Changing Tallahassee: Then and Now

An interesting comparison of 1949 and 2016 aerials illustrating the impact of time and change on the shape of Florida's capital city: Tallahassee.

Florida A&M University The Bond community and Florida A&M University (FAMU) in 1949. The Bond community dates back to the 1920s when blueberry farmer Benjamin J. Bond started selling land in the area to African-Americans at an affordable price. One of the largest historically black universities in the country, FAMU was founded on October 3, 1887. Today, FAMU is home to 10,000 students and its campus covers 420 acres.

Florida State University In 1949, the campus of Florida State University (FSU) was still largely east of Woodard Avenue. Prior to the construction of Stadium Drive, a railroad line was used to deliver coal to FSU’s heating plant. Abandoned entirely in the 1990s, the former railroad bed is now the Stadium Drive Bike Trail.

Dale Mabry Field/Tallahassee Community College In 1928, Tallahassee’s first municipal airport opened 3.4 miles west of the city. Named in honor of Tallahassee native Army Captain Dale Mabry, the airport was used as a fighter training base by the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. After the war, its barracks were used by male students attending the Florida State College for Women. After the college was rebranded as Florida State University, in 1947, the areas of the airport used by the school were referred to as the West Campus. After the airport’s 1961 closure, due to encroachment of new development, a large portion of the land was redeveloped into the campus of Tallahassee Community College (TCC) in 1967. Now reporting more than 20,000 undergraduates,