@TJKALINOWSKI That's a web server "thing". In a typical nginx setup, you'll be looking for /etc/nginx/sites-available/<somesiteconfigfile>. Inside of the server {} section of the config file is a declaration for root.
server {
listen 80;
listen 443 ssl;
server_name mysite.dev;
root "/path/to/mysite/public";
...
So if you're going to use something other than "public", you can change it in the config file accordingly. Don't forget to service nginx restart when you're done making changes. (or however your distribution handles services)
If you're using Apache, the setup is similar, but I believe the config files are located somewhere under /etc/apache2 or perhaps /etc/httpd depending on your distro.
If you're using something other than Nginx or Apache... I have no idea. The concept should be the same though, tell the web server to serve up files from a different location.