Pensacola will dedicate a new marker at Miraflores Park that recognizes the 80 unmarked graves in the park.
The marker is part of the city’s commemoration of the previously unrecognized 19th-century African American cemetery at the site that was intentionally covered up in the early 20th Century by city officials.
The rediscovery of the cemetery happened when a troop of Boy Scouts cleaning the basement of the Boy Scout building in the park found skeletal remains in the dirt floor of the basement in 2021.
UWF biological anthropologists determined the bones belonged to two individuals, likely a woman in her late 30s or early 40s and a man in his 40s.
After the discovery of the remains, Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves formed a Miraflores Community Advisory Group and announced a study would be conducted to determine if other burials were present at the park.
Ground penetrating radar confirmed at least 80 graves, and historical documents confirm that the site was used as a graveyard for an African American community that lived there in the 1880s, before it was redeveloped into what exists there today.
Reeves said the marker is only the first part of commemorating the site, and the work of the Miraflores Community Advisory Group will continue.
The Florida Department of State, Florida Division of Historical Resources, along with the city, are sponsoring the new marker that will be placed at the site.
The new marker will be dedicated at 9 a.m. on June 17.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola will dedicate marker for 80 unmarked graves at Miraflores Park
Reporting by Jim Little, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
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