Lincoln High School History in Tallahassee, Florida

Lincoln was the primary public school for African Americans in Leon County from 1869 to 1969, according to the state historical marker at its Frenchtown site.

The Original Lincoln High School marker, listed by the Florida Division of Historical Resources with the year 2016 and the location 438 West Brevard, says Lincoln School served as the primary public education institution for African Americans in Leon County from 1869 to 1969. It began as a Freedman's Bureau school named after President Abraham Lincoln and spent most of its life on the West Brevard Street site in Frenchtown, which the marker calls a well-established African American area.

Two different places carry the name today. The original building at 438 West Brevard Street is the City of Tallahassee's Lincoln Center, which keeps a museum room about the school. The current Lincoln High School, home of the Trojans, is a Leon County Schools high school at 3838 Trojan Trail. This page follows the Frenchtown school first and the Trojan Trail school last.

Lincoln opened in Tallahassee in 1869, four years after the Civil War, as a Freedman's Bureau school to educate newly freed slaves.

The state marker says Lincoln was established in 1869 as one of only two Freedman's Bureau schools in Florida to educate newly freed slaves, and that it was named after President Abraham Lincoln. The school then moved twice before it reached Frenchtown. Its first building, at the corner of Lafayette and Copeland streets, burned down in 1872. The second stood at the corner of Copeland Street and Park Avenue until it was transferred to the Florida State College for Women in 1906, and a new wood frame school was then built on the West Brevard Street site.

The brick building that still stands on West Brevard Street dates from 1929 and was paid for in part by the Julius Rosenwald Foundation.

According to the marker, the wood school was replaced in 1929 by the present brick one, with some funding from the Rosenwald Foundation. As Lincoln High School, it offered a high school curriculum, vocational training, night school and a GED program, so the Brevard Street building served adults in Frenchtown as well as teenagers.

Its reach went far past the city. Students came from more than 40 schools in rural Leon County and surrounding areas, the marker notes, and they either roomed in town or walked for miles to Lincoln, because there were no buses for African American students until the 1950s.

One principal led the school for more than three decades. The John Gilmore Riley House marker, placed in 1997 at 419 East Jefferson Street, says Riley was born in 1857, was not formally educated but was instructed by his Aunt Henrietta, and became principal of Lincoln Academy, Tallahassee's first local high school for African Americans, in 1893, serving until he retired in 1926. The same marker says he owned a significant amount of property in Tallahassee near the Capitol Center and died in 1954, the year of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. His two-story wood frame house, built in 1890, was sold by the family to the City of Tallahassee in 1973 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

Old Lincoln stopped issuing diplomas in 1969, the state marker says, although the City of Tallahassee gives 1970 as the end of the school's span.

The state marker explains how the name outlived the Brevard Street campus: the Lincoln High School name was transferred to the site of Griffin Middle School for two years, which allowed students to receive Lincoln diplomas until 1969. The marker therefore dates Lincoln's role as the primary public school for African Americans in Leon County from 1869 to 1969.

The city's Lincoln Center page describes the school as the primary public education center for Leon County's African-Americans from 1869 to 1970. The two official sources differ by one year, and neither page explains the difference, so both dates are given here. Neither source names the exact year the Brevard Street building stopped holding classes.

The old school is the City of Tallahassee's Lincoln Center, a neighborhood services building at 438 West Brevard Street that includes a museum room about Lincoln High.

The City of Tallahassee's Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Affairs page lists the center's hours as Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., with special Saturday scheduling for rentals and events, and its phone as 850-891-4180. The Lincoln Room is described as a museum to honor the historic Lincoln High School that once occupied the site. The Gymnatorium seats up to 250 people and the Conference Center holds up to 74, and both can be rented.

Programs at the Frenchtown center continue the building's teaching role. The city lists an afterschool program from 3 to 5:30 p.m. on weekdays with homework help and tutoring for students in grades K to 8, and a six-week Summer Enrichment Program run with The Lincoln Foundation and The Riley House, which ties the Brevard Street building back to the principal who led Lincoln Academy for more than thirty years. Senior programs include a congregate meal on weekdays from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., senior fitness classes for people 55 and older, sewing and art classes, and pro bono legal help with wills, deeds and estate planning.

The current Lincoln High School at 3838 Trojan Trail earned a B in Florida's 2026 school grades, up from a C in 2025.

The school's Leon County Schools page lists grades 9 to 12, enrollment of 1,851 and principal Allen Burch, with the phone number 850-487-2110. The school says it offers 27 Advanced Placement courses, dual enrollment through local colleges and universities, and career and technical programs in computer technology, horticulture, culinary arts, aviation maintenance and early childhood education. It also reports a faculty of more than 100 teachers, 10 of them National Board Certified, and says more than 70% of its graduates continue to postsecondary education each year.

The Florida Department of Education school grades page posts the 2026 results file, and the file's grading scale for high schools sets a B at 60% to 64% of possible points, so Lincoln's 62% sits in the middle of that band. The same file records an informational baseline grade of A for 2015 and a B for 2022.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, against the Division of Historical Resources markers for Original Lincoln High School and the John Gilmore Riley House, the City of Tallahassee's Lincoln Center page, Lincoln High's Leon County Schools page and the Florida Department of Education 2026 school grades file.