Tallahassee, Florida
Tallahassee is the capital city of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of and the only incorporated municipality in Leon County. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In 2024, the estimated population was 205,089, making it the eighth-most populous city in the state of Florida. It is the principal city of the Tallahassee, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had an estimated population of 397,675 as of 2024. Tallahassee is the largest city in the Florida Big Bend and Florida Panhandle regions.
With a student population exceeding 70,000, Tallahassee is a college town, home to Florida State University, Florida A&M University, and Tallahassee State College.
As the capital, Tallahassee is the site of the Florida State Capitol, Supreme Court of Florida, Florida Governor's Mansion, and nearly 30 state agency headquarters. The city is also known for its large number of law firms, lobbying organizations, trade associations and professional associations, including The Florida Bar and the Florida Chamber of Commerce. It is a recognized regional center for scientific research, and home to the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. In 2025, Tallahassee was awarded the All-America City Award by the National Civic League for the third time.
History
Indigenous peoples occupied this area for thousands of years before European encounter. Around 1200, the large and complex Mississippian culture had built earthwork mounds near Lake Jackson which survive today; they are preserved in the Lake Jackson Archaeological State Park.The Spanish founded St. Augustine in 1565, establishing the oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement in the continental United States. In the 17th century, they developed a network of missions in Apalachee territory to supply food and labor for the colony and to convert Indigenous peoples to Roman Catholicism. The largest, Mission San Luis de Apalachee in Tallahassee, has been partially reconstructed by the state of Florida. The Narváez expedition encountered the Apalachee people but did not reach the site of Tallahassee. In 1539–40, Hernando de Soto’s expedition occupied the Apalachee town of Anhaica over the winter. Based on archaeological excavations, the Anhaica site was about east of the present Florida State Capitol. The De Soto encampment is often cited as the first place that Christmas was celebrated in the continental United States.
The name Tallahassee is a Muskogean word often translated as “old fields” or “old town”. It was likely an expression used by Creek migrants from Georgia and Alabama who moved into the region in the late 18th and early 19th centuries as U.S. settlement expanded into their homelands, where they found large areas of cleared land previously occupied by the Apalachee. The Creek and later refugees who joined them developed as the Seminole people of Florida. The Talimali Band of Apalachee Indians in Louisiana identify as present-day descendants of the Apalachee.
During the First Seminole War, General Andrew Jackson conducted operations in and around Tallahassee against the Seminoles and other Native people. On November 12, 1817, after Chief Neamathla of the village of Fowltown refused orders to relocate, U.S. forces entered the village, burned it, and drove off its inhabitants. The Indians retaliated, killing soldiers and civilians. Jackson reentered Florida in March 1818. According to Jackson’s adjutant, Colonel Robert Butler, they “advanced on the Indian village called Tallahasse two of the enemy were made prisoner”.
State capital
Florida became an American territory in September 1821, in accordance with the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819.The first session of the Legislative Council of the Territory of Florida met on July 22, 1822, at Pensacola, the former capital of West Florida. Members from St. Augustine, the former capital of East Florida, traveled 59 days by water to attend. The second session was in St. Augustine, and western delegates needed 28 days to travel perilously around the peninsula to reach St. Augustine. During this session, delegates decided to hold future meetings at a halfway point. Two appointed commissioners selected Tallahassee, then an Apalachee settlement virtually abandoned after Andrew Jackson burned it in 1818, as a halfway point. In 1824, the third legislative session met there in a crude log building serving as the capitol.
From 1821 through 1845, during Florida's territorial period, the rough-hewn frontier capital gradually developed as a town. The Marquis de Lafayette, French hero of the American Revolution, returned to the United States in 1824 for a tour. The U.S. Congress voted to give him $200,000, US citizenship, and the Lafayette Land Grant, of land that today includes large portions of Tallahassee. In 1845, a Greek revival masonry structure was erected as the Capitol building in time for statehood. Now known as the "old Capitol", it stands in front of the high-rise Capitol building built in the 1970s.
Tallahassee was in the heart of Florida's Cotton Belt—Leon County led the state in cotton production—and was the center of the slave trade in Florida. During the American Civil War, Tallahassee was the only Confederate state capital east of the Mississippi River not captured by Union forces, and the only one not burned. A small engagement, the Battle of Natural Bridge, was fought south of the city on March 6, 1865, just a month before the war ended.
During the 19th century, the institutions that later developed into Florida State University were established in Tallahassee; it became a university town. These included the Tallahassee Female Academy and the Florida Institute. In 1851, the Florida legislature decreed two seminaries be built on either side of the Suwannee River, East Florida Seminary and West Florida Seminary. In 1855, West Florida Seminary was transferred to the Florida Institute building. In 1858, the seminary absorbed the Tallahassee Female Academy and became coeducational. Its main building was near the northwest corner of South Copeland and West Jefferson streets, approximately where FSU's Westcott Building is today.
In 1887, the Normal College for Colored Students, the ancestor of today's FAMU, opened its doors. The legislature decided Tallahassee was the best location in Florida for a college serving African-American students; the state had segregated schools. Four years later, its name was changed to State Normal and Industrial College for Colored Students, to teach teachers for elementary school children and students in industrial skills.
After the Civil War, much of Florida's industry moved south and east, a trend that continues today. The end of slavery and the rise of free labor reduced the profitability of the cotton and tobacco trades, at a time when world markets were also changing. The state's major industries shifted to citrus, lumber, naval stores, cattle ranching, and tourism. The latter was increasingly important by the late 19th century. In the post-Civil War period, many former plantations in the Tallahassee area were purchased by wealthy northerners for use as winter hunting preserves. This included the hunting preserve of Henry L. Beadel, who bequeathed his land for the study of the effects of fire on wildlife habitat. Today the preserve is known as the Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservancy, nationally recognized for its research into fire ecology and the use of prescribed burning.
1900–99
Until World War II, Tallahassee remained a small Southern town with virtually the entire population living within one mile of the Capitol. The main economic drivers were the colleges and state government, where politicians met to discuss spending money on grand public improvement projects to accommodate growth in places such as Miami and Tampa Bay, hundreds of miles away from the capital.Tallahassee was also active in protest during the civil rights era. The Tallahassee bus boycott was a citywide boycott in Tallahassee, Florida that sought to end racial segregation in the employment and seating arrangements of city buses. On May 26, 1956, Florida A&M University students Wilhelmina Jakes and Carrie Patterson were arrested by the Tallahassee Police Department for "placing themselves in a position to incite a riot". Robert Saunders, representing the NAACP, and Rev. C. K. Steele began talks with city authorities while the local African-American community started boycotting the city's buses. The Inter-Civic Council ended the boycott on December 22, 1956. On January 7, 1957, the City Commission repealed the bus-franchise segregation clause because of the United States Supreme Court ruling Browder v. Gayle. In the 1960s, there was a movement to transfer the capital to Orlando, closer to the state's growing population centers. That movement was defeated; the 1970s saw a long-term commitment by the state to the capital city, with the construction of the new capitol complex and preservation of the old Florida State Capitol building.
In 1970, the Census Bureau reported the city's population as 74.0% white and 25.4% black. In 1971, the city elected James R. Ford to the 5-member City Commission, and he became the city's first African-American mayor in 1972.
Bobby Bowden became the head coach of Florida State Seminoles football in 1976, and turned Tallahassee into a city dominated by college football. Bowden became very successful very quickly at Florida State. By his second year, Bowden had to deny rumors that he would leave for another job; the team went 9–2, compared to the four wins total in the three seasons before Bowden. During 34 years as head coach he had only one losing season–his first, in 1976.
In 1977, the 22-story high-rise Capitol building, designed by architect Edward Durell Stone, was completed. Since 2021, it has been the third-tallest state capitol building in the United States. In 1978, the Old Capitol, directly in front of the new Capitol, was scheduled for demolition, but state officials decided to keep it as a museum. In 1986, Jack McLean served as mayor, the second African-American to hold the position.