This venue is located in the tourist district of downtown Tallahassee and across from the State Capitol. The structure was built in 1841 as a bank for plantation owners during Florida’s territorial period. In the years following the Civil War, the building served as a Freedman’s Bureau Bank for former slaves. The building was later used as a church, a black-owned shoe factory, a library, a Baptist youth center and a civil defense office. In 1970, Mrs. Aubrey Morse, president of the Florida Society of Colonial Dames XVII Century and its members acquired the building. The organization played a major role in the restoration of the structure and the listing on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1971, Morse and the Colonial Dames donated the building to the State of Florida, and it was moved from its original location on South Adams Street to its present site on Apalachee Parkway. In 1984, the State of Florida opened the facility to the public, and in 1996, the Black Archives began overseeing its museum operations.