Secretary of State Ken Detzner announced today that Quincy Main Street has been designated the April 2017 Florida Main Street Program of the Month. Communities are selected based on their developmental achievements and participation in the Florida Main Street Program. Quincy has been part of the Florida Main Street Program since 1987. The program has attracted millions of dollars towards rehabilitating its downtown business district, created hundreds of jobs and helped facilitate over 2,000 hours of volunteer service to make Quincy a better place to live, work, and play.
“Quincy has one of the most charming, Main Streets in Florida,” said Secretary Detzner. “Quincy’s commitment to the arts and its bi-yearly festivals bring the city together and set an example of community involvement for the rest of Florida.”
Historic Quincy Courthouse
Quincy, Florida, could once claim to be the richest town in America per capita. Its fortunes were built around Coca-Cola, even though no one who founded the company lived in Quincy. The town’s banker, Mr. Mark Welch Munroe, encouraged everyone in town to buy Coca-Cola shares after he saw people, even in the midst of the depression, shilling out a nickel or two for a Coke. These investments paid off, and one share, valued at $40 in 1919, is now worth millions of dollars. This wealth protected the town from economic loss and uncertainty and built quite a few mansions in Quincy. Many of these magnificent houses are now on the National Register of Historic Places and can be toured.
Quincy is the county seat of Gadsden County. After losing the town’s main agricultural industries, tobacco and tomatoes, Quincy has focused on its Main Street, businesses and arts community. The Quincy Main Street Program is helping to retrofit building facades, improve streetscapes and purchase street furniture and planters to create a Main Street that feels historic but still relevant and unique. Quincy boasts a historic courthouse, commercial district and one of the few surviving courthouse squares in Florida.
Quincy Main Street puts on both Quincyfest and Quincy Porchfest, two community events that bring together the historic downtown Main Street areas and the surrounding historic residential areas. These events bring in local and regional artists, musicians, craftspeople and chefs to unite the community of Quincy, as well as bring in visitors to tour the historic town.
For more information about Quincy Main Street or the Florida Main Street programs visit http://www.quincymainstreet.org/ or floridamainstreet.com or facebook.com/FloridaMainStreet.
About Florida Main Street
Florida Main Street is a program administered by the Division of Historical Resources under the Florida Department of State, which currently oversees 47 communities throughout the state. By implementing the National Main Street Center’s Four-Point Approach®, Florida Main Street encourages economic development within the context of historic preservation through the revitalization of Florida’s downtowns – the community’s heart and soul. Since the program’s inception in 1985, the Florida Main Street programs have cumulatively created 25,304 jobs, 8,180 new businesses and produced $2.5 billion in reinvestment.
