Knott House Museum

05/09/2025

The Walk Through Living History Event will be postponed due to the anticipated storm. Be sure to check in with our friends at the 2nd Infantry USCT Tallahassee for rescheduling information.

05/06/2025

Be sure to check out the Season of Emancipation events from our friends with the 2nd Infantry USCT Tallahassee. Lots of great stuff happening.

May marks the start of the Season of Emancipation in Tallahassee -events that recall the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation on the steps of the Knott House on May 20, 1865. That's when enslaved people in Florida learned they were free -two years after the document was issued by President Abraham Lincoln.

The purpose of the 2nd Infantry Regiment USCT Living History Association is to promote the history of the Civil War and the African American presence. It pays tribute to those who fought with Union forces in battles such as Natural Bridge in Leon County and played a major role in Florida’s Reconstruction.

For more info on Florida's Emancipation visit www.the2ndusctlha.org,
www. museumoffloridahistory.com , and
www.20thofMay.com

05/05/2025

If you want to get a jump on commemorating May 20, stop by and visit our friends and cohosts at theThe John G. Riley Center & Museum for some historical background and great resources.

Learn more about Mr. John G. Riley, his historic house and how the Riley Museum plays a significant role in African American history & culture.

11/10/2024

Head on down to Cascades Park today for the Tallahassee Bicentennial Festival. For more information and the full schedule of events, visit: https://tallahasseeleoncounty200.com/event/bicentennial-festival-weekend-spectacular/2024-11-09/.

09/07/2024

Mirrors of the Knott house Museum

The first time the Knott family lived in Tallahassee, in the early 1900s, they owned a home on Thomasville Road. Mrs. Knott furnished it with inexpensive, second-hand furniture. Much of it was Victorian, popular through the mid to late 1800s, and not yet considered antique. Victorian décor included a mix of styles, colors, and patterns. It incorporated colorful golds, crimsons, and other bright colors, fringed drapery, and patterned wallpapers. Most home decorators in the first decades of the 1900s rejected Victorian, but Luella Knott chose the style because, she wrote, “I loved old things, which at that time were practically given away because everybody seemed to want the new styles. There were no antique shops, but antiques were often found in our ‘second-hand stores.’” Mrs. Knott also obtained much of her furniture from family members in North Carolina, where she was born. Some of this furniture later filled the house on Park Avenue.

Mirrors may have been her favorite pieces. As her son Charlie noted, “I think mirrors were her major interest in old furniture. She has them all over the house, in the bedrooms, over all the mantels, and downstairs.” Among these were pier mirrors, long mirrors often placed between windows to help reflect light in a time before electricity. Pier mirrors like the ones in the Knott House would have once decorated a home or possibly a hotel with high ceilings. The ceiling in the Knott House entrance hall was not quite tall enough to fit the mirror shown in this photograph, so Mrs. Knott had it cut down to fit the space. The Knott House Museum is still filled with the mirrors that Mrs. Knott loved so much, from highly ornate mirrors placed over fireplace mantels to full-length pier mirrors—old mirrors for an even older home.

Photographs courtesy of Knott House Museum
"Pier Mirror in Living Room"
"Ornate Mirror over Mantel in Dining Room"
"Pier Mirror in Entrance Hall"

08/24/2024

Exercycle stationary bicycle, ca. 1940s

Collection of the Knott House Museum

Health and wellness remained a prime concern of Luella Knott’s through much of her life. She and her husband William had both lost family members to tuberculosis. These losses affected her deeply and her interest in fresh air, rest, exercise, and proper diet became a key component of her life. The many books on health and nutrition in the Knott family’s extensive book collection attest to her interest in the subject.

When her children were young, Mrs. Knott took them to John Harvey Kellogg’s Battle Creek Sanatorium in Michigan. She wrote, “Primarily, I went to learn how to feed my children properly…I wanted to have the proper authority for their habits and diet.” Sanatoriums were large institutions designed to treat disease through medicines, diet, exercise, and other remedies. Kellogg promoted a healthy diet of fruits, vegetables, and grains at his sanatorium.

Luella Knott did not neglect exercise. She used this stationary bicycle, called an Exercycle, for exercise until she was 89 years old. Her attention to her health apparently paid off, and she lived until age 93. Though Mrs. Knott’s husband William preferred a diet of meat and potatoes, he lived until the age of 101. Both passed away within days of each other in 1965.

06/22/2024

Join us Tuesday, June 25 at the Heritage Auditorium in Tallahassee's R.A. Gray Building for History at High Noon.

The month's program features Althemese Barnes and Lisa Roberts discussing the history of Tallahassee's Frenchtown neighborhood. Learn about this unique community, its history and the current efforts being made to preserve it.

The program is free and open to the public. It takes place in the first floor auditorium at 500 South Bronough St., Tallahassee from noon to 12:45.