Tallahassee: Recreation

Sightseeing

Tallahassee offers the visitor a handsome vista of rolling hills, abundant trees, and an interesting variety of Southern architectural styles. The downtown district was formed according to the plan of William DuVal, governor of the Florida Territory. The major symbols of the state of Florida's government are its Old and New Capitol Buildings. The old Greek Revival-style 1845 building was expanded in 1902, with the addition of grand porticoes and a majestic dome. The New Capitol, erected in 1978, is an example of the "new classicism" style. A fifth-floor observation deck allows visitors to watch the legislature in session.

Within the Park Avenue Historic District, visitors can stroll along streets lined with graceful ante-bellum and turn-of-the-century homes, explore the Old City Cemetery, and enjoy the newly renovated city parks. The district's historic Knott House Museum is known as the "house that rhymes," for the poems attached to its Victorian era furnishings. The Calhoun Street Historic District, once termed "gold dust street" because of its wealthy residents, is home to the 1856 Brokaw-McDougall House and Gardens.

Other historic houses worth noting are the Governor's Mansion, patterned after Andrew Jackson's The Hermitage, and the LeMoyne Art Foundation, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Free tours are offered on the grounds of the Goodwood Plantation's house and gardens. Fine crystal, porcelain, and period furniture are among the collections of the Pebble Hill Plantation, which features gardens, a kennel, a fire house, a log cabin schoolhouse, and a cemetery. Nearby Alfred B. Maclay State Park displays flowers and shrubs in a setting of reflecting pools, bubbling fountains, and a natural lake.

Driving tours along the lush, moss-draped "Canopy Roads" of the region (so named for their arching trees overhead) include the Native Trail tour, which focuses on architectural history; the Cotton Trail, which traces the impact of the area's cotton trade; and the Quail Trail Tour, which highlights the ante-bellum hunting estates that dot the landscape.

The Museum of Florida History allows visitors to climb aboard a reconstructed steamboat, examine sunken treasures, and march to a Civil War musical beat. The Mission San Luis de Apalachee, site of the only reconstructed Spanish mission in Florida and a Native American village, offers ongoing excavations, exhibits, and living history demonstrations. Animals such as red wolves, Florida panthers, and alligators thrive on the 52 acres of the Tallahassee Museum of History and Natural Science, which offers a nature center, an 1880s farm, a child friendly Discovery Center, and special events throughout the year.

Fun and exploration in the world of science are the focus of the Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science. The Challenger Learning Center features a planetarium, IMAX theater, and programs for students K–12, featuring mission control and space station simulators. The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory on the Florida State University campus offers tours of its state-of-the-art facility where such high-tech procedures as magnetic resonance imaging and tests with semiconductors and super-conductors are performed.

Arts and Culture

Tallahassee's Civic Center and college auditoriums are the site for many musical and theatrical events throughout the year. The Tallahassee-Leon County Civic Center plays host to touring Broadway shows during its main September-through-March season. The renowned Florida State University (FSU) School of Theatre offers productions at its three facilities: the Mainstage, The Lab, and the Studio Theatre. The university's School of Music presents more than 400 concerts, recitals, and opera performances annually. FSU's Ruby Diamond Auditorium plays host to the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra, whose season, which includes a Masterworks Series and a holiday concert, runs from October through April. The Tallahassee Ballet Company, also housed at FSU's Ruby Diamond Auditorium, presents three major performances annually, and provides ballet lessons for the community. Florida A & M University hosts a variety of concerts in the Foster-Tanner Fine Arts Center recital hall. The Tallahassee Little Theatre produces a September-through-May season of offerings as well as its avant-garde "Coffeehouse Productions."

Festivals and Holidays

Tallahassee welcomes spring with March's Jazz and Blues Festival at the Tallahassee Museum of History and Natural Science, and the Springtime Tallahassee celebration, spanning dates in March and April. A parade kicks off the spring events, which include six stages of entertainment, and more than 250 food and craft vendors. The Flying High Circus, an actual circus found on the campus of Florida State University stages shows in Tallahassee during the first two weekends in April before moving to Callaway Gardens for the summer.

The spirit of the Renaissance inspires the Southern Shakespeare Festival, which culminates with a free performance of Shakespearean plays at Downtown Capitol Commons. July events include the area's largest fireworks display on July Fourth at Tom Brown Park, and the Swamp Stomp at the Museum of History and Natural Science, featuring guitar music in all its variety. Calypso rhythms and the smell of jerk chicken and salsa fill the air at the Caribbean Carnival, which takes place downtown during August.

The crafts and culture of the Seminole, Miccosukee, Creek, and Choctaw are the focus of the Native American Heritage Festival each September. The "World's Largest Free Fish Fry" lures visitors to the Florida Forest Festival in October. Autumn is also the time for the North Florida Fair with its livestock shows, performances, and carnival rides, and the Halloween Howl with its ghost stories and trick or treating on a circa-1800s farm. November brings Market Days at which 270 artists and craftspersons display their wares. The joys and lights of Christmas brighten up December's Winter Festival downtown, and at the Knott House Candlelight Tour. The early history of Tallahassee takes the spotlight at January's Hernando DeSoto Winter Encampment, which focuses on the Spanish and Apalachee cultures. In order to keep the Spanish speaking culture alive in Tallahassee, the North Florida Hispanic Association hosts a yearly Hispanic festival.

Sports for the Spectator

Although Tallahassee does not field any professional teams, watching college sporting events is very popular—so popular, in fact, that the city sponsors Downtown Get Downs, high spirited, themed block-parties, on most Friday nights preceding college home football games. The free events feature food vendors, live entertainment, arts and crafts, and more. Football, baseball, and other intercollegiate sports are played by the Florida State Seminoles and Florida A & M Rattlers.The Nike Tallahassee Open takes place in April at the Golden Eagle Country Club.

The Tallahassee Sports Council is involved in hosting multisport and community partnership events, such as the hosting NCAA basketball and tennis championships and the Sunshine State Games. The Sports Council also serves as agent to such local sports entities as the Tallahassee Soccer Association, the Amateur Sports Association, and the Center Classic.

Sports for the Participant

An undisturbed natural environment adds to the enjoyment of the many recreational resources in the area. In 2004, Tallahassee's Parks and Recreation Department won a Gold Medal Award from the National Recreation and Park Association, naming it the best in the country for cities with populations of 100,000 to 250,000 residents. The city has more than 2,700 acres of parkland. The popular St. Marks Trail, extending from Tallahassee south to the coast, is available to cyclists, skaters, hikers, and equestrians. The St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge is a popular eco-tourism attraction, with its undisturbed coastal marshes and a preserved lighthouse. A stretch of parks in the downtown area spans some five blocks. Several ocean beaches are less than seventy miles away, and Tallahassee has its own freshwater beaches. Lake Hall at Alfred B. Maclay State Park and Lake Bradford offer public beach access, swimming, boating, fishing and other water sports. Golfers can enjoy the city's several municipal and public courses as well as award-winning private courses. Three local parks provide lighted tennis courts.

Shopping and Dining

Downtown Tallahassee offers a collection of specialty and gift shops at Downtown Market Place on Park, where fine arts, crafts, authors, writers/poets, live jazz, chefs, historic chats, children's storytelling and a farmer's market can be enjoyed on Saturdays from March to November. The Tallahassee Mall boasts more than 90 specialty stores. Governor's Square is home to over 100 stores and restaurants, anchored by four full-line department stores, and a 500-seat Food Court. Bradley's 1927 County Store is renowned for homemade sausage and Southern goods and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Restaurant offerings in the city range from the international cuisines of France, Italy, and Thailand, to seafood in all its variety, classic American cooking, and steak and barbecues.

Visitor Information: Tallahassee Area Visitor Information Center, 106 East Jefferson Street (across from City Hall); telephone (850)413-9200 or (800)628-2866; fax (850)487-4621; email vic@mail.co.leon.fl.us

Tallahassee: History

Early Settlements of Tallahassee

As long ago as 10,000 B.C., Native Americans lived in the Red Hills of Tallahassee where they constructed temple mounds on the shores of what is now Lake Jackson (six of the mounds are preserved at Lake Jackson Mounds State Archaeological Site). Prior to the coming of the Europeans, Tallahassee had gained importance as a village of more than 30,000 people. The Apalachee tribes, who lived there from about 500 B.C. through the 1600s, were farmers. They developed impressive works of pottery, which were traded as far away as the Great Lakes. Remains of their communities can be observed at the city's Museum of Florida History. Although the Spanish explorer Narvaez visited the region in 1628, the first important exploration by Europeans took place in 1539, when Hernando de Soto and hundreds of Spanish settlers and soldiers came and held the first Christmas celebration in the New World. By 1607, almost wiped out by diseases brought by the Europeans, many of the Apalachee left, earning the area the name Tallahassee, or "abandoned fields." The Apalachee who remained accepted the Christian faith, and nearly twenty missions were established in what later became Leon County. In 1704, after almost a century of peaceful co-existence, both the Spanish and the Apalachee were forced to flee from the area after an attack by Colonel James Moore of South Carolina and his Creek allies.

In 1739, encouraged by the Spaniards, who wanted to restore their foothold in the area, members of the Seminole tribe established towns and nearby farms. Following a brief period of British rule, the Spaniards again took charge of the area in 1783. General Andrew Jackson, soon to become governor of West Florida, banished the Seminoles in 1818, who by then were demonstrating resistance to growing American influence.

Tallahassee Becomes Territorial, Then State Capital

The U.S. Territory of Florida was established in 1821, and the Territorial Legislature decided to found its new capital mid-way between St. Augustine and Pensacola, at the site of present-day Tallahassee. The area quickly gained a reputation as a rather lawless place where gunfire and knife duels were not uncommon. To bring law and order to the citizenry, the Tallahassee Police Department was established. Within a short time, a plantation economy developed around Tallahassee, which became part of the agricultural central region of Florida. Territorial Governor William P. DuVal laid out the city in 1824. By 1837, a rail line connected Tallahassee with its Gulf of Mexico port, St. Marks, and Tallahassee had become the commercial and social center for the region.

Early settlers faced difficult times with Indian attacks, a yellow fever epidemic, bank failures, hurricanes, and a terrible downtown fire. Despite these obstacles, by 1845 Tallahassee had become the capital of Florida, with government playing an ever more important role in the city's development.

The City in the Civil War

In 1861, as part of the Confederacy, Florida seceded from the Union and Tallahassee was one of the sites where important battles were fought. Defended only by old men and young boys, the city was able to stave off a Union attack in 1865 at the Battle of Natural Bridge, the only Confederate capital east of the Mississippi to avoid capture.

Union leader Edward M. McCook took over governance of the city in 1865, and on May 20th read the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves. While some African Americans moved to the city, most remained in rural areas working as tenant farmers.

Education began to attain prominence in Tallahassee around the mid-nineteenth century. In 1854, a school for boys was founded which later became Florida State University. The Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University was founded in 1884, the state's first institution for African Americans.

Post Civil War, Twentieth-Century Developments

Wealthy Northerners discovered the area in the 1870s and 1880s, and former cotton estates were bought up and turned into hunting retreats. Prompted by the concerns of plantation owners over the potential loss of the native quail population, Tall Timber Research Station was established in the 1920s, and soon became an international groundbreaker in the study of ecological issues. In 1929 Dale Mabry Air Field opened, and commercial aviation was first brought to the area. During the 1930s nearly 100 new buildings were constructed in Tallahassee and Leon County as a result of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs.

By the twentieth century, government and education had replaced agriculture as the chief industries in Tallahassee. During the early part of the century, hotels and boarding houses developed to accommodate the growing number of legislators in the city. In an effort at beautification, hundreds of oaks and dogwood trees were planted. During the decade of the 1940s Tallahassee grew by nearly two-thirds, going from a population of nearly 32,000 people to a population of 52,000 people.

By the 1960s the dogwood had become the symbol of Tallahassee, and an annual parade and celebration called "Springtime Tallahassee" was initiated. The 1960s also saw the integration of the city's schools and the founding of Tallahassee Community College. A new Capital Complex was constructed and dedicated in 1978, and Tallahassee's new civic center opened in 1981.

Tallahassee's 1999 designation by the National Civic League as an All America City (AAC) was described by Mayor Scott Maddox as "clearly one of the most exciting things to ever happen to Tallahassee. . . . [It] verifies what we've known for so long—that we have one of the greatest cities in all of America." The Tallahassee Boys' Choir was one of the community projects that led to the AAC honor; the others were the Community Human Services Partnership, a joint human services funding program from the city, Leon County, and the United Way, and Kleman Plaza, a cornerstone of downtown development and revitalization.

Today's Tallahassee shares little of what brings many tourists to Florida, besides its weather. With no beaches, bays, oceanfront high-rises, cruise ship terminals, or theme parks, a slower pace seems to resound in Tallahassee, which is more a town of old-south charm than that of booming tourism.

Historical Information: Black Archives Research Center and Museum, Historic Carnegie Library/FAMU Campus, off Martin Luther King Blvd. and Gamble St; telephone (850)599-3020

Tallahassee: Economy

Major Industries and Commercial Activity

Government is the central focus of Tallahassee's economy, although education, printing and publishing, food processing, and the lumber industry play important roles as well. As Florida's state capital, Tallahassee enjoys a stable economy and a comparatively low unemployment rate. A recent survey of occupations and industries found a wide variety of employment sectors.

Tallahassee is a high technology center and is sometimes referred to as "Silicon Valley South." Institutions such as Innovation Park/Tallahassee, affiliated with Florida A&M University and Florida State University, and Smart Park, a privately owned 130-acre fiber-optic research center, place Tallahassee on the cutting edge of technology. The city boasts that it is the most wired community in the country.

Items and goods produced: pulpwood, pine extracts, insecticides, pre-stressed concrete, lumber, boats, feed

Incentive Programs—New and Existing Companies

Local programs

Local city and county governments and the Tallahassee Area Chamber of Commerce have joined together to form the Economic Development Council, which works toward promoting a diversified economy that continues to grow and create more jobs and business opportunities for both new and existing industries. In 2004, the Chamber announced the creation of Action 2010, to promote Tallahassee as a center of art and culture, while expanding local business areas.

State programs

Enterprise Florida, Inc. is a partnership between Florida's government and business leaders and is the principal economic development organization for the state of Florida. Enterprise Florida's mission is to increase economic opportunities for all Floridians, by supporting the creation of quality jobs, a well-trained workforce, and globally competitive businesses. It pursues this mission in cooperation with its statewide network of economic development partners.

Job training programs

The Workforce Development Board (WDB), commonly known as Jobs & Education Partnership, is a part of Enterprise Florida, Inc. WDB provides policy, planning, and oversight for job training programs funded under the new federal Workforce Investment Act (WIA), formerly Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), along with vocational training, adult education, employment placement, and other workforce programs administered by a variety of state and local agencies. Regional Workforce Development Boards operate under charters approved by the Workforce Development Board. The 24 regional boards have primary responsibility for direct services through a statewide network of One-Stop Career systems. State and local workforce development efforts are concentrated on three broad initiatives: First Jobs/First Wages focuses on preparing workers for entry-level employment including the School-to-Work and WAGES (Work and Gain Self-Sufficiency) programs; High Skill/High Wages targets the higher skills needs of employers and training workers for advancement including Performance Based Incentive Funding (PBIF), Occupational Forecasting Conference/ Targeted Occupations, Quick Response Training (QRT), and Incumbent Worker Training (IWT); One-Stop Career Centers are the central elements of the One-Stop system for providing integrated services to employers, workers, and job-seekers.

Development Projects

In 2005, planning began for a large community performing arts center. Several hotel and condo developments are also scheduled to begin, including the delayed Marriott Civic Center hotel, condo and convention center project.

Economic Development Information: The Economic Development Council of Tallahassee/Leon County, Inc., 100 N. Duval, PO Box 1639, Tallahassee, FL 32302; telephone (850)224-8116, fax (850)561-3860. Michael Parker, Director, City of Tallahassee Economic Development Department, 300 South Adams Street, Tallahassee, FL 32301; telephone (850)891-8625; email parkerm@talgov.com

Commercial Shipping

Tallahassee is served by 13 motor freight carriers, as well as several package delivery services.

Labor Force and Employment Outlook

Tallahassee businesses have access to a labor force in which more than 41 percent of working adults hold college degrees. Inc. magazine has ranked Tallahassee among the "Best Small Metro Areas to start and grow a business." In 2002, Forbes magazine listed Tallahassee as one of the Best Places for Business and Careers. The fastest growing business sectors are telecommunications, computer hardware vendors, software developers, and trade associations.

The following is a summary of data regarding the Talahassee metropolitan area labor force, 2003 annual averages.

Size of nonagricultural labor force: 158,600

Number of workers employed in . . .

construction and mining: 7,300

manufacturing: 3,600

trade, transportation and utilities: 22,200

information: 3,800

financial activities: 7,200

professional and business services: 17,600

educational and health services: 16,200

leisure and hospitality: 13,100

other services: 7,600

government: 60,100

Average hourly earnings of production workers employed in manufacturing: $14.09 (2003 statewide average)

Unemployment rate: 2.7% (December 2004)

Cost of Living

The following is a summary of data regarding several key cost of living factors for the Tallahassee area.

2004 (3rd Quarter) ACCRA Average House Price: $261,680

2004 (3rd Quarter) ACCRA Cost of Living Index: 101.4 (U.S. average = 100.0)

State income tax rate: None

State sales tax rate: 6.0%

Local income tax rate: None

Local sales tax rate: 1.5

Property tax rate: 3.2 mills per $100 of assessed valuation

Economic Information: Tallahassee Area Chamber of Commerce, 100 N. Duval, PO Box 1639, Tallahassee, FL 32302; telephone (850)224-8116

TALLAHASSEE

TALLAHASSEE , Florida's capital city, about 160 miles west of Jacksonville in north Florida. The earliest record of a Jew in Tallahassee is 1837 when Raphael Jacob Moses had a store. By 1860 Tallahassee had 15 Jews, according to the American Israelite. Three were merchants, two were harness makers, and two were bookkeepers. After the Civil War (1865), Robert Williams and his wife Helena Dzialynski of Jacksonville moved to Tallahassee from nearby Jasper. Williams bought a store, and started three cotton plantations. A traditional Jew, Robert Williams provided the Torah and was civically active as well. The couple had five daughters and all of them found Jewish spouses. In 1877 when Rachelle Williams married Jacob Raphael Cohen of Orlando, a rabbi was brought from Charleston, South Carolina, and Jews from throughout the south attended. Henrietta married Tallahassee merchant Julius Diamond and their daughter Ruby Diamond was born in 1886. She graduated from Florida State College for Women (now fsu) in 1905 with a B.A. in chemistry. Miss Ruby was a legend in her lifetime, Florida's "Miss Daisy." Another daughter, Mena, was the first Miss Florida in 1885.

William Levy, who arrived in 1872, operated a store. In his memory, his wife Sarah gave the property for Temple Israel's first building (1937). Jacob Burkeim and his wife came in 1873 and two years later Jacob started a Sunday school. In March 1878, a Purim Ball was held when there were nine Jewish families and nine single men in town. Alfred Wahnish of Morocco and his wife Carrie came to Tallahassee in the 1880s. He began a 3,600-acre tobacco plantation; today there is a Wahnish Way (street) that designates the site. One of the Wahnishes six children was Sam, president of the American Legion and the Elks, who was elected mayor of Tallahassee in 1939. By the 1890s two lots were designated for Jewish burial in the Old City Cemetery and the Hebrew Benevolent Society was founded (1896). Peddler Sam Mendelson of Romania settled in Tallahassee with his wife Jennie and four children around 1910 because "it was a larger town than Miami." Sam was the founding president of Temple Israel in 1937. Jews living in outlying towns such as Quincy, Live Oak, Monticello, and Perry were mostly involved in dry goods stores or growing tobacco and were closely tied to the Jews living in Tallahassee. The Fleets and Mendelsons are examples of Live Oak Jewish families from 1903 who had some members settle in Tallahassee in later years. In the early 1920s Hyman Myers was a fur and hide trader who also sold pecans and scrap metal. Rose Printing, established in 1932 by Sam and Fannye Rosenberg, is one of the largest specialty printers and book manufacturers in the southeast. Albert Block who married Evelyn Rosenberg, the founders' daughter, was one of the fathers of the state's Minimum Foundation Program guaranteeing a basic level of education for every Florida school child and helped develop the state's community college system.

David Sholtz of Daytona Beach was inaugurated in Tallahassee as Florida's 26^th governor on January 3, 1933. He had served in the legislature in 1917 and to date is the only Jew to have served as governor of Florida.

In the early days religious services were held in the Masonic Temple.

Temple Israel was founded in 1937 when Tallahassee's population was 16,000 with fewer than 30 Jewish families. Rabbi Max Eichorn was engaged for Temple Israel and for the 100 female students on the campus of FSCW. In 1939, there was a front-page story in the local paper, "The Grand Lodge of Florida Masons yesterday laid the cornerstone of the first Jewish place of worship to be built here."

B'nai B'rith Lodge 1043 was founded in 1938. The first Jewish cemetery in Tallahassee was established in 1942. During the ww ii period, Tallahassee Jewry hosted Jewish soldiers from military bases in the area.

After World War ii, Tallahassee grew quickly. Drawn by state government, universities, and the military, the Jewish population also expanded. Shopping in downtown Tallahassee in the 1950s, you could find many "Mom and Pop" Jewish businesses – Turners, Fleets, Mendelsons. and Gilbergs. Groundbreaking for Temple Israel's religious school building was in 1955. Albert B. Block donated the site and Rabbi Stanley Garfein served the congregation for 30 years beginning in the late 1960s. In the 1950s and 1960s Jews were involved in the Civil Rights movement and in anti-discrimination legislation. Gene Berkowitz served as mayor twice (1968 and 1972) and was instrumental in laying the groundwork for the Civic Center. Many Jews throughout Florida have been elected to state government, moved to Tallahassee, and become active in the Jewish community. Richard Stone was secretary of state from 1972 to 1974. He and his wife, Marlene, strongly supported and encouraged Jewish community life. Florida State University also brought many Jews to the community; for a quarter century Richard L. *Rubenstein, the post-Holocaust theologian who authored the controversial work After Auschwitz, made Tallahassee his home.

The Jewish population has grown with Jewish faculty at Florida State University and state government. In 2005 Tallahassee, a city of 151,000, had a Jewish population of approximately 4,400. It supports three congregations: Temple Israel (Reform with about 360 families), Shomrei Torah (Conservative) and Chabad; Hillel and several Jewish organizations: National Council of Jewish Women, Hadassah, and B'nai B'rith. Since the Tallahassee Jewish Federation's inception in the 1980s, the Ruby Diamond Foundation has been the single largest contributor to its campaigns.

[Marcia Jo Zerivitz (2^nd ed.)]

Tallahassee: Education and Research

Elementary and Secondary Schools

The Leon County School District offers programs in education for the gifted, physically and emotionally handicapped, and homebound, as well as programs in vocational education, special education, adult job preparation, and adult general education. Leon County students continue to score higher than students state-wide and nationally on the Scholastic Achievement Test.

The following is a summary of data regarding the Leon County School District as of the 2003–2004 school year.

Total enrollment: 31,857

Number of facilities

elementary schools: 24

junior high/middle schools: 7

combination schools: 3

senior high schools: 6

other: 2 charter and 9 other

Student/teacher ratio: 18.6

Teacher salaries

average: $39,117

Funding per pupil: $3,485

Public Schools Information: Superintendent, Leon County School District, 2757 W. Pensacola St., Tallahassee, FL 32304; telephone (850)487-7100

Colleges and Universities

Florida State University, with its more than 38,000 students, is known for its science program, performing arts curricula, and super computing; it recently added a new School of Computational Science and Information Technology. Florida A & M University, founded in 1888 as a primarily African American institution, has more than 9,000 students; it has received acclaim for its business, pharmacy, and engineering schools, as well as for being home of the high-stepping Marching 100 Band. Tallahassee Community College serves 10,000 students, most of whom are in the associates-in-arts transfer program.

Tallahassee is also the site of the Lively Technical Center, one of ten centers for electronic excellence in the state, offering entry-level training in disciplines such as electronics, drafting, aircraft maintenance, and computer service. Keiser College, a private college, provides associate and bachelor degree programs in such fields as criminal justice, business administration and culinary arts

Libraries and Research Centers

LeRoy Collins Leon County Public Library maintains six branches housing nearly 319,000 volumes. The library offers a Tech/Media Section with a computer laboratory, books-on-tape, CD-ROMs, and a large video collection. Special features are its Youth Services section, Consumer Center, Map Resource Center, and Grants Information area. The library provides Tallahassee FreeNet, a free community internet provider that offers instruction and support.

The city of Tallahassee boasts more than 40 special and research libraries affiliated with educational institutions, state agencies, and private companies. Governmental libraries cover such subjects as environmental protection, agriculture, commerce, legal affairs, transportation, medical services, and public service.

Research centers affiliated with Florida State University (FSU) cover such topics as European politics, aquatic research, biomedical toxicology, environmental hazards, marine biology, neuroscience, communication science, computing, weather, insurance, management, real estate, population studies, and education. FSU's National High Magnetic Field Laboratory is one of the nation's newest high-tech laboratories for scientific research and engineering. Florida A & M University researches areas such as anti-inflammatory drugs, space life sciences, computers, transit, and child development.

Other research centers in the city include Tall Timbers Research Station, dedicated to protecting wildlands and preserving natural habitats; the Dyslexia Research Institute; and institutions that study conflict resolution, government, taxation, family services, and archeology.

Public Library Information: LeRoy Collins Leon County Public Library, 200 West Park Avenue, Tallahassee, FL 32301-7720; telephone (850)487-2665