From 1885-1905, Eugene Arbona ran the Gulf Saloon and Restaurant from the newly constructed Arbona Building.  While the saloon remained downstairs, the Arbona family lived upstairs. Eugene Arbona deeded the building to his daughter, Fannie Arbona, who owned the building until 1940.

The Arbona building housed several different businesses, including the Birmingham Distillery Co. in the early 1900s. When the state of Alabama went dry in 1907, the Birmingham Distillery Co. moved to Pensacola to continue running their business. The distillery was famous for serving popular Alabama whiskeys such as “Old Fountain Height,” “Old Jones’ Valley Lincoln County,” “Jones’ Valley Corn Whiskey,” and “Jones’ Valley Rye.” By 1927, the Nu-Grape Bottling Company took over residency of the Arbona building.

The University of West Florida Historic Trust now owns the Arbona building, located across the street from the T.T. Wentworth Museum. The building serves as the Pensacola Children’s Museum. Both floors of the building have interactive exhibits on Pensacola's pre-European, colonial, Civil War, military, and maritime heritage for a children of all ages.

Credits and Sources:

Photographs from the University of West Florida Historic Trust.

“Distillery to Locate Here,” Newspaper (1907).

Natalie Elaine Ray, “The Arbona Building,” Pensacola History Illustrated: A Journal of Pensacola and West Florida History3, no. 1 (Summer 2013).