PLANT CITY, Fla. — Plant City is full of old, historic buildings and a very prominent past in the farming and strawberry industry, as well as the railroad.
Today, a lot of that history is kept at the Plant City Photo Archives and History Center on Evers Street in downtown.
It's a nonprofit organization with a huge collection of photos from a local photographer, Bill Friend. After Friend passed away, his personal collection helped create the Photo Archives and History Center.
"So the over the last 20 years that's built up, more people have donated photos, we've scanned them, we also acquired Gladys JeffCoats photos, from her, she was another local photographer. And so from that it's just built and built and built," Samantha Poirier, Executive Director of the Plant City Photo Archives and History Center said. "And so we take those photographs, and we tell them, you know, local stories. So it's basically, you know, our community and what it is about and how we built up over the years, but also the communities within the community itself. So these little subgroups that have made it what it is."
The Photo Archives is still working to scan thousands of pictures to make them available online.
You can read more about their efforts and how to get involved byclicking here.
