Also known as the Mt. Vernon Arsenal (the community's early name) and the Apalachicola Arsenal (for the nearby river), the construction of the Chattahoochee Arsenal was authorized by Congress in 1832.

Completed in 1839, the arsenal consisted of 17 buildings including officers' quarters, barracks, magazines, business offices and a barn. With the exception of the magazines, the buildings were enclosed by a brick wall 12 feet high and 30 inches thick.

In early January 1861, as the Secession Convention was meeting in Tallahassee, Governor Madison S. Perry ordered the seizure of the arsenal in Chattahoochee.

On January 6, 1861, the local Gadsden County military unit, the Quincy Guards, seized the arsenal from a U.S. Army ordnance sergeant and his three man garrison without violence.

At the time of its capture, the arsenal contained over 5,000 pounds of gunpowder, over 173,000 small arms cartridges, 57 flintlock muskets and one six-pounder cannon with over 300 shot and canisters. Throughout the Civil War, the arsenal was a center of Confederate military activity for regimental musters and training, as well as an arms depot.

Following the Civil War, the arsenal was used by the Freedmen's Bureau from 1865 to 1868, and then as the state's first penitentiary until 1877 when it became the Florida Asylum for the Indigent Insane. In 1919, it received its present name, the Florida State Hospital, and continues to this day in use as a state mental institution. Two of the original arsenal buildings remain.

The officers' quarters is now used as the administration building for the hospital, and a magazine building is being rehabilitated for use as a museum and conference center.

Photo Courtesy of William Lees, Florida Public Archaeology Network (FPAN)

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Information Provided by the Florida Department of State.