In 1887, Florida Normal College was founded by a group of prominent White Springs citizens. Professors A.W. Mell and J.L. Skipworth started with nine students in a building overlooking the spring across from the entrance to the State Park. The college was advertised as “the only chartered independent Normal School in the State” and especially appealed to worried parents because the Town of White Springs had recently been voted a prohibitionist “dry” town. Later the Normal School moved to a new brick building on College Street (now River Street). In 1905, the school merged with the Jasper Normal Institute, and the building served as the local school until it burned in the 1911 fire.