Even on a Sunday in the midst of weekend traffic, the drive from Orlando to Tallahassee feels like a pretty rough ride. It’s only a matter of 250 miles, but Interstate 10 in particular seems to stretch on forever—so much so that I momentarily wonder if I’ve missed my turn, gone too far beyond the Florida Panhandle, and am halfway through the highway’s 1,460 miles. -One mile walk to Santa Monica and the California coast. The sun was setting when I entered town, and it felt like days, not hours, had passed since I left Mickey Mouse behind.
It’s not entirely fair to say that Florida’s capital is in the middle of nowhere. A village 40 kilometers south of Amsterdam, just over the “border” in neighboring Georgia. It is in Apalachee Bay, 20 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico; 50 miles from the thick woods of the Apalachicola National Forest; Panama City Beach is 105 miles from the beach resorts.
However, it would be absolutely correct to say that it is not very big. It is only the eighth most populous city in the third most populous US state, adding only 202,000 residents to the state’s total population of 23 million, 70,000 of whom are college students. Florida is growing with confidence like the hotels of Fort Lauderdale, the roller coasters of Orlando, the mansions and bank accounts of West Palm Beach. But its administrative center, Tallahassee, is small.
And if it’s not in the middle of nowhere, then it’s definitely in the middle of something. Specifically, the journey between sister Florida cities Pensacola (200 miles west, toward the Alabama state line) and St. Augustine (202 miles east, on the Atlantic coast). This equidistance is part of Tallahassee’s story and the main reason why it emerged in its modern form exactly two centuries ago.
It’s a story intertwined with Florida’s. What is now the “Sunshine State” became part of the United States on March 30, 1822, initially developing as the “Florida Territory” and ceded to America by Spain three years earlier (via the Adams-Onis Treaty). he can no longer afford his care.
At the time, the region was very different to the destination that now welcomes around 1.5 million British holidaymakers each year. “City life,” such as it was, was confined predominantly to the two earliest settlements formed by Spanish conquistadors: Pensacola in 1559 (and again after catastrophic hurricane damage in 1698); St. Augustine in 1565.
Both cities wanted to play important roles in the governance of the new Florida. Neither of them wanted to give up their place or initiative to the other. The first session of the Legislative Council of the Florida Territory was held in Pensacola on July 22, 1822 – this was the day of St. Louis, who had to circumnavigate the entire Florida peninsula, a journey that took 59 days. order to join. The second session, held in St. Augustine, required the Pensacolans to make a similarly perilous expedition.
This clearly could not continue. Alternatives were discussed. And an agreement was reached. Anhaica, the home town of Florida’s Apalachee people, stood in the middle and was an ideal compromise. Or at least it would have been, had it not been razed to the ground in 1818 by future seventh U.S. president Andrew Jackson – one of a series of brutal body blows rained down on the region’s indigenous people in the 19th century. In a sombre irony, the capital city rising amid nearly still-smoldering ruins bore a local name: “Tallahassee” is a Muskoge word that roughly translates as “old fields.” On March 4, 1824, territorial governor William Duval decided that this would be the new capital of Florida. The third session of the legislative council was held in a rude log cabin.
When you look at a map of the state, you might ask a reasonable question: Why deliberately place its capital so far north? The answer is that in 1824, in terms of the major nodes of the population, Florida meant northern Florida. Orlando would not come into existence (and only then, as the village of Jernigan) until 1843, the first traces of Miami would not arrive until 1858, and development would not truly mushroom until Henry Flagler completed his railroad along the Atlantic coast in 1912. The south of the peninsula was mostly swampy, sparsely inhabited, and extremely dangerous for “New World” settlers. The Third Seminole War of 1855–58 took place in and around the Everglades, where native Floridians who had not been displaced or forcibly removed to Oklahoma by Jackson fought heavily to retain their ancestral lands.
Tallahassee did not develop immediately. American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson was horrified when he visited in 1827, describing it as “a strange place full of land speculators and desperados.” But when a full U.S. state was formed in March 1845 (Florida joined the club as the 27th member), a capitol building worthy of the role also arrived.
It still is; but initially I have trouble spotting him as he walks east of town, so dwarfed is he by his successor. Unusually, Florida has two capital cities, one next to the other. Inaugurated in 1977, the unremarkably beautiful, 25-story, 345 ft (105 m) high modern version blocks the sightlines of its historic predecessor from certain angles. If there had been a surge of nostalgic soft-heartedness without deterring the bulldozers in a country ready to tear down the old and erect something new, it would have prevented it altogether.
A decision to hold a public day on March 30, 1978, allowing Floridians to tour their original capital city, attracted 2,000 visitors and numerous letters demanding its preservation. Three months later, then-Florida governor Reubin Askew, who favored demolition, signed legal protections enshrining the structure as a museum.
Posterity has proven that this was the correct course of action. An elegant piece of architecture in the neoclassical tradition of American capitals, the former state house carries its legacy with grace. In the lobby, a black-and-white photograph captures those first moments of 1845; there is a fence in front of it; It’s not there to keep people away, but the cattle that want to graze on its grass. Above, the dome’s interior displays a blur of color, courtesy of 12 stained glass panels that are convincingly Art Nouveau despite being replicas of their 1902 ancestors.
Much of the building remains freeze-framed as it was that year. These 122 years disappear as you walk through them. You can almost hear the hard pounding of the gavel in the old Supreme Court, where six justices sat vacant; I could almost hear the insistent debates in the Senate chamber and once in the House of Representatives. The governor’s office, meanwhile, commemorates the 18th incumbent, William Jennings, who sat behind the desk on display there from 1901 to 1903. His term would have been shorter had his secretary not thwarted an assassination attempt on December 17, 1902. Punish the gunman who broke into the room a week before Christmas.
The museum does not shy away from difficult truths. In another room, the naked racism of segregated America is displayed as an artifact; A bathroom door bearing the “White Ladies” sign (dating from 1949). Political tension is also evident in one of the ballot boxes in the recount in Florida that determined the outcome of the 2000 presidential election between George W Bush and Al Gore. The building is also happy to admit that its location, a pragmatic choice in 1824, became increasingly controversial over the next 200 years. “[It is] Resolved that the Ocala Women’s Club should immediately support the relocation of Florida’s capital to a more central location in the state,” reads a protest letter dated April 30, 1921 (Ocala, 50 miles northwest of Orlando, conveniently has just such a location). Tallahassee “recently” rejected the idea in 1967, when Senator Lee Weissenborn led calls for relocation ahead of construction of the new capital. That ship has certainly sailed, but Tallahassee remains a small town with a big purpose .
There’s only a faint hum at Madison Social, an inviting bar-restaurant overlooking the playing fields of the Florida State campus; craft beer specialist Proof Brewing Company has a distinct local flair; So much so that its signature beer, EightFive-O, takes its inspiration from the city telephone code. And Alfred B. Maclay Gardens State Park, located in the northern foothills, has a lush tranquility far from standard city life; couples stroll under cypress trees in a space fashioned as a dream retirement home in 1923 by the famous New York financier. Maybe. , even here you’re not in the middle of nowhere – but amid the birdsong, you begin to realize you can’t be far from there.
Fundamentals
Tallahassee has its own airport. You can’t fly direct from the UK, but there are decent connections to Miami and Fort Lauderdale, as well as Atlanta in Georgia.
Hotel Indigo (826 West Gaines Street; 001 850 210 0008; ihg.com). Doubles from £167.
Admission to the Florida Historic Capitol Museum is free (flhistoriccapitol.gov).
For more information. visittallahassee.com; tallahasseeleoncounty200.com; Visit florida.com; Visit visittheusa.co.uk
Go with the experts
Realistically, for British tourists, Tallahassee is likely to be part of a longer journey. This is a two-day element of the 14-night ‘Discover the Real Florida’ itinerary sold by Bon Voyage (0800 316 3012; bon-voyage.co.uk) – from £2,125 per person including flights.