Cascades is the crown jewel destination of Florida’s capital city, a triumph of 21st century urban planning that reclaimed what was once a natural waterfall turned into a landfill.
It’s now a park where residents take early morning walks and meet friends for coffee, where internationally known artists perform at an amphitheater, and locale for book and arts fairs.
But like many urban parks, intended as oases from the hustle and bustle of city life, it’s also occasionally been the location of crime and chaos.
Most recently, a lone attacker stabbed at least two people on the evening of Sept. 10, police say, before apparently jumping into the park’s stormwater pond to evade law enforcement. He later was reported dead, presumably drowned.
Here are five things to know about Cascades Park:
What’s the history of Cascades Park?
The growth of Tallahassee is intertwined with its battle to combat flooding. Much of that struggle is embodied in the history of Cascades Park.
To be sure, Cascades Park is the spiritual birthplace of Tallahassee. The two men sent in 1823 to choose a site for Florida’s territorial capital camped beside a waterfall, or cascade, and wrote glowingly of it in their endorsement of Tallahassee as the capital.
An image of an old postcard of the sinkhole in Cascades, likely around the turn of the century.
John Lee Williams of Pensacola and W. H. Simmons of St. Augustine were tasked with surveying the land. In a letter to Richard Keith Call dated Nov. 1, 1823, Williams described the Cascades area that would contribute to the city being named the capital.
“Directly east of the old fields runs a stream of water which you must recollect. This stream, after running about a mile south pitches about twenty or thirty feet into an immense chasm, in which it runs 60 or 70 rods (990 to 1,125 ft.) to the base of a high hill which it enters … (there are) rocks full of shells and other fossils,” according to a 1974 article in the Tallahassee Democrat.
Indeed, early residents admired the area — but then they trashed it. They obliterated the waterfall with railroad construction and used its sinkhole pond as a landfill. In 1924, Tallahassee built its first sports arena, Centennial Field, on the site.
Why was Cascades Park reclaimed?
The park is also an example of successful stormwater management.
Disguised as a sprawling park complete with walking trails, a playground, and an amphitheater, it’s actually a stormwater project designed to help alleviate flooding, mostly on nearby Franklin Boulevard.
But water that ends up in Cascades travels from as far away as Tharpe Street, more than two miles north.
When did the city first try to salvage the area?
In 1971, efforts began to remake it as a park. In 1978, a modest passive park was opened, only to close in 1989 when soil contamination from a gas plant was discovered. It then became a brownfield.
For nearly 20 years, officials haggled over contamination removal, which was finally completed in 2006. It would be another four years before the park’s construction began. The 24-acre park finally opened in 2014.
“It took until 2006 for federal, state and city forces to remove the contamination and deed the park to the city. In 2010, construction started — and completion was advertised as a couple years away. It turned out to be four years,” the late Democrat columnist Gerald Ensley once wrote.
“But the four years allowed officials to add things that were needed (a Smoky Hollow tribute), eliminate things that weren’t (a grand entrance from South Monroe Street) and adjust things for effect and cost (the history panels on brick posts, rather than an iron fence, along Meridian Street).
“It allowed Blueprint 2000 to assemble committees of citizens to help them plan. And Blueprint brought home the project for $30 million — when it was originally estimated to cost $35 million.”
What amenities does the park now have?
“The heartbeat of Cascades Park is undoubtedly the Adderley Amphitheater at Cascades Park,” the city’s website says. “This amphitheater provides the park’s pulse, making it alive and vibrant with color and sound.”
There’s also a splash pad for kids called Imagination Fountain, which hosts weekend birthday parties.
The playground, or “Discover Play Area,” includes a “Cypress Climb, Steephead Slide, Log Jump, Butterfly Garden and Beach Sand area.”
There are three main trails in Cascades Park: The Bocha Chuba pond loop, the Smokey Hollow pond loop, and the Nancy Van Vessem, M.D., Trail, named after the physician and chief medical director of Capital Health Plan in Tallahassee, tragically killed in the 2018 hot yoga studio shooting.
A Korean War memorial that predates the current park still stands nearby, and the the Prime Meridian Marker in the middle of the park “is something that links all Floridians together.”
“This marker, originally set in 1824, is the beginning point for all land surveys in the state of Florida, and it’s the original southeast corner for Tallahassee’s first boundary,” the city’s website says. “Today, the marker is housed inside a map of Florida, which is inlaid into the bottom of the Prime Meridian Plaza, with colorful bricks and sturdy granite.”
More recently, the park is home to a log cabin replica of Florida’s first Capitol.
What other crime has occurred in the park?
The Tallahassee Downtown Improvement Authority issued a rare statement on social media Sept. 11 saying they were “deeply saddened” by “the terrible incident.”
These kinds of incidents are tragic and shocking for a community and our thoughts are with the victims. While the full details are still emerging, we want to emphasize that Downtown Tallahassee, our parks, and our public spaces remain safe and welcoming places where families, friends, and neighbors can come together as a community,” the post says. “We will continue to take every measure possible to ensure our public events are safe and inclusive for all. We are grateful that everyone survived this incident and extend our sincere thanks to the emergency responders for their swift and professional response. Our parks and public spaces are invaluable resources that are essential to a thriving community, and we encourage you to continue enjoying and taking pride in the spaces that belong to all of us.”
The park is generally safe and a family destination that draws walkers and joggers into the late evening.
However, this isn’t the first time areas of Cascades have become a crime scene, though previous incidents have mostly occurred in the early morning hours:
In May 2024, a teenager was shot in the foot just after midnight. Officers collected shell casings and witness statements, but couldn’t say if the teen was targeted.
In April 2022, shortly after a teenage girl was picked up from a party at Cascades Park, her parent’s vehicle was struck with gunfire at about 2 a.m. on a Friday night. Police said “an unknown suspect fired multiple shots in the air as the parent was arriving,” read an incident synopsis.
In April 2020, four teens — including one as young as 13 — were charged in an attempted carjacking at Cascades Park in which the suspects held a woman up with what turned out to be pellet guns.
In October 2021, a 15-year-old girl and two 19-year-old men were injured in a shooting that happened around 4:30 a.m. at Cascades Park. Investigators could be seen around dawn picking up evidence markers in the parking lot of The Edison. An employee at a parking management company, was outside the AC Hotel when he heard five or six gunshots coming from somewhere in the park. He thought it might be fireworks at first. But then he heard yelling and screaming. Four men, one bleeding with an apparent gunshot injury to his leg, came up the sidewalk, panicked and “freaking out” and looking for a phone to use before taking off.
The park was also connected to a 2021 murder for hire in which a Tallahassee woman was arrested and sentenced to 15 years in prison after soliciting a hitman to kill her ex-husband. The 48-year-old was arrested in the fall of 2021 after she attempted to solicit an undercover FBI agent to murder “her estranged husband” for $5,000, said court records filed in the Northern District of Florida. She dropped the money off in a dark camouflaged lunchbox she hid in the stands at the Cascades Park Amphitheater in September 2021, according to court records. She was arrested soon after.
More: Cascades bicentennial journey: Waterfall to baseball field to brownfield to pinnacle park
This story contains previously published material by the Tallahassee Democrat.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Cascades Park in Tallahassee, Florida becomes crime scene of stabbing