Even on Sunday, in the middle of weekend traffic, the drive from Orlando to Tallahassee feels like quite an odyssey. It’s only a matter of 250 miles, but Interstate 10 in particular seems to stretch on forever—to the point that I briefly wonder if I’ve missed my turn, gone way past the Florida Panhandle, and ended up halfway through the 2,460 highways of the highway. -mile trip to Santa Monica and the California coast. By the time I slip into town, the sun is setting and it feels like days instead of hours have passed since I left Mickey Mouse behind.
It’s not entirely fair to say that Florida’s capital is in the middle of nowhere. It is located 40 kilometers south of Amsterdam – a hamlet just across the ‘border’ in neighboring Georgia. It is located 20 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico, at Apalachee Bay; 50 miles of the thick tree line of Apalachicola National Forest; 170 km from the beach resorts of Panama City Beach.
But it’s certainly fair to say that it’s not very big. It is only the eighth-most populous city in the third-most populous U.S. state, adding just 202,000 residents to the state’s total workforce of 23 million — 70,000 of whom are college students. Florida is big on self-confidence – the hotels of Fort Lauderdale, the roller coasters of Orlando, the mansions and bank accounts of West Palm Beach. But Tallahassee, the administrative center, is small.
And if it’s not in the middle of nowhere, then it’s definitely in the middle of somewhere. Specifically, the trip between the twin cities of Pensacola, Florida (190 miles west, toward the Alabama state line) and St. Augustine (128 miles east, on the Atlantic coast). This equidistance is all part of Tallahassee’s story and the main reason why it came into existence – in its modern form – exactly two centuries ago.
It is a story intertwined with that of Florida. What is now ‘the Sunshine State’ became part of the nascent US on March 30, 1822 – initially as the ‘Florida Territory’ – after being ceded to America three years earlier (via the Adams-Onis Treaty) by a Spain that can no longer afford maintenance.
At the time, the region was very different to the destination that now welcomes around 1.5 million British holidaymakers every year. “Town life,” such as it was, was mainly confined to the two earliest settlements carved out by the Spanish conquistadors: Pensacola in 1559 (and again, after catastrophic hurricane damage in 1698); Saint Augustine in 1565.
Both cities wanted to play a central role in the governance of the new Florida. Neither wanted to cede ground or initiative to the other. The first session of the Legislative Council of the Territory of Florida was held in Pensacola on July 22, 1822 – with considerable inconvenience to the representatives of St. Augustine, who were forced to circumnavigate the entire Florida peninsula, a journey that took 59 days . command to be present. The second session – convened in St. Augustine – required a similarly dangerous expedition from the Pensacolans.
This clearly couldn’t go on. Alternatives were discussed. And an agreement was reached. Anhaica, the main city of the Apalachee people in Florida, was halfway between the two and was an ideal compromise. Or at least it would have been had it not been razed to the ground by Andrew Jackson, the future seventh US president, in 1818 – one of a series of brutal body blows inflicted on the indigenous people of the region. With a certain bleak irony, the capital that rose among the nearly still-smoking ruins bore a local name: “Tallahassee” is a Muskogean word, loosely translated as “old fields.” On March 4, 1824, Territorial Governor William Duval decreed it to be the new capital of Florida. The third session of the Legislative Council was held in a rude log cabin.
Take a look at the map of the state and you might ask a reasonable question: Why would the capital be deliberately placed so far north? The answer is that in 1824, in terms of major population groups, Florida meant North Florida. Orlando wouldn’t exist until 1843 (and only then, like the village of Jernigan), the first traces of Miami wouldn’t arrive until 1858 – and development wouldn’t really come to fruition until Henry Flagler built his railroad along the Atlantic in 1912 coast completed. the south of the peninsula was for the most part swampy, sparsely populated and – as far as the settlers of the “New World” were concerned – very dangerous. The Third Seminole War of 1855-58 took place in and around the Everglades, as native Floridians who had not been displaced by Jackson – or forcibly transported to Oklahoma – fought hard to protect what remained of their ancestral lands.
Tallahassee did not prosper immediately. When American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson visited there in 1827, he was shocked and described it as “a grotesque place of land speculators and desperadoes.” But when full American statehood was achieved in March 1845 – Florida joined the club as the 27th member – a capital worthy of this role was also created.
It still is – although at first, as I walk east through the city, I struggle to spot it, so small is it compared to its successor. It is unusual for Florida to have two capitals, one next to the other. The modern version – a 25-storey, 105-metre tower of no apparent beauty, inaugurated in 1977 – blocks sight lines to its historic predecessor from certain angles. If there had been a hint of nostalgic meekness in it, it would have been completely blocked, which is rare in a country ever willing to tear down the old and build something new without scaring off the bulldozers.
The decision to hold an open house on March 30, 1978, allowing Floridians to wander through their original capital, attracted 2,000 visitors and numerous letters demanding its preservation. Three months later, then-Florida Governor Reubin Askew – who favored demolition – signed the legal protection enshrining the building as a museum.
Posterity has proven this to be the right thing to do. An elegant piece of architecture in the neoclassical tradition of America’s capitals, the Old State House carries its heritage with grace. In the lobby, a black-and-white photo captures the first moments in 1845, with a wooden fence in front – not to keep people out, but to keep the livestock that like to graze on the lawn. Above, the dome’s interior is a blur of color – courtesy of twelve stained glass panels that, while replicas of their 1902 forebears, are convincingly Art Nouveau.
Much of the building is frozen, just like that year. The 122 years in question disappear as I walk through them. You can almost hear the loud bang of a gavel in the former Supreme Court, where the seats for six justices wait empty; You could almost hear the tensions of the ongoing debate in the Senate chamber and the former House of Representatives. The governor’s office, meanwhile, remembers the eighteenth sitting president, William Jennings, who sat behind the desk on display here between 1901 and 1903. His term would have been shorter if his secretary had not foiled an assassination attempt on December 17, 1902, while he was struggling with death. has grounded the gunman who burst into the room a week before Christmas.
The museum does not shy away from difficult facts. Another room shows as an artifact the naked racism of segregated America: a bathroom door (from 1949) with the sign ‘White Ladies’ on it. The political tension is also visible, as can be seen from one of the ballot boxes from the recount in Florida, which decided the hair-breadth presidential election of 2000 between George W. Bush and Al Gore. The building also readily admits that the location, a pragmatic choice from 1824, has become increasingly controversial in the two hundred years since. “[It is] “resolved that the Ocala Women’s Club is most urgently in favor of moving the capital of Florida to a more central location in the state,” reads a letter of protest dated April 30, 1921 (Ocala, 80 miles northwest of Orlando, has, conveniently, exactly such a central location). Tallahassee rejected this idea as early as 1967, when Senator Lee Weissenborn issued calls for relocation prior to the construction of the new capitol. That ship has certainly sailed – even if Tallahassee remains a small town with a big purpose.
There’s just a mellow atmosphere at the Madison Social, an inviting bar-restaurant that overlooks the playing fields of the Florida State campus; craft beer specialist the Proof Brewing Company has a distinctly local vibe – so much so that its signature beer, EightFive-O, takes its inspiration from the city’s telephone code. And Alfred B. Maclay Gardens State Park, on its northern edge, has a leafy tranquility far removed from standard city life, where couples stroll under cypress trees in a space that the titular New York financier shaped into a dream retirement home in 1923 formed. Maybe Even here you’re not quite in the middle of nowhere – but amid a rumble of birdsong you begin to realize that you can’t be far away.
Essentials
Tallahassee has its own airport. You can’t fly direct from the UK, but there are convenient connections to Miami and Fort Lauderdale – and also to Atlanta in Georgia.
Hotel Indigo (826 West Gaines Street; 001 850 210 0008; ihg.com). Doubles from £167.
The Florida Historic Capitol Museum is free to enter (flhistoriccapitol.gov).
For more information, see visittallahassee.com; tallahasseeleoncounty200.com; visitflorida.com; visittheusa.co.uk
Go with the experts
Realistically, Tallahassee will probably be part of a longer road trip for British tourists. It’s a two-day part 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.