Gainesville, Florida

Gainesville is a college city occupying a gently rolling plain in north-central Florida, about 114 miles northwest of Orlando and 125 miles north of Tampa. It is the seat of Alachua County and, occupied by approximately one hundred twenty-five thousand residents. The city was incorporated in 1869, and it was named for Seminole War commander General Edmund Pendleton Gaines.

Situated between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, the leafy college town of Gainesville, Florida is where nature and culture meet. All year, the city basks in warm sunshine and cool breezes. It's now a bustling metropolis, but Gainesville still has its small-town character. This sense of heritage and vitality can be experienced not only through the people but also through every cultural offering of the city.

This perennial "Tree City, USA" is covered by dense tree canopy of conifers and broadleaf evergreen. Gainesville is fondly called "Berkeley of the South," a nickname afforded by the presence of two prestigious institutions here, the University of Florida, the flagship university of Florida, and Santa Fe College, one of the largest community colleges in the country. Gatorade, the world-popular sports drink, was invented at the University of Florida by Dr. Robert Cade.

Welcome to the city of Gainesville, where you will be able to make just about anything happen. There are intriquing options in entertainment, education, affordable living and many other benefits the city offers its residents. People of any age or any profession will surely find the city exciting and vivacious to their own liking.

Gainesville History

The area of Gainesville was inhabited by Timucuan Indians many years before the arrival of European colonizers. In December 1817, the land was granted to Don Fernando de la Maza Arredondo by the Spanish crown.

In 1824, following the annexation of Florida by the United States, Alachua County was created. When the proposed route of Florida Railroad linking Fernandina Beach and Cedar Key bypassed Newnansville (then the seat of Alachua County), residents decided to build a new town near the expected railroad and make it Alachua County seat. They named it Gainesville in honor of General Edmund P. Gaines, a Seminole Indian War hero. Gainesville was founded on September 6, 1853.

In October of 1853, Major James B. Bailey sold over sixty acres of his land to fund the building of the new town. A courthouse square became the town center. By 1860, the eight blocks surrounding the town square had a school, a general store, three hotels, and hundreds of residences.

Many believe that Gainesville was originally a settlement named Hogtown, an Indian village located along Hogtown Creek in the area of what is now the Northwest Park. Gainesville would annex the area in 1961 and incorporate Hogtown Creek into the city borders.

The Civil War slowed down the growth of the town. The town became the site of two skirmishes between Confederate and Federal troops. The first took place on February 15, 1864; the second, on August 17, 1864.

The years following the Civil War were a period of new growth and prosperity. In 1866, Ocala's East Florida Seminary reopened in the city as a partner of Gainesville Academy. A black school was opened the next year. On April 14, 1869, Gainesville was granted cityhood.

The late 1800s was also a period of growth. Gainesville became the primary shipping station for the state's cotton produce. By 1882, Colonel Henry Dutton, the founder of the cotton shipping industry in Gainesville, had fourteen cotton gins in operation. Two more railroad services arrived in the 1880s. Citrus and vegetables farming became important cash crops. The citrus industry ended, however, after record-setting freezes hit the city in 1894-95 and another in 1899. By the 1890s, phosphate mining and lumbering assumed greater importance for the local economy.

By the 1900s, Gainesville had a population of nearly 10,000. The city's growth continued with the opening of the University of Florida in 1906. The university became the most important economic staple in Gainesville, helping the community weather the collapse of the local cotton and phosphate industries in the mid-1920s and the Great Depression of the 1920s.

About Gainesville, Florida

Gainesville was settled in 1830 as a trading post, became a center of citrus and phosphate industries in the late 19th century, and a thriving college town beginning the 20th century to the present. Today, the city's economy is also boosted by medical industry and insurance. The city has been routinely named #1 best place to live and work by several institutions including Money Magazine and by National Geographic Adventure.

The best way to start experiencing Gainesville is to learn the history of the city, people, flora and fauna by taking a trip to the Florida Museum of Natural History. Also at the UF Cultural Plaza is the Samuel B. Harn Museum of Arts. One the top university art museums in the country, the Harn Museum features over 6,000 contemporary and modern art works from Africa & Asia. A highlight of the Harn Museum is an original by Claude Monet. The Micanopy Historical Society Museum focuses on the history of the city beginning with the early Native Americans to the Seminole Wars to the Civil War. On Archer Road is the Fred Bear Museum, a museum big game collected from all over the world as well as ancient tools and artifacts of Indians, Eskimos, and some African tribes. The Historic Haile Homestead at Kanapaha Plantation is a homestead built by a slave-labor in 1856.

Gainesville's rich culture is accentuated by a variety of acts shown across many world-class performing facilities. Dance, musicals, plays, and other cultural performances can be enjoyed at the Constans Theatre, Squitieri Studio Theatre, or the Curtis M. Phillips Center. Gainesville also hosts a large number of off-stage cultural events. One of the largest, the Spring Arts Festival, is hosted each April by the Santa Fe College. In the fall, a crowd of over 100,000 join the Downtown Festival & Art Show to marvel at the works of award-winning artists.

Sport is another passion of the city. The home of "The Gators", Gainesville supports nearly every kind of sports - from football to car races. The premier venue for football is the Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. More popularly known as "The Swamp," this 84,000-seat stadium raises noise level in the city during Gators' games. Basketball, swimming, diving, and indoor track are usually hosted at the O'Connell Center, while driver clock their Top Fuel runs at the Gainesville Raceway, one of the world's fastest tracks.

Blessed with dense forests, lakes, prairie, rolling hills, and sinkholes, the city of Gainesville offers plenty of opportunities to enjoy nature. Wildlife parks such as the San Felasco Hamock Preserve and the Paynes Prairie are a popular destination for hiking, biking, birding, fishing, trekking, and other outdoor recreation.

About Alachua County, Florida

Alachua County is an inland county covering 961 square miles of rolling hills, prairies, and pinewood forests in the north-central region of Florida. Populated by over two hundred twenty-seven thousand, the county is composed of seven cities and two towns. The county seat of Alachua is the City of Gainesville, home of the University of Florida.

The area was named by the Timucuan Indians for its natural features. Alachua is said to be the Indian name for sinkhole, a depression in land surface with underground stream, which is aplenty in the area. This rolling, hilly county also has numerous lakes, creeks, ponds, limestone springs, and sinkholes. Most of the early settlers of Alachua County were farmers from the south. First, they farmed cotton and rice. These were replaced in the late 19th century by citrus and vegetable farming and phosphate mining as dominant industries.

History: Ancient Floridians inhabited the region about 10,000 years ago. Tools, pottery, and other ancient tools that date back to this era can be viewed at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville. In the 1740s, immigrant Oconee Creek Indians (the original Seminoles) from Georgia established a village near the Alachua Savannah (called Payne's Prairie since 1812). Following the annexation of Florida in 1824, Alachua County was created. The designated county seat was Newnansville. After a proposed Fernandina-Cedar Key railroad bypassed Newnasville, county residents created a new town near the railroad line to become the new county seat. The new town was named Gainesville and it became the county seat in 1954.

Historic Sites: Alachua County has many natural, archaeological, and historic sites. One of the most famous natural landmarks, the Paynes Prairie, was the settlement of Timucuan Indians until the late 1600s. Now a state preserve, the prairie measures eight miles long and it had alternated, historically, between being lake and prairie. The Kanapaha Botanical Gardens showcases a diverse range of native and imported plants. The Devil's Millhopper is a large sinkhole measuring about 500 feet in diameter. The Boulware Spring Waterworks was the first Gainesville's first source of drinking water. Eight miles southwest of Gainesville is the Haile Plantation, one of the remaining homes from the Civil War era.