Tookes House (formerly Tookes Hotel)

Dorothy Nash Tookes was born February 19, 1904. She earned degrees in Education from Talladega College and Nursing Education from Florida A & M University. In 1930, she married James Tookes and moved into this home in Tallahassee’s Frenchtown neighborhood. As Leon County’s first certified teacher, the Leon County Superintendent of Public Instruction asked Mrs. Tookes to establish a school for African American children living in the Bond Subdivision.

At the time, students from Bond had to walk three miles to Lincoln High School in Frenchtown. The Bond School opened its doors on November 11, 1935. Mrs. Tookes was the school’s founder, first certified teacher, and first principal. In 1948, she fulfilled another need for the Black community. Due to racial segregation, white-only establishments denied African American travelers lodging in Tallahassee, so she added three bedrooms and a bathroom onto the rear of her home and opened Tookes Rooming House.

She added two more bedrooms in 1952 and changed the name to the Tookes Hotel. Its neon hotel sign was one of the first in Tallahassee. Mrs. Tookes died on December 12, 1988. Tookes House was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 26, 2001.