TALLAHASSEE MENTIONED IN TV SHOWS AND IN PRINT MEDIA

Tallahassee is a fun word to say, as evidenced by the songs alluding to our fair city. Our towns name means"old town".  Our name comes from the 18th/19th century Creek Indians who joined the words "talwa" (town) and "hassee" (old) to describe the area where the Apalachee Indians had lived in the 17th century.  Some folks have intrepreted the name as "old fields" because by the time the Creeks showed up the only evidence of prior settlement was the abandoned fields of the Apalachee.  Jeopardy, in its infinite wisdom, said that Tallahassee meant "town house."  Go figure!!!!

Our city was founded in 1824, and the name Tallahassee was suggested as our name by Octavia Walton, who was daughter of the territorial secretary, George Walton. Among hundreds of mentions, Woody Harrelson's character in the movie, "Zombie", was named Tallahassee.  A bunch of TV shows, such as 30 Rock, The Office, X Files, Las Vegas, Lost, Murder She Wrote, used many opportunities to work our name into their scripts. Even West Wing named a naval carrier after us.  Author Dick Francis named a racehorse in one of his books Tallahassee.  And, Andy Rooney of 60 minutes fame, declared we had one of the best-sounding city names in the nation.

If you remember the Real McCoys, from the 1950's, you might recall that a teenage daughter was called Hassie, because she was born the same day the family received a letter from a relative in Tallahassee.  On South Florida-set TV shows such as Burn Notice, and Glades, the actors make a run to Tallahassee-and back-in an afternoon.  Makes you wish you had access to their roads and vehicles. 

No matter how we are perceived, we love our home, and it is a fun name to say or sing.