The chamber has undergone considerable change over the years. As community needs have changed, the chamber has adjusted its focus to better serve these needs. This brief history will trace the chamber's first two decades and describe the course it has outlined for the decade ahead, but first, it is important to clarify just what a chamber of commerce is. A chamber of Commerce is a voluntary association of business people created to maintain and improve the marketplace. It is not a state agency.
Funding comes from membership and service fees.
The first formal records of an organization of business were kept by a group of merchants established in Marseille, France in 1599. Its purpose was to identify issues of common concern, to focus the group's attention on these issues, and to make improvements no single merchant could reasonably achieve alone. The need for cooperation on economic issues was so clear in this country that there was a chamber of commerce before it was called the United States. A chamber of commerce was formed in New York in 1768, eight years before the Declaration of Independence was signed. Business people know that they must operate in a viable market.