Attractions in Tallahassee, Florida. Creature from the Black Lagoon and Tarzan were both filmed at Wakulla Springs in Tallahassee, Florida. The State Capital Building is in itself an attraction because it's...
The State Capital Building is in itself an attraction because it's tallest building in town. It has at least 24 stories, so on a clear day you can see all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Wakulla Springs is, I believe, the second largest fresh water spring in the world. It's a swimming hole and nature preserve. They have jungle boat rides down the river on glass bottom boats to see alligators and snakes. Creature from the Black Lagoon was filmed there as well as a couple of the original Johnny Wise Miller Tarzan movies because of the unique jungle type nature of the springs. It's pretty amazing place. You can see a big cavern where they found mastodon bones as well. We've got a very unique Antique Car Museum with much more than cars. It's owned by a private collector who has everything from old spark plug collections to outboard motor boat engines. There are baby bottles, baseball cards, and several unique pieces. It's pretty interesting. We have a few unique archaeological sites as well. We have some Indian mounds and an old Spanish mission, the Mission St. Louie. The Spaniards settled this area starting at St. Augustine. African American history is predominant here with Florida A&M University. We have black archives at A&M in addition to some unique sites around town. The Riley House Museum is a historical site for the Riley family. It's quite unique. The Brogan Museum is an arts and science traveling exhibits from the Smithsonian. The Florida Museum of History is located here since we are the state capital. The exhibits are quite extensive including a full mastodon skeleton and a stuffed Florida panther.
For the kids, the Tallahassee Museum of History and Natural Science is one of our oldest museums. It has outdoor boardwalks through an old swamp adjacent to a lake with naturally occurring animals like alligators and deer, as well as occasional exhibits of zoo animals like tigers and monkeys. We have old school houses and plantation homes to see how people used to live. They used to extract cane sugar and turpentine out of the trees in the area. We also have the Challenger Learning Center with a planetarium, an IMAX theater, and a space simulator where you can control the settings, launch the ship, and dock in space. There are simulations of actual space challenges. It's a great attraction for kids.
In just the past couple of years we've opened a semi-private golf course (pay and play) called the South Wood Golf Club in the St. Joe Paper Company Community. St. Joe is a timber company and the largest landowner in the State of Florida besides the state itself. The Freddie Couples-Jean Bates is a course at the club. Freddie Couples is the golf pro and Jean Bates is the architect. It has been ranked as one of the top ten new courses in Florida. Availability is very good here because of our population base. We are not swarmed. We have busy, peak seasons obviously when the students are here and when the legislatures here in the spring. Football season in the fall typically has sellout weekends. We have been very fortunate here to be insulated from some of the ups and downs of the tourism economy of post 9/11. We don't depend on the international flights crowds like South Beach and Orlando do. We are predominantly a drive market for regional events, plus the state government operates here and we have the university located here.
Outdoors activities are a huge part of our community. The National Recreation and Parks Association named us one of the best areas in the country. We have strong support and good programs for adults and kids like baseball, softball, and flag football. When people think of Florida they think we are flat and sandy like central and south Florida. We are actually in the foothills of the Appalachians. We have some hilly red clay terrain that's good for cross-country running, riding, or jogging.
