Florida State University History in Tallahassee, Florida

Florida State University began with a state law of January 24, 1851, and its forerunner, the West Florida Seminary, opened in Tallahassee in 1857.

The FSU history page says a Legislative Act of January 24, 1851, provided for two seminaries of learning, one east and one west of the Suwannee River, on townships the federal government had reserved in 1825 and added to in 1845, and FSU News calls that date the university's official birthday. Tallahassee's first request to host the western school, a memorial to the 1854 Legislature, failed. In 1856 the Intendant (Mayor) of Tallahassee, Francis Eppes, a grandson of Thomas Jefferson, offered the city school's land and building again, and lawmakers accepted, citing the city's railway connections and its salubrious climate. The Governor signed the bill on January 1, 1857, and the seminary's Board of Education first met on February 7, 1857.

The state marker at the Westcott Building, placed in 1997 by the Florida Division of Historical Resources, says the city offered to donate four city lots and provide $2,000 a year, and that the site chosen was the crest of Gallows Hill, about a half mile west of the center of town. FSU's two accounts of the city school differ: the history page says that by 1854 the city had established a school for boys called the Florida Institute, while FSU Libraries says the school first opened in 1855 as the City Seminary, also called the Tallahassee Male Seminary, and was renamed the Florida Institute in 1856.

Eppes served as president of the seminary's board for eight years. The school became co-educational in 1858 by absorbing the Tallahassee Female Academy, begun in 1843 as the Misses Bates School, and its hill, where the Westcott Building now stands, has held an institution of higher education longer than any other site in Florida.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, by rereading FSU's history, About and Student Body pages, two 2026 FSU News features, the FSU Libraries brief history and University Bulletin, the Board of Governors profile of FSU and two Division of Historical Resources markers in Tallahassee.

During the Civil War the Tallahassee seminary became the Florida Military and Collegiate Institute, and its cadets fought at the Battle of Natural Bridge in 1865.

The FSU history page says classes were held at the West Florida Seminary from 1857 until 1863, when the Legislature changed the name to reflect a new military section that trained cadets. In 1865 cadets from the school, ranging in age from twelve to eighteen, fought at Natural Bridge and helped make Tallahassee the only Confederate capital east of the Mississippi not captured during the war. As a result, the page says, the FSU Army ROTC cadet corps is one of only three in the nation authorized to display a battle streamer, which reads NATURAL BRIDGE 1865.

The reprieve was short. After the war ended in 1865, FSU's history records, Union troops under General McCook occupied Tallahassee, including the campus buildings, for more than a month.

The Tallahassee school became Florida State College in 1901 and, after the Buckman Act of 1905, a women's college that took the name Florida State College for Women in 1909.

The first diplomas, Licentiates of Instruction, were awarded in 1884, and seven Bachelor of Arts degrees followed in 1891, according to the FSU history page. The first master's degree was offered in 1902, when the student body numbered 252 men and women. FSU News says the two-story, two-towered College Hall, built in 1891, stood until the Westcott Building replaced it in 1909. The 1903 catalogue, quoted by FSU, notes that the school had been organized in 1883 as the Literary College of the University of Florida and that an 1885 act giving it that title had never been repealed.

In 1905, FSU Libraries says, the Legislature passed the Buckman Act to reduce duplication among Florida's institutions of higher education, and Florida State College was renamed Florida Female College, a college exclusively for white women. The male students moved to Gainesville, taking the fraternity system and the football team, state champions in 1902, 1903 and 1905. The name changed to Florida State College for Women in 1909, and the history page says the college was fully accredited in 1915, grew into the third largest women's college in the nation in the 1930s, and in 1935 installed Alpha Chapter of Florida, the first chapter of Phi Beta Kappa in the state. Doak Campbell became president in 1941.

The 1997 state marker at the Westcott Building records the same sequence: Florida State College in 1901, Florida State College for Women in 1909, and a fully coeducational Florida State University created by the Legislature in 1947.

Returning World War II veterans needed classroom seats, so men came back to the Tallahassee campus in 1946 and the college became coeducational Florida State University on May 15, 1947.

The 2012 West Campus marker at Mabry Street and Ridgeway Street says the all-male University of Florida could not accommodate the veterans applying under the GI Bill, and that in September 1946 the Legislature authorized the Tallahassee Branch of the University of Florida, the first time male students attended FSCW since 1905. To house more than 500 men, FSCW bought land and buildings west of the main campus on the site of Dale Mabry Field, the city's first airport and a World War II Army Air Corps training field.

On May 15, 1947, the FSU history page says, the Governor signed the act returning Florida State College for Women to coeducational status as The Florida State University. The student body of 4,056 chose a new alma mater and the Seminole as its athletics symbol, the Flying High Circus began, and football returned with the first home game since 1905 that October. The first Student Union was housed in the O Club on West Campus, three miles west of the main campus, and Campbell Stadium was built three years later. FSU News adds that the graduating women of 1947 received diplomas bearing the names of both institutions.

FSU became a research university in Tallahassee through its first doctorate in 1952, integration in the 1960s and the arrival of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in 1990.

A chemistry student received the university's first Ph.D. in 1952, and Tully Gymnasium, Strozier Library and the Business Building opened that decade, according to the FSU history page. FSU News says FSU admitted its first Black students in 1962, when 12 students entered graduate-level classes, that Maxwell Courtney became the first Black student to earn an FSU undergraduate degree in August 1965, and that an integration statue was unveiled on Heritage Day 2004. In 1990, the same feature says, the National Science Foundation chose FSU over MIT as headquarters of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory.

A College of Medicine opened with 30 students in 2001 and moved into a 300,000-square-foot building on the northwest corner of the Tallahassee campus in 2004, the history page says. The University Bulletin lists the Marine Laboratory on the Gulf Coast, the FAMU and FSU College of Engineering facility, the MagLab and Division of Research at Innovation Park, and branch campuses in Panama City, Florida, and Panama City, Republic of Panama.

At 175, Florida State University enrolls 46,184 students in Tallahassee and its branches and is led by President Richard McCullough from the Westcott Building.

The figures below come from FSU's About FSU and Student Body pages as posted on October 18, 2026. FSU calls itself one of 12 public institutions in the State University System of Florida, coordinated by the Florida Board of Governors.

The Board of Governors lists FSU as founded in 1851, gives a rounded count of 46,000 students, 17 colleges and 275 programs, and lists the president's office at 211 Westcott Building; FSU's own page counts 274 degree programs. The 175th anniversary opened on January 21, 2026, with FSU Day at the Capitol and a celebration outside the Student Union, FSU News reported, three days before the official birthday of Jan. 24.