The history of Florida State University dates to the 19th century and is deeply intertwined with the history of education in the state of Florida and in the city of Tallahassee.
Florida State University, known colloquially as Florida State and FSU, is one of the oldest and largest of the institutions in the State University System of Florida. It traces its origins to the West Florida Seminary, one of two state-funded seminaries the Florida Legislature voted to establish in 1851.
The West Florida Seminary, also known as the Florida State Seminary, opened for classes in Tallahassee in 1857, absorbing the Florida Institute, which had been established as an inducement for the state to place the seminary in the city. The former Florida Institute property, located where the historic Westcott Building now stands, is the oldest continuously used site of higher education in Florida. The area, slightly west of the state Capitol, was formerly and ominously known as Gallows Hill, a place for public executions in early Tallahassee. In 1858 the seminary absorbed the Tallahassee Female Academy, established in 1843, and became coeducational.
In 1863, during the American Civil War, Florida's Confederate government added a military school to the institution, and changed its name to the Florida Military and Collegiate Institute. The school fielded student soldiers into an organized unit of the institution, which helped successfully repel a Union attack on Tallahassee at the Battle of Natural Bridge. In 1883, it became part of the Florida University, the first state-supported university to be founded in Florida. The university project struggled with a lack of legislative support, and the seminary soon returned to its old name, but focused increasingly on modern-style secondary education. In 1905 the Buckman Act restructured higher education in Florida, and the school was reorganized as a college for white women, the Florida State College for Women. After World War II, the school was made coeducational once again to help accommodate the influx of students entering college under the G.I. Bill, and was renamed Florida State University. It became racially integrated in 1963, and was noted as a center of student activism during the 1960s. Through the 20th and 21st centuries Florida State University has grown in both size and academic prominence, with a particular focus on graduate and doctoral research.
Founding.
In 1823 the United States Congress determined that the Florida Territory shall receive two seminaries of learning, one on each side of the Suwannee River. By 1838, the first constitution of the Florida Territory embraced and permanently guaranteed a system of general education (schools) and higher education (seminaries).
Throughout the history of Tallahassee strong energy and focus toward education originated with leaders and members of the First Presbyterian Church, Tallahassee, located near Florida State University. The First Presbyterian Church building was built before 1838 and is the oldest public building in Tallahassee. For almost a century the First Presbyterian Church of Tallahassee would have a strong symbiotic relationship with the origin and development of the educational institution known today as Florida State University.
Leon Academy (1827-1840).
City officials of Tallahassee took steps to establish a school for boys as early as 1827 with the establishment of the Leon Academy. Leon Academy was advertised in the "Pensacola Gazette" of March 9, 1827 as being under the supervision of Presbyterian Rev. Henry M. White, A.M. By early 1831 the Leon Academy was under the control of the Tallahassee City Council. 
Leon Academy was incorporated by an act of the Territorial Legislative Council on February 12, 1831 under the control of seven trustees. The Leon Academy suffered from lack of financial resources as well as high administrative turnover and in September 1836 was operated by John M. Brook of Virginia as a "private Seminary for boys", while the trustees continued to control and manage the property. By 1840 the Leon Academy ceased operations as a public school. The trustees, however, turned to the Territorial Legislature once again, who passed an "Act in Relation to the Trustees of Leon Academy" in 1840 wherein the Treasurer of the Territory was directed to pay funds to the trustees to "assist said Trustees in building an Academy". On March 9, 1840 the Leon Academy had been refreshed with some Territory support. The trustees solicited Territory support on the basis the Leon Academy would serve both male and female students. There is disagreement among scholars if the male-only Leon Academy is the forerunner of the West Florida Seminary. A point of agreement between the scholars is that the same leading citizens of Tallahassee were interested in both institutions.
Leon Academy for Males and Females, Florida Institute, Florida Seminary (1846-1891).
Leon Academy was replaced by schools for males and females in a system established by Reverend Joshua Phelps and Elder David C. Wilson, both of the First Presbyterian Church. Princeton University-educated Reverend William Neil and his wife Eliza Neil operated the academies for males and females, which were merged in 1846 into a new version of the Leon Academy for Males and Females. The Leon Academy later split into the Tallahassee Female Academy, also known as the Leon Female Academy for females. While organized public education for males faltered between 1840 and 1850, education for females was intact and unusually complete. By January 1850 municipal elections in Tallahassee called for a city-supported school for males and the Tallahassee City Council, assumed financial responsibility for the Florida Institute the same year.
On January 24, 1851 the Florida Legislature voted to establish West Florida Seminary, which became Florida State University and East Florida Seminary which became the University of Florida. The 1851 law specified the organization and governing boards of the schools, including terms of office for those boards, and specified the nature and scope of instruction at each institution. This law effectively established the joint charter for the two seminaries, providing for their complete operation. It did not decide locations for the schools, however, leaving this to be awarded to the jurisdictions with the best offer of support.
The Legislature concluded in Resolution No. 25 of that year that each seminary would be awarded to the county or town that would provide the best combination of land, buildings and money. Three towns presented offers for the West Florida Seminary - Tallahassee, Marianna and Quincy. The competition between the three soon became a bitter struggle between Marianna and Tallahassee for the West Florida Seminary. By January 1853 the Legislature accepted Ocala's offer for the East Seminary and in the same law directed Governor James E. Broome to appoint a special commission of six members from Middle and West Florida to decide upon the location of the West Seminary. The matter had grown so contentious that neither Governor Broome nor the Commission members looked forward to the task and did little to resolve the contest. The issue was then handed back to the Legislature where it was finally confronted. In the meantime, as an inducement to the Legislature, the City Council of Tallahassee had built and funded an all-male academy, called the Florida Institute, in Tallahassee. The Florida Institute was a resurrected version of the Leon Academy established in 1827 by Presbyterian Reverend Henry White.
The subsequent law of 1851 establishing the Seminaries seemed an answer to the existing educational needs of Tallahassee when it passed the Legislature. In 1854, the Tallahassee City Council offered to pay $10,000 to finance a new school building on land owned by the city in an attempt to "bid on" being the location of the seminary west of the Suwannee River. Later in 1854, construction on a school building began and Tallahassee’s city intendent (W.R. Hayward) approached the state legislature to present the case for the seminary to be in Tallahassee. However, state officials failed to make a decision regarding the location of the seminary before the end of the legislative session. The building of the Florida Institute was regarded at the time as the "handsomest edifice in Tallahassee" and cost $6,172.00 at its completion in April 1855. Around 100 students enrolled in the school year 1855-1856. A group of citizens calling themselves the "friends of the Institution" planned to petition the Legislature to create the University of Florida from the Florida Institute. By 1856, the Tallahassee City Council had "bid on" being the location of the Seminary once again and, this time, had won. The intendent was F.W. Eppes. The Florida Institute became the West Florida Seminary. The rise of land slightly west of the center of Tallahassee, formerly known as Gallows Hill, which was the site and building of the ongoing Florida Institute, was offered and accepted as the western state seminary for male students. The seminary officially held classes as a state institution in 1857. In 1858 it absorbed the Tallahassee Female Academy begun in 1843 as the Misses Bates School, thereby becoming co-educational. The West Florida Seminary stood near the front of the Westcott Building on the existing FSU campus. This site is the oldest continually used location of higher learning in Florida. The eastern seminary was located in Ocala in 1853 and closed during the American Civil War. It reopened in 1866 in Gainesville and would eventually be combined with other schools to form what would be called the University of the State of Florida in 1906.
Civil War and Reconstruction.
During the American Civil War the name of the seminary was changed to The Florida Military and Collegiate Institute and began military training for students. Young cadets from the school, along with other soldiers from Tallahassee, defeated Union forces at the Battle of Natural Bridge in 1865. The students were trained by Valentine Mason Johnson, a graduate of Virginia Military Institute, who was a professor of mathematics and the chief administrator of the college. By the end of the war Tallahassee was the only Confederate capital east of the Mississippi River not to fall to Union forces.
The Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps unit at Florida State University is one of only four ROTC units in the United States with permission to display a campaign streamer. The streamer reads . After the fall of the Confederacy, campus buildings were occupied by Union forces for over a month. The West Florida Seminary reverted to a purely academic purpose after the war, and began a period of substantial growth and development.
First state university (1883-1901).
In 1883 West Florida Seminary became part of Florida University, Florida's first state-sponsored university. In January 1883 Reverend John Kost, A.M., M.D., LL.D of Michigan proposed to carry out the mandate of the 1868 Constitution requiring a state university. Kost secured a charter from Governor William D. Bloxham that merged West Florida Seminary and the Tallahassee College of Medicine and Surgery into a new institution known as Florida University. The West Florida Seminary became the institution's Literary College, and was to contain several "schools" or departments in different disciplines. However, in the new association the seminary's "separate Charter and special organization" were maintained. The charter also recognized three further colleges to be established at a later time: a Law College, a Theological Institute, and a Polytechnic and Normal Institute.
The Florida Legislature recognized the university under the title "University of Florida" in Spring 1885, but committed no additional financing or support. Without legislative support, the university project struggled, and the association dissolved when the medical college relocated to Jacksonville later that year. The Law Department was discontinued at the same time. The Florida Agricultural College in Lake City tried to revive interest in the university plan, announcing its desire to merge with the University of Florida in 1886 and 1887; however, nothing came of this at the time. By 1891, however, President Edgar had developed a four-year curriculum and a collegiate organization with freshmen, sophomore, junior and senior ranks. The school's first Commencement, under the name Florida State University, took place from June 10–12, 1891. The Tallahassee institution never assumed the "University of Florida" name, though the act recognizing it as such was not repealed until 1903, when the title was transferred to the Florida Agricultural College.
The West Florida Seminary, as it was still generally called, continued to expand and thrive. It shifted its focus increasingly towards modern-style post-secondary education, awarding "Licentiates of Instruction" – its first diplomas – in 1884, and awarding Bachelor of Arts degrees in 1891. It had become Florida's first liberal arts college by 1897.
Florida State College