalog program to manage our history collection. We use social media, email, and our webpage to share upcoming events as well as history articles, invitations, and information. Over the past twenty years Art Dycke, city historian, has written, presented, interviewed, and created a video that describes our early history. All of this is available in our museum, and you’ll find the historians on our webpage. https://palmcoasthistory.org/historiansnewsletters/. If you click on Winter 2009/2010 you can read about our history and how we became a city.
But it hasn’t been easy. We’ve also moved seven times, have consistently ask for volunteers, written grants and have wondered why our large population doesn’t know we exist! What we have learned over the years is that people do love history, they do appreciate the significant perseverance and hard work of many volunteers, and they will join us when they learn about us.
Sometimes the work is obvious. Our Speaker Series will often have over 140 people attending the Saturday hour-long talk by a professional historian. You can view the list of speakers at https://palmcoasthistory.org/lecture-series/. They are excellent. But the hard work goes on behind the scenes and faithful volunteers will give their time each week to organize and catalog our history. Sometimes a volunteer will work for two hours a month as a docent. We wish more of our community knew how much fun and helpful we are when we work together.
Why history? Because it repeats itself. If we aren’t aware of our past digressions and successes, how can we make a better decision for the future? For example, in the April-June 2005 Art Dycke published an article called, “The City of Palm Coast is Losing Its History.” This is also online at https://palmcoasthistory.org/historiansnewsletters/. As you may know there is talk about the Society moving into the only original building left in our city, the #22 Firehouse. Fortunately, a new firehouse is being built that will better serve our fire department and community. However, do we want to keep this last piece of history and move the history society (and others) into it or pave it over for a parking lot? We hope the current city council will make a commitment to and take the responsibility for saving the last historic building in the city. By doing so they support our history, tourism, and future. Buildings have potential. Parking lots grow weeds.
The Palm Coast Historical Society wants to initiate a vibrant history community. Let’s do it together
