Walk Around Main Street in Florence, Arizona- February 17, 2018- South Main Street

While digging around my old photographs I uploaded on this blog but never posted, I found some old photographs I took in Florence, Arizona and wanted to post but never did. There are many reasons why I didn’t want to post these photographs, but the main reason is because the town has changed so much since 2018 it isn’t funny. One of the buildings burned down and all that’s left is an empty lot. Other stores are closed and now look run down because they’re empty. They didn’t look well taken care of in 2018, but to be honest it’s changed so much that whenever I look at these photographs it feels surreal. It’s 2020 now, so I think two years is long enough to sit on these photographs without sharing them.

To give some context, I went to Florence’s Main Street District on a Sunday in February. Sunday is normally quiet and empty because stores are always closed during that day. For casual photographers like me, this makes Sunday the best day to drive to Florence and take photographs. I arrived in the afternoon and took video and took photographs of the area. Although I did post a compilation video of the buildings that day, I didn’t do it in a vlog style. You can see it here. I always wanted to take the footage and create a new video with my voice over, but I’m not sure when I’ll get around to doing that.

I took many photographs that day, so I want to split them up into different posts. That way I can talk about the area, history, and anything else I can remember from that day.The first area I took photographs of is the South end of Main Street. I took many photographs that day. So many I knew to post all the photographs in one post would make the post very photograph heavy. Because of this, I decided to split the photographs into sections in order of where I traveled to that day to take photographs. Since I went out of order while walking up and down Main Street, there will be another post talking about other photographs I took at the South end of Main Street as well as showing the same buildings and locations as previous posts.

When I arrived in Florence, I parked in the parking lot behind the True Value Hardware store. From there I walked down a walk way between the Clarke House and other buildings on Main Street.

The Clarke House was the first building I took photographs of…

It is the current home of the offices of the Florence Blade Tribune, the local newspaper.

After passing by the house, I reached Main Street. This is what South end of Main Street looked like…

And there is North Main Street. I stood in front of the Clarke House when I took this photograph…

After taking the photographs down the street, I began to walk south down the street. I took a photograph of these two buildings as I passed by…

The mustard yellow building on left is an old building that is not an official historic site. I’m afraid I don’t remember the complete history of the house, but I do remember that is served as the location of the local telegraph company and phone company. It was vacant for many years and changed ownership several times over the years. The Town of Florence wanted to tear it down only for the State of Arizona to stop them. As of right now, I do not know what the future holds for this building, but it was under new ownership as of mid to late 2018-ish.

The building to the right of it is the location of the Florence Parks & Recreation Fitness Center. It serves as a gym for the Town of Florence.

After taking the photograph of the two buildings, I turned around and took a close up of the historic site sign of the former Florence Town Hall, Police, and Fire Department…

In 2002, the police department, which resided in this location, relocated to a new building off Main Street, right next to the Dorthy Nolan Senior Citizen Center. After they moved, the building became the main office of the Florence Copper. They have since moved their office. I am unsure who resides in this building now.

After taking the photograph of the sign, I moved down the street to the old post office building…

I remember going to this post office when I was very young. It closed after the post office moved to North Main Street. I haven’t been in there since I was a little girl because the general public is not allowed inside. I’m unsure what it is used for now, but I remember it was used as offices and then later storage.

After taking the photograph of the post office, I turned to my left and took a photo of the mustard yellow building, the Florence Parks and Rec Fitness Center, and Energy Solution Providers…

Here is a close up of the building where Energy Solution Providers is located…

I remember going inside this building many times when I was a kid. This building was offices for the Town of Florence before Energy Solution Providers began using it. My family knew someone who worked in the office, so I would occasionally go inside and see them at work.

Well, that’s all I have to show you right now. Thank you for reading and I’ll see you in the next post!