Gainesville
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Gainesville
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The following text was
adapted from _Historic Gainesville, A Tour Guide to the Past_,
Ben Pickard, ed., Historic Gainesville, Inc., Gainesville,
FL, 1991, 48 pp. Copyright by Historic Gainesville, Inc.
Once a Timucuan Indian village, the land upon which Gainesville
is situated became part of a Spanish land grant given to Don
Fernando de la Maza Arredondo, a Spanish merchant, in December,
1817.
In 1824, after Florida was annexed to the United States, Alachua
County was created with Newnansville near present-day Alachua
as the county seat. The population expanded with an influx
of planters and farmers as Florida achieved statehood in 1845.
When the proposed Florida Railroad linking Fernandina and
Cedar Key bypassed Newnansville, Alachua County residents
voted to create a new town on the railroad line and make it
the county seat. Gainesville, named in honor of Seminole Indian
War General Edmund P. Gaines, was founded on September 6,
1853.
The following month Major James B. Bailey, a cotton plantation
owner and former County Treasurer, sold over sixty acres of
his land to be used for this new city. His own house, begun
in 1848 and completed in 1854 by slave labor, was built of
lumber cut from Bailey's land and dressed in a sawmill on
Hogtown Creek. As the oldest remaining house in Gainesville,
this frame vernacular residence reflects the characteristics
typical of mid-nineteenth century plantation buildings. Restored
in the early 1980's, it is now a rest home for the elderly.
The original city plat followed a traditional gridiron design;
placed in dry and high land, the city covered approximately
eight blocks surrounding a courthouse square. The first courthouse,
a two-story wooden structure, and the first school were built
in 1856, and the first passenger train arrived on April 21,
1859. By 1860 the town's population had reached 269 and the
downtown included a general store and three hotels.
The civil War slowed this development as the town became the
site of a Confederate storehouse. Two encounters with Federal
troops occurred here: the first, a skirmish on February 15,
1864, and the second, a battle on August 17, 1864. At this
battle near the square, Captain Jonathan J. Dickinson and
the Second Florida Cavalry routed the Union forces. Nearly
all the attackers were either killed or captured. Many townspeople
viewed the fighting from the windows of the Beville house
near downtown.
After the war, education thrived as Gainesville Academy, the
town's first school, combined with Ocala's East Florida Seminary
in 1866. The first black school, the Union Academy, opened
its doors in 1867. On April 14, 1869, Gainesville was incorporated,
making that date its official birthday.
During the reconstruction period Colonel Henry F. Dutton,
a Union veteran, made Gainesville one of the largest cotton
shipping stations in the state and also established a successful
bank. By 1882 the city's population reached nearly 2000 and
Dutton had fourteen cotton gins in operation. Two other railways
serviced Gainesville in the 1880's and citrus and vegetable
farming became staples for the local economy. By the 1890's
phosphate and lumbering assumed greater significance for the
economy when the record-setting freezes of that decade destroyed
the citrus industry in northern Florida.
A series of fires in 1884 burned many of the wooden buildings
around the square. In 1885 a magnificent new red brick courthouse
replaced the old wooden one and large, comfortable residences
for the local merchants and professionals were built around
the downtown area. Public improvements followed: gas became
available in 1887, a public water system in 1891, telephones
and electricity arrived in the late 1890;s and a sewer system
was established in 1907. by 1913 the downtown streets of the
city were bricked over. Original Gainesville expanded to include
newer subdivisions, and it became the fourth largest city
in Florida in the early 1900's with a population of nearly
4000.
The Northeast especially became an elite residential neighborhood.
From 1909 to 1950 four University of Florida presidents had
homes here, making the Northeast a center for social and intellectual
life in the town. In 1910 William Reuben Thomas moved into
Gainesville's most elaborate private residence, the "Sunkist
Villa", situated near Sweetwater Branch. The surrounding
areas continued to develop in the 1920's with the building
of the Thomas Hotel and the establishment of the Highlands
and Duck Pond area. The city's growth was not confined to
the white community alone. Freedmen settled primarily in the
western half of the Brush Addition to Gainesville (the Pleasant
Street area) and in the Olivia A. Porter's subdivision in
the southwest. Many of these early settlers came from South
Carolina and were skilled tradesmen, preachers, and teachers.
The neighborhoods they inhabited still remain important historic
and architectural resources. The concentration of folk housing
there represents a uniquely preserved example of the social,
economic, and cultural traditions of Gainesville's black community.
The city's growth and prosperity continued in 1906 when the
University of Florida began operations on land west of the
city. By 1920 the city's population soared to over 10,000.
The university's emergence as an important economic factor
in the community helped the city to survive the collapse of
the local cotton and phosphate industries during World War
I. Throughout the 1920's and 1930'a new neighborhoods like
College Park, Hibiscus Park, and Golf View developed around
the University and drew the city westward. Following World
War II the University greatly expanded, as population growth
continued in the northwest and southwest areas, away from
downtown. Trees and landscaped medians were sacrificed for
traffic lanes, while large homes near downtown like the Colclough
and Baird mansions were destroyed and supplanted by law offices,
banks, and parking lots. The beautiful of Courthouse was razed
in 1960 to make way for the present building and a decade
later the original library and city hall also suffered the
same fate.
Though much was lost, green spaces, large rights of way, planted
medians and fine Victorian and Colonial Revival mansions remained.
By the early 1970's newer residents responded to the charms
of the older residential areas and fought to preserve these
neighborhoods. Their efforts succeeded in creating an historic
district around the downtown center and spurred the city's
willingness to sponsor and financially support significant
restoration projects like the Thomas Center (former Thomas
Hotel), the Hippodrome (former post office), and the Seagle
Building. Thus Gainesville's rich history and cultural past
will remain for future generations to enjoy.
Turn Key
Realty
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With our rapidly growing list of buyers and
sellers we at Turn Key Realty would like to assist you in
the purchase of Gainesville real estate and Gainesville homes for sale.
