Frontier Tallahassee

Frontier Tallahassee. Cascades Park. Early in its history, Tallahassee could be considered a rough-and-tumble place. Knives and dueling competitions settled disputes, while trash and vagrants shared the streets. Ralph Waldo Emerson called it a "grotesque place rapidly settled by public officers, land speculators and desperadoes" based on descriptions from Prince Achille Murat, the exiled nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte and one of the area’s colorful residents., Mayor Francis Eppes, grandson of Thomas Jefferson, established the first police force, city jail and garbage collection service. Local citizens organized churches and schools. As the population grew, pastimes such as horse racing, playhouses and medieval jousting tournaments softened the town's rough edges., Tension and tragedy also shaped the town. During the Second Seminole War, citizens stationed sentinels and barricaded the Capitol with cotton bales. In 1841, a yellow fever epidemic killed one quarter of the city's population. Two years later, fire consumed most of the business district. Despite these hardships, the residents recovered and rebuilt, and in 1845, Florida became the 27th state. By 1860, Tallahassee's reputation was that of a genteel and prosperous southern capital., The prime meridian marker, on the plaza of Cascades Park, is the beginning point for all land surveys in Florida and was the southeast corner of the original city boundary. Early residents enjoyed picnics and outings at the waterfalls that gave this park its name., (Captions) , Residential street in Tallahassee. State Archives of Florida, This 1824 plan of the city shows a creek running south along Gadsden Street then west. The cascades fell near where the creek crosses the unmarked street north of Lewis Street. State Archives of Florida