Tallahassee, the capital of Florida

Halfway between two towns

When Spain handed Florida to the United States in 1821, the new territory had two centers. Pensacola, in the far west, had been the capital of Spanish West Florida; St. Augustine, on the Atlantic coast, the capital of East Florida. The territorial government first sat in Pensacola, where the Legislative Council held its first session in July 1822. The next year it met in St. Augustine. Traveling between them meant a long, difficult journey by sea or through wilderness.

Governor William Pope DuVal decided that the capital should be somewhere in between. He sent two commissioners, John Lee Williams of Pensacola and Dr. William H. Simmons of St. Augustine, to find a site. In October 1823 they chose a spot in the rolling hills of north Florida called Tallahassee. DuVal proclaimed it the meeting place on March 4, 1824, and the third session of the Legislative Council met there in November 1824.

Log cabins to a domed Capitol

The government started out in log cabins. A small brick territorial capitol followed in 1826. Construction of a larger building began in 1839, and it was finished in 1845, the year Florida became a state.

In 1902 the architect Frank Milburn enlarged it, adding wings, a dome, a cupola and an art-glass inner dome. The top of the cupola stands 168 feet above the ground.

The tower and the protest

By the 1960s Florida’s government had outgrown the old building. In 1972 the state approved a new Capitol designed by Edward Durell Stone, a 22-story tower with legislative chambers at its base, and it was finished in 1977. The plan called for the old Capitol, standing directly in front of the tower, to be torn down.

Floridians objected. Public protest saved the building, and between 1978 and 1982 it was restored to its 1902 appearance, complete with its red-striped awnings and art-glass dome. It is now the Florida Historic Capitol Museum. On its grounds grows a magnolia raised from a cutting of the tree Andrew Jackson planted at the White House, and under its west steps a time capsule placed by the state’s sesquicentennial commission is due to be opened in 2045.

Tallahassee today

Tallahassee had about 205,000 residents in 2025, far smaller than Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa or Orlando. It is home to Florida State University and Florida A&M University. Its hills, live oaks and Spanish moss make it feel more like south Georgia than like the peninsula, and it is closer to Atlanta than to Miami.

Visiting

The Florida Historic Capitol Museum is free to visit. See the museum’s visitor page for hours.