Situated in what is known as the Florida Panhandle, Tallahassee is Florida's capital as well as the county seat of Leon County, named for the explorer Juan Ponce de Leon. With a metro population of about 250,000, Tallahassee also is a college town, as it's home to Florida State University as well as Florida A & M University and Tallahassee Community College, all public institutions.


The word "Tallahassee" is clearly of Native American origin, probably Muskogean, meaning "old fields" or perhaps "old town." This part of Florida was Creek (or Seminole) country, native people who spoke Muskogean, a large Native American language family. These people moved into the area in the 18th century, supplanting another Muskogean-speaking nation, the Appalachee, whose name may derive from a Choctaw word. The Appalachee peole's name reverberates today in the Appalachian Mountains as well as at San Marcos de Apalache State Historic Site just south of Tallahassee on FL 363. The site in turn lies on the shores of Apalachee Bay. .


The Appalachee were agrarian, and cultivated the red clay that forms this rolling, level land. So the name Tallahassee may refer to the former occupants' mode of sustenance.


The first European to set foot in this part of the United States was Hernando de Soto, who spent the winter in an Apalachee village that he took by force in 1538. De Soto had treated the natives rather brutally, and met fierce resistance, so moved in the following spring. The site of that village, Anhaica, is near Myers Park, and was discovered in 1987. Subsequent Spanish presence in this area was largely missionary, in admiration of Apalachee agricultural success. St. Augustine needed both food and labor, which these missions helped supply. One of the missions, Misi�n San Luis de Apalachee, now partly reconstructed, is a state historic site in Tallahassee.


When Spain ceded Florida permanently to the United States in 1821, the two most important cities were Pensacola in the west and St. Augustine in the east. But the distance between them was inconvenient. Tallahassee was founded as a compromise site between the two.in 1823, and proclaimed the territorial capital in 1824. Florida became a state in 1845, but joined the other Southern states in the Confederacy. Tallahassee, however, was the only Southern capital to elude Federal capture in the conflict.


Tallahassee maintains a strong commitment to the arts, with two important public art programs, one at City Hall on the second floor, and Artport at the Tallahassee Regional Airport. Numerous cultural festivals throughout the year focus on the visual and performing arts. The Florida Museum of History and the Tallahassee Museum of History and Natural Science are important cultural resources. Open to the public, the 1843 Knott House Museum may be the work of a free African American builder, George Proctor, who likely is responsible for several fine Tallahassee homes in that period.


Tallahassee's cultural offerings are enhanced by academic institutions. Florida A & M University, a historically black institution of high learning established in 1887, is chiefly an undergraduate institution. Its notable alums include tennis great Althea Gibson and Detroit, MI, mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick. Florida State University was co-educational in the mid 19th century, but later became Florida State College for Women. World War II veterans who wished to capitalize on their education benefits without leaving home convinced the Florida legislature to return FSU to co-educational status in 1947. Today, it's a nationally recognized research institution. FSU's long list of famous former students includes actor Burt Reynods and Jim Morrison, of The Doors. Both schools field highly regarded sports teams. Tallahassee Community College feeds into FSU and has a working relationship with FAMU.


Located on I-10, which connects the city to Jacksonville on the east and Pensacola on the west, Tallahassee has in the 20th century achieved what its founders envisioned in the 19th, remaining not only the state's capital but also the hub between its two major northern cities. With its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico and its Hispanic heritage, Tallahassee offers its residents not only playgrounds but also a proud history.