Entering the 20th Century

Entering the 20th Century. Cascades Park. In the early 20th century, Leon County became more urban as tenant farmers moved to town and increased Tallahassee's population. City life offered steady employment and modern conveniences, including telephones, electric lights and rail service. , , , , , . , During the Florida land boom of the 1920s, Tallahassee annexed more than two dozen neighborhoods, nearly doubling the city's size. Tallahassee also gained its first "skyscraper” the six-story Exchange Building, as well as a golf course and the Dale Mabry Air Base., Dozens of new buildings and more than 10 miles of paved streets were added during the Great Depression as a result of the stable state economy due to New Deal programs. The city also completed a sewer system and added numerous playgrounds, parks and schools. , Cascades Park was used for a variety of different purposes in the early 20th century. It held the city utilities, the county jail and Centennial Field, a baseball field built in 1924 to commemorate Tallahassee's 100th anniversary. The field served as the city's arena for sports and civic activities. To its south, a landfill obliterated the historic cascades sinkhole, and during the Depression, hobos camped near the railroad tracks. , , By the 1950s, the utilities moved to other locations. Centennial Field was demolished in 1974, and contamination left by the utilities forced closure of the original Cascades Park. , (Captions) , The Exchange Building, with its six stories, was Tallahassee's first skyscraper. , State Archives of Florida , , Sanitation employees stand in front of the old incinerator building in 1937; this was one of many structures that stood here before Cascades Park. State Archives of Florida , , Postcards top to bottom: , View of Jefferson Street showing opera house, court house and the market. State Archives of Florida , , By the 1920s, women were included at the Tallahassee Golf Club, but African Americans were not. State Archives of Florida