Historic Events
St. Luke Baptist Church, Marianna This African-American church, founded along the Chipola River in August 1867, is now a main focal point in Marianna. The building is Gothic Revival Style with pointed, arch leaded stained glass windows and towers on either side of the central nave.
Gilmore Academy In 1922, Robert T. Gilmore (1879-1948), born in Monticello, founded Gilmore Academy, one of Jackson County's first African-American high schools. After graduating its first class in 1931, it was renamed Jackson County Training School, then later Marianna Middle School.
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Davis West House
This house was built in the 1840s for John Davis. His widowed daughter, Rebecca Davis Spears, lived in the house. She married one of the first physicians in the area, Dr. Theophilus West, in 1861.
After Spears’s death, Dr. West married Annie Louise Slade. Slade brought in furniture from her family’s plantation in Columbus, Ga. The furniture can now be seen in the “St. Elmo Room.”
The house also features notable antique pieces from Virginia. In 1996, the house and its furnishings were willed to the Chipola Historical Trust as a museum and meeting place.