Florida Main Street Named One of America’s Best

There's such a charm and inviting feeling when it comes to being on a Main Street, especially in Florida. A thriving Main Street is a place, but it's also a special feeling of community and being around people from your town. While a Main Street may seem like a location from the past, but in a time when people spend so much time online instead of with each other, the Main Street really takes on added importance. It's a place where you can see your neighbors, face to face, and enjoy each other's company. As it turns out, one Florida Main Street has made the cut for one of the best in the U.S.

The experts at Reader's Digest have put together a tally of the best Main Streets in America. "There's nothing better than strolling down a cute main street in a new town," they note, which is totally right. They add that, "It may seem like the quaint, charming American Main Street is a thing of the past," but that's not the reality, and there are still lots of beautiful Main Streets across the country.

So, which Florida Main Street was named one of the best in the country? It's the Main Street of Fort Pierce, Florida. "On the verge of discovery, Fort Pierce has been compared to other notable small towns with charming main streets," Reader's Digest notes. "Main Street, Fort Pierce has seven National Register of Historic Places locations downtown, which includes the Sunrise Theatre, Moore’s Creek Bridge, and the site Fort Pierce is named for, the original Army post during the Seminole War." So, there's lots of history here.

Did you know that the Main Street, as we know it, hasn't been around too long? The Main Street in America has only been in existence for about a century. "In the 1920s, to invoke Main Street was to call up an image of the dullness of provincial life," What It Means to Be American notes, adding that by the time the 1930s rolled around, the "Main Street represented the bedrock of America's embattled democracy. For decades, Main Street stood for the local; today it's an importable model of planning and development that can be set up almost anywhere."

The Main Street in America means so much more than just a bunch of stories and buildings lined up on a street. The Main Street really brings together the idea of a loving community, where people from all over the area and different neighborhoods come together and socialize with each other on the street.