Archer In the mid 1850s, a small settlement called Deer Hammock was established here as a possible town along the proposed Florida Railroad line. In 1858, the town, then called Archer after Florida's first secretary of state, James T. Archer, was laid out. David Yulee built a plantation here which hosted the Confederate "Gold Train" in 1865.

Bland is an unincorporated community in northwestern Alachua County, Florida, United States.Cotton planters from Georgia and South Carolina settled in the area in the 1840s. The community briefly had a post office, from 1903 to 1906. The community briefly had a post office, from 1903 to 1906. The Alachua County School Board operated the Ogden School No. 49, for African-American students of the Bland community from the early 1900s until 1951. William Washington, who successfully homesteaded 102 acres  in the Bland area, has been identified as an ancestor of Whoopi Goldberg. Picture below, Bland sign on Alachua County Highway 241.

Cadillac: The lost community in Alachua county. In 1906 a train depot was built at Cadillac. The building was 35 feet long and 22 feet wide. It was half-enclosed and had a covered platform. It was originally on the Jacksonville & Southwestern Railway and later bought by the Atlantic Coast Line., that my grandfather Waters, worked for.

http://www.cadillacfl.com/

Campville Founded in 188l, the town was named for the Camp brothers, who operated a large sawmill in the area. They also established the Campville Brick Company, which became the town's main industry until its closing in 1940,and bricks produced there can be seen in Gainesville's old downtown buildings. The bricks are a tan buff color.. The community grew up along the route of the Florida Transit and Peninsular Railroad, with a sawmill, a store, a church, a school and a score of homes in the area when a post office was established in 1881. The population was about 300 in 1928, when a brick factory, several tree nurseries, and four stores were located in the community. 

Photo of the brick factory in the community of Campville, Alachua County, Florida, USA. The photo was given to Herman Gunter by the owner of the plant, Mr. Maulsby, in 1914.

Campville Brick Plant Site Today

Campville, Phifer and Phifer Naval Store

 Campville, Damascus Baptist Church 1902

Cross Creek Never more than a few fishing camps, Cross Creek became the home of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings in 1928 and has been immortalized by her two finest books, The Yearling and Cross Creek. Her cracker home is a National Historic Site. Alachua County also has scores of "lost towns," including Traxler, Adam, Bland, Budu, Eve, Paradise, Kokomo, Atlas, Half Moon, Peach Orchard, Tacoma, Gordon, Haile, Hogtown, Dells, Arrendondo, Jonesville, Tioga and Tuscawilla.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings House, State Route 325

Cross Creek Methodist church dating back to the 1880s, on Hwy 301

Earleton This town was the site of General Elias Earle’s plantation, established in 1858 on the west shore of Lake Santa Fe. Earle was a descendant of a wealthy, influential family in South Carolina. Earle fought in the Mexican War before moving to Florida to start his plantation. He operated a cotton plantation with slaves prior to the Civil War. In the 1870s, a tourist hotel was located here. St. John’s Episcopal Church and Cemetery were established at this site in the late 1870s by English settlers. Completed in 1880, the church was one of the first carpenter gothic chapels in Florida. It was at the time known as the mission at Balmoral and the Lake Santa Fe Mission. 

In the 1870s, the Balmoral Hotel, picture above,  was built near Earleton and catered to Northern tourists. Earle’s daughter and son-in-law built a house in the 1870s that still stands today off Little Lake Santa Fe (the Baylis Earle House). Driving through the canopy of live oaks off County Road 1469, one can get a sense of what Earleton may have been like 150 years ago.

Evinston Named after a leading landowner in the region, this town was formed by the arrival of the railroad in 1882. It had extensive orange groves until the freezes of the 1890s.

Evinston Community Store and Post Office

Gainesville/Hogtown Officially incorporated in 1869, Gainesville's beginnings can be traced to a picnic at Boulware Springs in 1853. A group of county residents voted to move the county seat from Newnansville to a new site, near the proposed route of the Florida Railroad. Legend has it that at this meeting a number of veterans of the Seminole Wars suggested naming the new town after General Edmund P. Gaines, under whom they had served.

Haile: A post office was established at Haile in 1900 but closed only three months later. The railroad line from Newberry to High Springs had a stop at Haile. the original town of Haile was actually located four miles north of Newberry. Thomas Evans Haile’s brother, Edward, had a farm located there. His house was known as “The White House.” When Confederate soldiers were escaping federal troops at the end of the Civil War (see the February-March HOME issue for the full story), one of the soldiers noted in his diary:While farming continued in the area, Haile’s farmland became better known for its phosphate deposits. The historic Thomas Evans Haile plantation, Kanapaha, off Archer Road in southwest Gainesville. The original homestead has been preserved and features its famous “talking walls.” Development in the latter 20th century saw the Haile Village and Plantation neighborhood arise near Kanapaha.

Hawthorne In the 1850s, Hawthorne was a small settlement called Morrison's Mills. When the railroad arrived in 1879, the town was renamed to honor James Hawthorn, a prominent landowner. Throughout the 1880s, its citrus industry and tourism boomed, but the freezes of the 1890s ended that prosperity. Throughout the 20th century, the town has remained an agricultural center.

Hawthorne State Bank

1917 Florida Old Water Mill

Island Grove Established in 1884, the town received its name because it was surrounded by water. It became a shipping center for citrus and vegetables and had a cigar and moss factory before the severe freezes of the 1890s. Island Grove can be found near the southeastern terminus of County Road 325  and US 301. Circa 1885, Island Grove Methodist Church opened its doors and provided religious service and ceremony for local farmers, fishermen and citrus growers until 1972

Island Grove Methodist Church

Jonesville is an unincorporated community in Alachua County, Florida, United States. It is located roughly at the intersection of County Road 241 and State Road 26, the Newberry Road. Jonesville is an informal name for a region on Newberry Road between Gainesville and Newberry. Jonesville is named for John Joseph Jones, a young Alabama farmer who moved to this area in 1849, and owned a farm on the south side of the old Newnansville Road. During the Civil War he served as a 1st lieutenant in the Alachua Rangers, which became C Company of the 7th Florida Volunteer Infantry. Initially, for three or four years in the early 1870s, the local post office was on the Dudley Farm, west of the Jonesville area. But when a post office opened in Jonesville in 1875, John Jones became the first postmaster and this is how the community received the official name of "Jonesville". Jonesville has become more populated as the city of Gainesville has continued to grow and residents have moved west towards less dense communities. Located just north of Jonesville Park on County Road 241, the fire station serves the local area, but can be dispatched elsewhere as needed.The Farnsworths operated an Amoco station in the 1930s, called the “ten-mile post grocery store” due to its distance from Gainesville. The building later became Rosie’s bar before being torn down and replaced by the current gas station.

Bill Barry, Sr., in a Jonesville tobacco field, ca. 1926

A new station was built in 2011, and the old station has been abandoned since. Commercial development has rapidly occurred in the 2010s, with new businesses in and around the Steeple Chase shopping plaza. Large-scale commercial developments have included the Town of Tioga development on pre-existing empty fields around the Steeple Chase Shopping Center, and the Arbor Greens center. 

La Crosse Settlers arrived in this area in the 1830s and 1840s and by the 1880s, the town had stores, churches and a hotel. Incorporated in 1897, the town's chief crops were cotton and potatoes. Now vegetables and livestock are its main industries.

2022

Lochloosa is an unincorporated community in Alachua County, Florida, United States. The community is located on the eastern shore of Lochloosa Lake along U.S. Route 301, 5.6 miles (9.0 km) south of  Hawthorne. Lochloosa has a post office with ZIP code32662, which opened on September 9, 1881.

1882 Church

Melrose Platted in 1877 and once called Banana, the town thrived with the opening of Sante Fe Canal, connecting the town with Waldo. Melrose became a tourist center, with many hotels and winter residents during the 1880s and a shipping center for citrus and vegetables. The freezes of the 1890s destroyed both the citrus industry and tourism, but the city's fine homes survived and today Melrose features scores of older restored homes and a historic district.

Melrose Trinity Episcopal Church  

Micanopy: A former Seminole town, once called Cuscowilla and visited by William Bartram, it was      settled in 1821 as Wanton's town. The oldest inland town in Florida, it suffered under Indian attack during the Seminole War and later experienced a citrus boom in the 1880s. Now it is a haven for artists and filled with antique shops.

Newberry: After the discovery of rich phosphate deposits in western Alachua County, a town called "Newton" was established on a new railroad line in 1894. The name was soon changed to Newberry, after a South Carolina town and incorporated as such in 1895. It prospered as a railway and mining center and then had a tung oil industry in the 1930s.