An early look at celebration plans as Tallahassee turns 200 next year

Tallahassee was chosen as the capital of Florida in spring 1824 because it was a halfway point between the two territorial seats of Pensacola and St. Augustine.

Fast forward two centuries as plans to celebrate the bicentennial milestone will begin to take shape over the next 11 months as local governments and organizations put their heads together.

“We’ve got to tell the story of Tallahassee and the history. It’s not only about reflecting, but also looking forward and envisioning the next 200 years,” Leon County’s Director of Tourism Kerri Post said. “There’s already a lot of conversations and ideas happening.”

The vision in celebrating 200 years of all things Tallahassee is to have one event each month during 2024 focused on the anniversary.

The kickoff event will be on New Year's Eve at Cascades Park.

Post said not only have organizers been looking at what was done for Tallahassee’s centennial celebration in 1924, but also at what other cities have done. She helped in celebrating Pensacola and St. Augustine’s 450-year anniversaries, in 2009 and 2013, and with the 500-year celebration of Florida’s European discovery in 2013.

The efforts in celebrating Tallahassee are cohesive and unified, she said, incorporating the business, government, educational and faith-based groups that make up the fabric of the city.

Already the Tallahassee Historical Society has developed its 18-member committee packed with historians, records- and archive-keepers and preservationists. A committee spearheaded by Leon County’s tourism office is beginning to materialize.

By the end of the month, said Post, the steering committee will convene and specifically focused task forces will be established to tackle everything form programming and events to education and community outreach. Each will begin meeting monthly starting in February.

Currently, a logo and website are in development and the steering committee, established in November, is growing and looking to include as much input from the community as possible.

“We’re officially ready to kick off. This is the year to start developing and putting the plans together,” Post said. “We’ll be building the plane while we’re flying.”

The steering committee established under the tourism office will include members from the county, the city, Leon County Schools, three chambers of commerce, the Council on Culture and Arts, the Florida Historic Capitol Museum, Tallahassee’s three higher education schools, the Riley House, the Knight Creative Communities Initiative and the Tallahassee Historical Society.

Most of the planning should be completed by the end of summer with budget presentations ready to go before elected officials by the end of the fiscal year in October. Already, the county has dedicated $50,000 to the effort, which will mostly go toward getting planning efforts off the ground.

Post said she anticipated the 2024 Tourism Event Grants, which organizations can begin applying for in June, will have a bicentennial element included.

Ideas to hold performances have been floated from organizations such as Opening Nights, the Tallahassee Symphony and Theater with a Mission. Post said there is also a proposal to recreate a centennial celebration icon — a replica of the original log cabin Florida Capitol built — an ideas for a time capsule.

The Tallahassee Historical Society has also been busy at work.

Since 2020, its members have been meeting monthly, crafting their strategy on how best to celebrate an exciting milestone.

What it landed on, said historical society president Bob Holladay, is four specific projects and a focus on the city’s territorial period between 1821 when Florida was bought from Spain and 1824 when it became a state.

Their plans include a speakers symposium including discussion with historical scholars, a children’s history booklet for distribution around the region, a series of public performances and reenactments and adding 10 historic markers around town.

Holladay said the hope is reserve one for each culture important to Tallahassee, European, African-American and Native American.

Applications to the state have been submitted for several markers. They include:

• A marker representing the founding of Tallahassee in Cascades Park.

• Robert Butler, the first surveyor general of Florida who set the prime meridian in Cascades Park and laid out the initial city of Tallahassee.

• The Belair Community, set up by elite families off Woodville Highway before the Civil War as a summer escape from yellow fever.

• Father James Page, an enslaved person brought to Tallahassee in 1827 by the Parkhill Family. He entered into an agreement that gave him the ability to travel in North Florida and South Georgia to establish baptist churches. Page is the founder of the Bethel Missionary Baptist Church.

The bicentennial will happen in the midst of several significant events: the lingering coronavirus pandemic, a presidential race in which Florida’s governor has signaled he may run and a litany of societal changes since the last milestone celebration, the sesquicentennial in 1974.

“Tallahassee is not a large town, a couple hundred thousand people,” Holladay said. “It is the capital of the third-largest state in the union and the fastest growing state in the union. This is a very big deal indeed. We have had to look at things fundamentally different and stress the inclusion of all the groups that have been marginalized for so very long to make sure everybody gets an equal part in this.”

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: What the city is planning for Tallahassee's bicentennial celebration