Self-Guided Tours of Tallahassee

Highlights:

• Old Fort Braden School,the most important educational facility in western Leon County for many years. Built to consolidate the area's many one-room school houses.
• The Historic Capitol building, a Greek revival structure with a copper dome and a bas relief panel depicting the old state seal of Florida.
• Chaires Historic District, by the turn of the 20th century Chaires was a commercial hub with a cotton gin and packinghouse, public schools, stores and churches. Today, Chaires retains much of its turn-of-the-century character.

We encourage all participants to upload photos to social media with the hashtag #HistoryinyourHands

Highlights:

• John G. Riley Center, the only African-American historic house in downtown Tallahassee and among the last original remnants of Smokey Hollow.
• The Carnegie Library at FAMU, is the oldest brick building on the FAMU campus and the first Carnegie Library to be built on a black land-grant college campus.
• Union Bank, the oldest surviving financial building in Florida.

Highlights:

• Soul Voices #1 Frenchtown Had it All Historical Way Marker, the only African-American historic house in downtown Tallahassee and among the last original remnants of Smokey Hollow.
• Red Bird Café, the Red Bird Café on Macomb Street was a thriving hub for music in the early 20th century, especially booming from the 1920s through the 1950s.
• The Capitol Theater

Highlights:

• Myers Park, William P. DuVal, Florida’s first territorial governor, became one of the earliest U.S. property owners in Myers Park when he purchased a large tract of land in 1827. DuVal’s house was located where the tennis courts of Myers Park now stand.
• The Quail Trail, the abundance of bob white a quail made this area a popular winter hunting retreat, for wealthy Northerners. For the most part, the hunting estates are self-contained with little evidence of their existence visible from the road. Today, thousands of acres of Leon County land remain in these estates.
• The Cotton Trail, there was a time when cotton in Leon County was king of the cotton produced in Florida. Most residents worked the land, by 1860 making the county Florida's leader in cotton, corn, sugarcane, sweet potatoes and other crops.

Highlights:

• Jackson Bluff Dam, in 1927 the Jackson Bluff Dam was constructed on the Ochlockonee River to produce hydroelectric power. The waters held back by the dam form Lake Talquin.
• Caroline Brevard Elementary School, was built to accommodate Tallahassee's rapid growth after World War I. Caroline M. Brevard, the granddaughter of Florida’s Territorial Governor Richard Keith Call and Judge Theodore W. Brevard, the namesake of Brevard County. Caroline M. Brevard graduated from Columbia University, wrote a textbook on Florida history, and taught at the Florida State College for Women and Leon High School.
• The Grove, also known as the Call-Collins House, The Grove was built sometime around 1840. For more information visit: The Grove Museum