Watch out.

Watch your fingers in the sun.

On the bright summer day in June 2024, dozens of people from the community came together to officially start building the first Florida Capitol log cabin.

This is a tradition that we have in our community.

100 years ago, our community came together and built the replica of the first Florida Capitol.

We did it 50 years ago, and here we are at the Bicentennial, and we're doing it again.

And we're doing it in style.

The original cabin was one of three built for the first legislative session held in Tallahassee in November of 1824.

When the commissioners picked Tallahassee as the site for the new Capitol.

They engaged two local planners and, one of them was my fourth great grandfather Sharrod McCall, and they were engaged to build it.

And, I heard about that from my grandmother.

You know, my, my grandmother's grandmother was the granddaughter of the builder.

And he called me up and he said, hey, we've never met before.

I'm a direct descendant of the original builder, one of the original builders, and my family owns a pine forest.

And we're going to harvest the trees, and we're going to build the wood and we're going to donate it.

And this is our contribution to the project, which completely and totally blew me away.

In the middle of the design process, the mayor called me and said, stop everything you're doing.

This guy from Levy County contacted me and he's going to mill all the planks.

So we pretty much redesigned the building again.

So this has been through 4 or 5 really good strong revisions that are all.

And I in my mind, they're very consistent with the actual building saved for we had to add a front porch and a ramp for accessibility.

It's a lot of hauling from the street to the build site, because we're also very sensitive and we want to preserve the park.

We want to follow the rules from not bringing the heavy equipment in.

And so, it's a perfect fit with the rules and regulations of Cascades Park.

And we're absolutely thrilled that the park is allowing us to do this here.

But at the same time, it's an extra step being able to bring all the materials in.

However, think about it.

This is how they did it 200 years ago.

You know, walking the materials into the site for the build.

So it just adds an extra flavor to what we're doing today.

Good job team.

Yay!.

The first settlers didn't arrive until after Tallahassee had been made the capital with the American citizens.

Also came enslaved men, women, and children.

They were used in construction of the original cabin in the creation of the 1924 and 1974 replicas.

Organizations like the Boy Scouts took care of the builds.

In 2024, individuals from the community signed up to do the work under the watchful eye of habitat for humanity.

A project like this and community celebrating our bicentennial will just seem like a no brainer.

We are a partnership organization, so we do this all the time.

People come to our build sites.

They don't have to know anything.

We'll teach you what you need to know to build and be safe.

And I think it's just kind of a perfect partnership.

All right, don't roll it too fast, guys.

You tell us.

Go.

We don't want it down the lake, so it's going to be a mix.

But, I mean, we're going to do the vast majority of it with folks from the community.

We are going to have some subcontractors come and do some specialized things.

And we will have our staff in here doing some things.

But for the most part, it's going to be, built by the power of the community.

Here we are on a Saturday morning, and we got about, what, 20 or 30 volunteers?

And, we got Secretary of State coming out today, legislative delegation, local elected officials that are coming out as well.

There's a lot of momentum, and we're having a great time.

Who'd have thought 2 or 3 years ago we'd all be here today?

The teamwork is really a lot, makes a lot of fun and makes it a real community effort.

You look around, it's very inclusive group, for lack of a better word, and we're all from different walks of life.

We're all from different socioeconomic everything.

But we're all here helping do something for the city of Tallahassee.