Flagler County Historical Society Prepares Inaugural Bunnell History Day as Accelerant for City’s Renaissance

Addressing the Bunnell City Commission Monday evening, Ed Siarkowicz and his colleagues were summarizing the purpose and basics of the inaugural Bunnell History Day they’re organizing when he told the story of first crossing the bridge over the St’ Johns River and into Palatka as a new arrival in the region, in 1994.

The buildings were so run down and vacant that it reminded him of driving through the South Bronx in New York in the 1970s, when the Bronx notoriously was a ruin (it has recovered since). He had no desire to go back there. But Bassmaster, a major fishing tournament, was held in Palatka around then went so well that it turned into an annual event. Within a few years, Palatka was transformed.




“A lot of things that had really deteriorated over decades became little kitschy coffee shops and antique shops, and there were crowds of people walking around, and then suddenly there’s historic districts and art mural districts everywhere,” said Siarkowicz, the president of the Flagler County Historical Society. “When you drive over that bridge and go into Palatka, that’s what I see. I see a totally uplifted, renovated town that had once been a boom town, and now it has returned back to that again. And this is part of the vision that we at the Historical Society have for Bunnell.”

Siarkowicz sees “enough good bones left in Bunnell” to replicate that revival and match Bunnell with its city logo: the crossroads of Flagler County. It has the old courthouse, which will mark its centennial in two years, the old Coquina City Hall, which has been renovated, it has Lambert House and other areas in the city that, once renovated, will bring that focus back on the crossroads. The society has been working with City Manager Alvin Jackson and City Clerk Kristen Bates to give the community a sense of purpose and realize that vision.

It’s all happening on June 7, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The gravity center of the event will be the historic Coquina City Hall, but it’ll radiate across downtown, especially through the Old Moody Boulevard corridor. The Florida Council for the Humanities awarded the Historical Society $5,000 to seed the event. “That’s our starting point,” Siarkowicz said. “We’ve raised much more than that in order to really make this be a great signature event that’s going to be talked about for the next year, until the 2026 Bunnell History Day.”




Bunnell has attempted a few events over the years to celebrate its identity. It had the Potato Festival for a few years a decade and a half ago, but that died. It held its inaugural Italian Festival last year, but it’s unclear whether that’ll continue, since the commissioner who initiated it is stepping down. It still has signature events, like the annual Juneteenth celebration at the Carver Center, the Martin Luther King Day parade and celebration and the Veterans Day Parade, along with Christmas in Bunnell. But it doesn’t have a festival that doesn’t celebrate anything else but Bunnell.

Bunnell History Day may fill that gap.

The city is going to be a co-sponsor, though while the administration has been very cooperative, the commission has not appropriated any money–not even a match of the state grant, or as a gesture to encourage other sponsors–despite the commissioners’ apparent embrace of the event. In fairness, the society has not made a formal request for a city grant, applauding instead its in-kind help through the administration.

“Your participation is critical to this happening,” Elaine Studnicki told the commissioners, who listened to the presentation and provided no feedback. Studnicki is the immediate past president of the Palm Coast Historical Society and a grant writer for the Flagler County Historical Society.




“It’s the first time in your history that the Historical Society and the city council and the city management has come together and said: Let’s do this,” Studnicki said. “Let’s do this together. Let’s create and support a vision, not of the past, but of the future as well. And that’s what we want to do. Yes, we want to have a kid zone, and we want to have a beer garden, and we want to have wonderful educational speakers, etc. But we really want to do this because love Bunnell.”

Peter Johnson is also among the event’s lead organizers. Johnson, 32, a candidate for mayor in Palm Coast last year, grew up in Palm Coast, where there wasn’t much to do. His friends were in Bunnell, which gave him a sense of intimacy with the area. “There’s a certain unique characteristic about it that Palm Coast just, quite frankly, doesn’t provide, right? We have 100 years of history here. The other surrounding areas don’t have that,” he said. (Palm Coast just marked its 25th anniversary, but Johnson is a bit off about Flagler Beach: it marks its centennial this year.) “So to show that, incorporate that and in the future, make it the local source and focal point of the city, I think is going to be great for the long term benefit of everyone.”

Briefing the commission on the event Monday, Johnson said 100 vendor slots are available, though not taken. There’ll be food trucks and locally sourced vendors and non-profits among them. There’ll be five speakers with presentations throughout the day. Johnson is coordinating with the district to get access to the Little Red Schoolhouse at Bunnell Elementary for tours.

The schoolhouse, about the size of Elvis Presley’s shotgun birthplace in Tupelo, Miss., dates from 1938, making it the oldest structure owned by the local school district. One of its great distinctions is that it was built by the Works Progress Administration, which dotted the country with elegant and durable buildings and infrastructure. But it was never a schoolhouse. The combined $3,500 from the WPA and $1,500 from the School Board built the building for Bunnell High School’s Future Farmers of America Chapter. Now on the National Register of Historic Places, the Schoolhouse is a museum.




It’s places like the Schoolhouse that History Day means to highlight. “So having Bunnell History Day, we’re basically going to be spreading history education, reenactors and all kinds of things, between the Carver Gym and the little red schoolhouse museum at Bunnell Elementary, the courthouse, the field behind the courthouse, the Holden House,” Siarkowicz said. “We’ve got the new owners of the George Moody House–number 1000 Moody Boulevard, they’re going to be doing tours of that historic home–we’re very excited about this. Because when we walk around Bunnell, this is what we see. We see opportunity. We see a small-town feel like those that had spoken about it at the prior meeting, and we’re very excited about bringing all of the lessons from 1917 and before back to the present.”

It’s part of the society’s determination to take all that’s gone into creating the county and the Bunnell community into a learning experience “We’re determined to take the lessons that we all learned as children–life skills, work ethic and things like that–and transfer that to children to give them a set of lenses on their eyes to view their present and their future,” the society president said.

Johnson credited the cooperation from the city administration, but appealed for help, too. “We are looking forward to making the inaugural event an annual success with your support,” Johnson said. “And for anyone listening out there, we’re looking for vendors. We’re looking for sponsors. These things do take time and money, but we are putting in the commitments, and we are going to make this the best day possible for Bunnell to try to highlight the local community.”