The Tallahassee Museum doesn’t look like your typical museum with brick walls and marble floors.  Instead, the Museum, which is situated on 52 acres in southwest Tallahassee, offers an outdoor adventure, complete with history lessons and a wild Florida escape.

History of The Big Bend Farm at the Museum

One of the highlights of the Tallahassee Museum is the Big Bend Farm. The farm sits at the heart of the museum grounds and provides a glimpse of what life would have been like for a small family in the Big Bend region of Florida in the 1800s.

The farmhouse itself was built in the 1880s after the original house burned down. From its design to its placement on the farm, everything is done with a purpose.  Walls facing the north had no windows and were meant to absorb the winter winds. The large porches helped with air flow, and the raised foundation discouraged animals from entering the structure.

The stand-alone kitchen, just off to the side of the house, provided easy access to cooking but kept the heat out of the main house. Having the kitchen separate could also save the house from burning if the kitchen caught fire. Both structures came from different farms in the area. On the day of our visit, we talked to a volunteer who told us she plays 1880s housewife every Saturday. On this day, she made a batch of cookies, but we were too late to taste them!

Besides the farmhouse and kitchen, other structures included a potato house, buggy house, outhouse, smokehouse, corn crib, chicken house, barn, and sugar cane mill. All the buildings were laid out in a circle to allow homesteaders a view of what was going on around them.  The structures come from farms in Calhoun, Liberty, and Wakulla counties.

Historic Community

On the opposite side of the entrance, a historic community is laid out featuring a plantation house, church, and one-room school house, each one carefully moved and restored to tell its own piece of Florida’s story.

Bellevue Plantation is a stately home with white columns and an expansive front porch. Originally a cotton plantation covering 520 acres, the Bellevue Plantation was purchased by Catherine Willis Murat in 1854, who owned it until her death in 1867. A walk inside reveals some of the original furnishings along with replicas of what could have been in a home like the Bellevue. History plaques are placed throughout the building and tell the story of the home and its owners. From the 19th Century Parlor, to the Bed Chamber, to a display of a homespun woven tapestry, and other items, guests are given a first-hand look at life in the 1800s.

The detached kitchen is not original to the plantation but is set up like others from the era – away from the main house.

Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church, established in 1851, is the first regularly organized black church in the State of Florida. Standing inside this house of worship, one can only imagine the hymns sung in the pews and the sermons preached from the pulpit. Although this is not the original church, it was rebuilt using many of the church’s original hand-hewn timbers. The burial ground behind the church is separate from the original cemetery and was once part of Tallahassee’s Old City Cemetery, where African Americans were buried until 1937.

Concord Schoolhouse, a tiny one-room schoolhouse built in 1897 for African American children living in the small town of Miccosukee in Leon County. The school was heated with a wood stove and lighting was provided through the building’s long windows. Its growth into one of the five largest rural schools for African American children in the county gave it the opportunity to have an assistant teacher. Desks were set up in rows facing the front of the classroom and its large chalkboard.  On the day of our visit, the school was the showplace for artwork from Pineview Elementary School in Leon County.

Seaboard Caboose – As with other North Florida Communities, the railroad supported growth in the area, moving cash crops from the field to market. The Seaboard Caboose #5362, on display at the museum, was built in 1924 and features a cupola as well as manual and air brakes. The caboose ran on the Florida East Coast Railroad until 1942, then the Seaboard Railroad from 1942 – 1963. All aboard for a glimpse of how the conductor lived – from the meals, to a refrigerator, stove, and where the conductor sat. An interactive part of the caboose allows you to press a button and hear a conductor talk about the caboose crew, train sounds, and a work chant.

Each stop in the historic community felt like opening a different chapter of a storybook. Together, they painted a vivid picture of how people lived, worked, prayed, and learned in Florida generations ago.

Wildlife Exhibits and Nature Trails at the Tallahassee Museum

Not everything in the museum centers around farm and plantation life. There are also wildlife exhibits that highlight the animals and creatures that call Florida home. A guest animal exhibit showcases animals that aren’t always part of the permanent collection.  The day we were there, the exhibit featured four red foxes that were rescued from a fur farm in Minnesota.  The Museum changed out the Guest Animal Exhibit in December and now features binturongs (also known as bearcats). We’ll have to return to see these rare mammals.

An aviary features birds of prey that can be seen perching on trees in the enclosure. Boardwalks and trails take visitors along other paths to see deer, bears, otters, and other animals of North Florida.

Zipline Adventures

One of the Tallahassee Museum’s popular attractions is Tree-to-Tree Adventures, offering zipline courses for people of all ages.  There are three courses in all.  Treemendous Adventures gives the younger (and shorter) visitors a chance to experience a course on a much smaller scale. It’s lower to the ground with its own obstacles, platforms, and a zipline. The course takes about 30 – 40 minutes to complete.

The more adventurous can try the Canopy Crossing (14 obstacles, 25 platforms, and 7 ziplines above buildings, paths, and natural areas.  Time to complete: 45 – 90 minutes. Finally, the Soaring Cypress course. This course includes Canopy Crossing and takes two to three hours to complete.  There are a total of 47 platforms, 25 obstacles, and 16 ziplines.

Zipline adventures are not included in the museum entry fee.

Jim Gary’s Twentieth Century Dinosaurs

As you walk around the museum property, you can’t miss the brightly painted sculptures all made of old car parts. Dinosaurs, giant red ants, and frog-like creatures.  There are 23 in all, with some as large as 43 feet and weighing up to 4,000 pounds. The sculptures are all the original work of internationally renowned artist Jim Gary and were shown around the world until he died in 2006. The Jim Gary Foundation joined forces with the Tallahassee Museum and made the sculptures a permanent display.  If you look closely, you’ll see that the parts making up each creature’s anatomy had similar roles in their functions in cars.

Closing Reflections

The Tallahassee Museum isn’t the kind of place where you rush through exhibits with a brochure in hand. It’s the kind of place where you slow down, wander through an old farmstead or a historic community, take a hike along a trail, or soar above the land. There’s something about the blend of history, nature, and adventure that makes the Tallahassee Museum not just a destination, but a place worth revisiting again and again.

Address:

3945 Museum Drive

Tallahassee, FL 32310

Hours:

Sunday 11:00 am – 5:00 pm

Mon – Sat 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

Admission Rates are under $20 per person. Children under three are free, and museum members are free.

Another museum you don’t want to miss in Tallahassee is the Museum of Florida History.  Check out one of our previous posts.

Check out more pictures from our day at the Tallahassee Museum.

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