Tally Back Then: The very early days of Florida State University

 

Tally Back Then: The very early days of Florida State University

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) - The history of the Capital City can’t be told without examining the role of higher learning in Tallahassee.

This week’s Tally Back Then travels back to the 1870s, where the first building of the West Florida Seminary is already a couple decades old.

The first building of the West Florida Seminary, now Florida State, seen from the modern day intersection of Park Avenue and Copeland Street.© Florida Memory

Tallahassee Historical Society’s Doug Smith said this building, located not far from where the Wescott Building stands today, was key in getting higher education in Tallahassee.

“The State didn’t have the money to build it, so Leon County built the building,” he said. “And this building is what helped them establish the College here, because they had a building.”

According to FSU’s own telling of its founding, Congress granted two townships for the use of two seminaries after accepting Florida as a state in 1845. One would be east of the Suwannee River, the other to the west.

A group stands on the steps of the first building at the West Florida Seminary in the 1880s.© Provided by Tallahassee-Thomasville WCTV

In 1856, Tallahassee Mayor (and grandson to Thomas Jefferson) Francis Eppes offered the state a location in the Capital City to build the West Seminary.

According to FSU, the legislature approved Tallahassee “because of its railway connections, its ‘salubrious climate’ and its ‘intelligent, refined, and moral community.’”

The West Florida Seminary would hold classes until 1863, before becoming the Florida Military and Collegiate Institute.