The history of Tallahassee, Florida, much like the history of Leon County, dates back to the settlement of the Americas. Beginning in the 16th century, the region was colonized by Europeans, becoming part of Spanish Florida. In 1819, the Adams–Onís Treaty ceded Spanish Florida, including modern-day Tallahassee, to the United States. Tallahassee became a city and the state capital of Florida in 1821; the American takeover led to the settlements' rapid expansion as growing numbers of cotton plantations began to spring up nearby, increasing Tallahassees' population significantly.
Early history
Tallahassee is situated within the Apalachee Province, home of the Apalachee, a Mississippian culture of agrarian people who farmed vast tracts of land. Their capital, Anhaica, was located within Tallahassee's city limits.
The name "Tallahassee" is a Muskogean Indian word often translated as "old fields", or "old town." Its also known as "Tally" as a nickname. This may stem from the Creek (later called Seminole) Indians that migrated into this region in the 18th century. The Apalachee's success as agriculturalists did not go unnoticed by the Spanish, who sent missionaries to the area throughout the 17th century. Several mission sites were established with the aim of procuring food and labor for the colony at St. Augustine. One of the most important mission sites, Mission San Luis de Apalachee, has been partially reconstructed as a state historic site in Tallahassee.
Spanish period (16th century to 1821) The Spanish missionaries were not the first Europeans to visit Tallahassee. The Spanish explorer, Hernando de Soto spent the winter of 1538-1539 encamped at the Apalachee village of Anhaica, which he had taken by force. De Soto's brutal treatment of the natives was fiercely resisted, and by the following spring De Soto was eager to move on. The site of Anhaica, near present-day Myers Park, was located in 1987 by Florida archaeologist B. Calvin Jones.
Anhaica, in the early period of Spanish colonization, was the capital of the Apalachee Province (of Spanish Florida).
It was burned on March 31, 1818, by General Andrew Jackson, at the onset of the First Seminole War.
19th century Becoming capital The founding of Tallahassee was largely a matter of convenience. In 1821, Florida was ceded by Spain to the United States. A territorial government was established, but the impracticalities of alternately meeting in St. Augustine and Pensacola, the two largest cities in the territory at the time (the Spaniards had built a road), led territorial governor William Pope Duval to appoint two commissioners to establish a more central meeting place.
In October 1823, John Lee Williams of Pensacola and Dr. William Simmons of St. Augustine selected the former Indian settlement of Tallahassee, roughly midway between the two cities, as a suitable place. Their decision was also based on its elevation and location near a beautiful waterfall, now part of Cascades Park, and the old capital of the Apalachee chiefdom, Anhaica, burned by Andrew Jackson in 1818. Neamathla, a Creek chief, was living there in a new town called Cohowofooche.
In March of the following year it was formally proclaimed the capital. Florida did not become a state, however, until 1845.
On November 1, 1823, John Lee Williams wrote to Florida congressional delegate (and later governor) Richard Keith Call about the location of the capital:
Founding of Tallahassee In 1824, the City of Tallahassee, the county seat and only incorporated city in Leon County, was established following a decision by the state legislature to locate the capital of the new Florida Territory midway between the population centers of St. Augustine and Pensacola. The city was not formally incorporated until December 1825, with the first municipal elections being held in January 1826.
In 1824, General Marquis de Lafayette was awarded a land grant by the United States Congress. The grant consisted of a by square of land in what is today mostly northeast Tallahassee. Although the Marquis never visited his property in Florida, he sent people to grow limes and olives and to produce silk from moths. However, the colony failed, and most of the residents went to New Orleans or back to France. Those who remained lived in an area of Tallahassee that still is called Frenchtown. Lafayette eventually sold his property.
In 1826, Achille Murat, nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, moved to the Tallahassee area, most likely in response to the July 4, 1825 Lafayette Land Grant, which also attracted many other French settlers. He purchased land in Jefferson County, Florida and named it Lipona Plantation. "Lipona" is an anagram for Napoli, the Italian spelling of Naples, Italy, where he was to rule.
The following outline represents a brief historical sketch of the area:
In 1827, Ralph Waldo Emerson, after a visit, called Tallahassee "A grotesque place of land speculators and desperados." Emerson would become a great friend and confidant of the aforementioned Achille Murat for years.
1830s First bank
Around 1830, the Union Bank, Tallahassee's first bank, was established by William Williams. The Seminole Wars, unsound banking practices, and the Panic of 1837 caused the closing of the bank in 1843. In 1847, the bank was purchased by cotton plantation owners William Bailey and Issac Mitchell. It later became a Freedman (negro) bank from after the Civil War until 1879. The building has been used as a church, feed store, art house, coffee house, dance studio, locksmith's shop, beauty shop, and shoe factory. In 1971 the bank was moved from the original site on the west side of Adams Street, between College Avenue and Park Avenue, to just east of the Capitol on Apalachee Parkway and Calhoun Avenue.
Capitol building The rough hewn frontier capital gradually grew into a town during Florida's territorial period. In anticipation of becoming a state, the territorial government erected a Greek Revival masonry structure that would befit a state capitol. The structure opened in 1845 in time for statehood and eventually become known as the "old Capitol" which stands in front of the current new capitol high rise today.
Tallahassee-St. Marks Railroad In 1834, the Tallahassee Railroad was constructed, connecting St. Marks with Tallahassee to facilitate shipping of cotton to northeastern ports. It is reported to be the third oldest railroad in the United States. Three years later, it was extended to Port Leon, briefly the county seat of Wakulla County until it was destroyed by hurricane. In 1856 the mule-drawn line, with wooden rails, was replaced with steel rails and steam locomotives. The route has been paved and is today the Tallahassee-St. Marks Historic Railroad State Trail.
Also in 1834, Thomas Brown, who would later serve as Florida's governor, built an inn called Brown's Inn, located on the west side of Adams Street between Pensacola and Lafayette streets.
1840s The Floridian newspaper reported in 1840 that the Great Florida Mail route ("previously sent by the Alligator Route") connected Tallahassee (Port Leon), via steamboats and stagecoaches, with Apalachcola, Pensacola, and Mobile, Alabama to the west, and St. Augustine, Brunswick, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina on the east. The trip from Mobile was days "in favorable weather", and the fare $26.50.
Reform mayor
In 1841, Francis W. Eppes, grandson of Thomas Jefferson and a successful cotton plantation owner became Intendant mayor of Tallahassee. Eppes served as mayor until 1844. Eppes described the town's Marion Race Course "A hotbed of vice, intemperance, gambling and profanity." He held that the rest of the town was little better. Eppes would again serve from 1856 to 1857.
1850s
During the antebellum period, Tallahassee was at the center of the fast-growing "middle counties" of Florida, which held the bulk of the antebellum state population. For several decades before the Civil War, nearby Gadsden County was the most populous in the state. Cotton and tobacco plantations and smaller farms were the main draw for population growth as well as economic and political power. Many cotton plantations such as the William Bailey Plantation, Barrow Hill, Francis Eppes Plantation, La Grange Plantation were built within what is now Tallahassee.
1860s Civil War
Tallahassee was the only Confederate state capital east of the Mississippi not captured by Union forces during the Civil War, and the only one not burned. The Battle of Natural Bridge was fought outside Tallahassee. The FSU ROTC has the rare privilege of displaying a Civil War battle streamer, due to participation in that battle by volunteers that included teenagers from the nearby Florida Military and Collegiate Institute (that would later become Florida State University).The few other programs with that privilege are: the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) for the Battle of New Market, The Citadel, for the defense of Charleston and seven other engagements, and The University of Mississippi for the defense of Vicksburg.
Leon County produced two companies who fought as part of the 1st Florida Infantry Regiment. One of the companies, dubbed the "Leon Artillery," was reportedly made up of "Tallahassee boys, young, healthy, and many of them wealthy."
Reconstruction Following the Civil War, much of Florida's industry shifted to the south and east, a trend that continues to this day. After the abolition of slavery, regional industries which previously relied on forced labor, like cotton and tobacco, began to decline. Consequently, the state's primary industries transitioned to citrus, naval stores, cattle ranching, and tourism, mainly to the south and east due to favorable climate and geography. This growth was particularly evident around the Jacksonville area and along the St. Johns River.
At the same time, newly liberated African Americans established Frenchtown, the oldest historically black neighborhood in the state.
1880s First university In January 1883 Reverend John Kost, A.M., M.D., LL.D of Michigan proposed to carry out the mandate of the 1868 Constitution requiring a state university. Kost selected Tallahassee and the West Florida Seminary for the location of the university. The university was called the Florida State College for Women and later called the Florida State University.
On October 3, 1887, the State Normal College for Colored Students began classes, and became a land grant university four years later when it received $7,500 under the Second Morrill Act, and its name was changed to State Normal and Industrial College for Colored Students. However, it was not an official institution of higher learning until the 1905 Buckman Act, which transferred control from the Department of Education to the Board of Control, creating what was the foundation for the modern Florida A&M University.
Capital City Bank Dry goods store owner George W. Saxon began making loans to farmers during the 1880s which led him to filing for a bank charter in 1895. The bank grew and by 1975, Saxon's great-grandson and bank director, DuBose Ausley, began formation of several banks into one group. Capital City Bank now has 70 banking offices and serves people as far north as Valley, Alabama and Macon, Georgia to Port Richey, Florida in the south.
Carrabelle, Tallahassee and Georgia Railroad During the 1880s and 1890s Tallahassee was served by the Carrabelle, Tallahassee and Georgia Railroad, which ran from Georgia to Tallahassee and on to Carrabelle in Franklin County.
St. James and Leon Hotels