The Caroline Brevard School was built to accommodate Tallahassee's rapid growth after World War I. The population of Tallahassee grew slowly from 1910 to 1920, from 5,018 to 5,637.[1] By 1930, however, the population almost doubled to 10,700.[2] A comparable increase occurred in the city’s number of children, with 1,449 residents between seven to twenty years old in 1920 and 3,078 residents between five to nineteen years old by 1930.[3] This increase quickly overwhelmed Tallahassee’s school system, which in 1920 consisted of two schools for whites (an early Leon high school and a grammar school) and one school for African Americans (Lincoln).
Burgeoning enrollment caused a host of problems. The schools lacked enough playground space, desks, blackboards, and teaching space for its students. The trustees of the Tallahassee school district found themselves turning ill-lighted basements into makeshift classrooms.[4] As a consequence of the overcrowding, the lack of supplies, and the noticeable depreciation of the existing buildings, residents overwhelming passed a $150,000 school bond in October 1923. The bond paid for new playgrounds, school supplies, athletic equipment, an addition to Lincoln, and a new school structure for white students.[5]
The city agreed to site the new building on recently purchased lots bounded by Calhoun, Gaines, Madison, and Gadsden Streets. The trustees paid William A. Edwards of Edwards and Sayward in Atlanta, Georgia, to design the building. Edwards was a noted architect of educational buildings and courthouses. Between 1907 and 1925, he designed every building and presided over the campus arrangement at the University of Florida. During these same years, he was the sole architect for Florida State College for Women, now Florida State University. He designed more than ten buildings, including the Suwanee Dining Hall, Dodd Hall, the Westcott Building, and the fountain and main gateway at College Avenue. He also designed the Carnegie Library at the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College, now FAMU.
The trustees hired George Livingston of Kissimmee, Florida, to build the new school, but voted to terminate his contract in October 1924, just three months after his hiring, because they believed he was behind schedule and his work was of poor quality.[6] Edwards and Sayward took over and completed the project, which was ready for occupancy for the 1925-26 school year. Yet, even before it opened, the growth of the city had made the original plan too small and two additional classrooms had to be added in the summer of 1925.
The school held about 550 students and the trustees named it after Caroline M. Brevard, the granddaughter of Florida’s Territorial Governor Richard Keith Call and Judge Theodore W. Brevard, the namesake of Brevard County. Caroline M. Brevard had her own distinguished career, graduating from Columbia University, writing a praised textbook on Florida history, and teaching at the Florida State College for Women and Leon High School before dying in 1920.
Although only twenty years old by the 1940s, the building was depreciating rapidly, requiring expensive electrical and plumbing repairs.[7] The school was also beginning to feel out of place, as the residential areas of the city were shifting to the northeast of downtown. Moreover, the growth of the state government increased traffic around the school and surrounded it with new state buildings. In January 1958, the school board accepted an offer from the State of Florida to purchase the building for $490,000 and the building ceased being a school in January 1959. (A new Caroline Brevard School building opened on Jackson Bluff and Ausley Road, and is now used as part of the School for Applied Individualized Learning’s (SAIL) campus.[8]) The state renamed the 1920s structure the Bloxham Building, after former Governor William D. Bloxham, in 1966. In 2010, the state granted Leon County Schools a fifty-year lease to use the facility for office space.[9]
[1] “Table IV—Composition and Characteristics of the Population for Places of 2,500 to 10,000,” in Thirteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1910: Statistics For Florida . . . (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1913): 602 and “Table 11—Composition and Characteristics of the Population, for Places of 2,500 to 10,000: 1920” in Fourteenth Census of the United States, State Compendium Florida . . . (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1924): 36.
[2] “Table 12--Population by age, color, nativity, and sex, for cities of 10,000 or more” in Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Population, Volume III, Part 1 . . . (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1932): 410.
[3] “Table 11—Composition and Characteristics of the Population, for Places of 2,500 to 10,000: 1920” in Fourteenth Census of the United States, State Compendium Florida . . . (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1924): 36 and “Table 12--Population by age, color, nativity, and sex, for cities of 10,000 or more” in Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Population, Volume III, Part 1 . . . (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1932): 410.
[4] “Tallahassee Schools Open Next Monday.” The Daily Democrat, Sept. 5, 1923, 1 and
[5] Archival evidence does not indicate why the School Trustees decided to make the new school a grammar school, with grades kindergarten to sixth, over a high school or why they chose the location that they did. Presumably the overcrowding was worse at the grammar school level. Although the high school also experienced overcrowding—it was built for 500 students and housed 647 students in 1923—it was another decade before a new high school was built. The new high school is the current Leon High School, which was built in 1936-7. “One Only Needs to See Condition of Schools to Favor Bond Issue.” The Daily Democrat, Sept. 23, 1923, 1.
[6] Board of Public Instruction Leon County Minutes for Oct. 15, 1924, pg 87-8, and Nov. 5, 1924, pg. 90.
[7] National Register of Historic Places Inventory—Nomination Form for Caroline Brevard School, Item Number 8, Page 4.
[8] https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/274369 accessed 8/17/2015.
[9] "School system gets back Bloxham Building,” Tallahassee Democrat September 28, 2010
Burgeoning enrollment caused a host of problems. The schools lacked enough playground space, desks, blackboards, and teaching space for its students. The trustees of the Tallahassee school district found themselves turning ill-lighted basements into makeshift classrooms.[4] As a consequence of the overcrowding, the lack of supplies, and the noticeable depreciation of the existing buildings, residents overwhelming passed a $150,000 school bond in October 1923. The bond paid for new playgrounds, school supplies, athletic equipment, an addition to Lincoln, and a new school structure for white students.[5]
The city agreed to site the new building on recently purchased lots bounded by Calhoun, Gaines, Madison, and Gadsden Streets. The trustees paid William A. Edwards of Edwards and Sayward in Atlanta, Georgia, to design the building. Edwards was a noted architect of educational buildings and courthouses. Between 1907 and 1925, he designed every building and presided over the campus arrangement at the University of Florida. During these same years, he was the sole architect for Florida State College for Women, now Florida State University. He designed more than ten buildings, including the Suwanee Dining Hall, Dodd Hall, the Westcott Building, and the fountain and main gateway at College Avenue. He also designed the Carnegie Library at the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College, now FAMU.
The trustees hired George Livingston of Kissimmee, Florida, to build the new school, but voted to terminate his contract in October 1924, just three months after his hiring, because they believed he was behind schedule and his work was of poor quality.[6] Edwards and Sayward took over and completed the project, which was ready for occupancy for the 1925-26 school year. Yet, even before it opened, the growth of the city had made the original plan too small and two additional classrooms had to be added in the summer of 1925.
The school held about 550 students and the trustees named it after Caroline M. Brevard, the granddaughter of Florida’s Territorial Governor Richard Keith Call and Judge Theodore W. Brevard, the namesake of Brevard County. Caroline M. Brevard had her own distinguished career, graduating from Columbia University, writing a praised textbook on Florida history, and teaching at the Florida State College for Women and Leon High School before dying in 1920.
Although only twenty years old by the 1940s, the building was depreciating rapidly, requiring expensive electrical and plumbing repairs.[7] The school was also beginning to feel out of place, as the residential areas of the city were shifting to the northeast of downtown. Moreover, the growth of the state government increased traffic around the school and surrounded it with new state buildings. In January 1958, the school board accepted an offer from the State of Florida to purchase the building for $490,000 and the building ceased being a school in January 1959. (A new Caroline Brevard School building opened on Jackson Bluff and Ausley Road, and is now used as part of the School for Applied Individualized Learning’s (SAIL) campus.[8]) The state renamed the 1920s structure the Bloxham Building, after former Governor William D. Bloxham, in 1966. In 2010, the state granted Leon County Schools a fifty-year lease to use the facility for office space.[9]
[1] “Table IV—Composition and Characteristics of the Population for Places of 2,500 to 10,000,” in Thirteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1910: Statistics For Florida . . . (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1913): 602 and “Table 11—Composition and Characteristics of the Population, for Places of 2,500 to 10,000: 1920” in Fourteenth Census of the United States, State Compendium Florida . . . (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1924): 36.
[2] “Table 12--Population by age, color, nativity, and sex, for cities of 10,000 or more” in Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Population, Volume III, Part 1 . . . (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1932): 410.
[3] “Table 11—Composition and Characteristics of the Population, for Places of 2,500 to 10,000: 1920” in Fourteenth Census of the United States, State Compendium Florida . . . (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1924): 36 and “Table 12--Population by age, color, nativity, and sex, for cities of 10,000 or more” in Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Population, Volume III, Part 1 . . . (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1932): 410.
[4] “Tallahassee Schools Open Next Monday.” The Daily Democrat, Sept. 5, 1923, 1 and
[5] Archival evidence does not indicate why the School Trustees decided to make the new school a grammar school, with grades kindergarten to sixth, over a high school or why they chose the location that they did. Presumably the overcrowding was worse at the grammar school level. Although the high school also experienced overcrowding—it was built for 500 students and housed 647 students in 1923—it was another decade before a new high school was built. The new high school is the current Leon High School, which was built in 1936-7. “One Only Needs to See Condition of Schools to Favor Bond Issue.” The Daily Democrat, Sept. 23, 1923, 1.
[6] Board of Public Instruction Leon County Minutes for Oct. 15, 1924, pg 87-8, and Nov. 5, 1924, pg. 90.
[7] National Register of Historic Places Inventory—Nomination Form for Caroline Brevard School, Item Number 8, Page 4.
[8] https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/274369 accessed 8/17/2015.
[9] "School system gets back Bloxham Building,” Tallahassee Democrat September 28, 2010