Alcaniz Street

Alcaniz Street is a one-way street that runs south from Cervantes Street to Bayfront Parkway. The road north of Cervantes was formerly Alcaniz as well, but was renamed to Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard in 1997. The original proposal was to rename the entire street, but there was opposition from changing the name in the historical district. The City Council concurred with keeping the Alcaniz name, splitting the street so it honors both past and recent history.

History

One of their earliest appearances of the name Alcaniz is on the “Plan of Pensacola” (1813), which, as Dr. Bill Coker noted, is the first downtown map prepared by a municipal government for the City of Pensacola. The Spanish Constitution of 1812 first permitted the organization of democratically-elected city governments, and by 1813, Pensacola had a city government of a mayor and councilmen. The 1813 map, found in the Vicente Pintado Papers of the Library of Congress (copies at the University of West Florida Library), shows the town of Pensacola from the water to Romana Street. The three named north-south streets are Palafox, Tarragona, and Alcaniz. Three other street names on the map are significant; these are Intendencia, Zaragoza, Gobierno (Government), and Church Street, although this latter is different than present-day Church Street in Seville Square. Gobierno on the 1813 map is “Gobierno Nueve” or New Government Street.

The name itself seems to come from a Spanish town. One of the principal cities of Teruel (in the region of Aragon) is the town of Alcaniz, which may take its name from the plain, Alcaniz, where it is situated. (This is consistent with other Pensacola street names. Another Spanish province is Tarragona whose capital city, Tarragona, is traditionally where St. Paul founded the Christian church in Spain in A.D. 60. One of the major towns of Tarragona province is Reus.)