above: looking south - view of the Hawkshaw site 1984.
surface prepared for excavation with limed lines and Pensacola Bay in the distance.

The Hawkshaw project was a noncompliance, interdisciplinary investigation in a downtown neighborhood in Pensacola, Florida, known as "Hawkshaw." In the Fall of 1983, a group of local professionals consisting of Dr. Bense from UWF, a historic preservationist, a museum curator from the Historic Pensacola Preservation Board, a folk historian, and a newspaper editor approached Gulf Power Company (GPC) with a proposal to save the potentially significant archaeological and historical information that was threatened due to construction at the proposed GPC headquarters site. GPC agreed to the testing program which began in April 1984. Data recovery phase began in August 1984 and was completed in September 1985 - the largest archaeological undertaking in Pensacola history.

Testing investigations at the Hawkshaw site identified ten components -four were intact and contained significant information: Deptford (ca. 2000 BP - 1750 BP); Territorial Period (1820 - 1861); Victorian Period (1870 - 1910); and the recent (1910 - 1984).

The Deptford component consisted of an area approximately 700 square meters in size along the edge of a small bluff overlooking the Pensacola Bay at the confluence of a former small, spring-fed stream. The main occupation probably took place at a mean date of A.D.212. A previous small occupation at approximately A.D. 1 was also documented.

Hawkshaw remained unoccupied for 1,500 years between the Deptford occupation and the first Europeans (ca. 1752). The Spanish built brick kilns in the area during the 1770s and in the 1880s the area prospered with a railroad roundhouse, a new lumber mill and a big wharf. As the lumber industry waned and hurricanes destroyed the mill, Hawkshaw became a service oriented, working class neighborhood.