City of Alachua

Alachua has had families that have been here for generations, like the Fugates, Shaws (1865), Waters, Hitchcocks, Copelands, Harrisons, Bryans, Goodes, Williams, Cauthens, and the Robartses. “The Good Life Community,” Alachua’s connection to commerce is served by U.S. Route 441 and Interstate 75. Special events in Alachua include the Fourth of July celebration, Spring Festival, Harvest Festival, Christmas Parade and the new Third Thursday on Main, a monthly event sponsored by the City’s Community Redevelopment Agency that includes live music, artists and bands, street performances and unique shopping and dining experiences, all in a festive atmosphere on Main Street. Alachua also offers some outdoor adventure, most notably the San Felasco Preserve State Park. With one of the few remaining mature forests in Florida, the preserve connects residents and visitors to over 7,000 acres of hiking, biking and horseback trails. Bobcats, white-tailed deer, gray foxes, turkeys and many species of songbirds live in the 18 natural communities found in the preserve.

Alachua was established in 1884 on a railroad line, after the railroad had bypassed nearby Newnansville. Alachua got a post office in 1887 and was incorporated as a city on 12 April 1905, at which time it had a population of 526 people. The Old Dixie Highway came into Alachua from the Lake City side, then it turned down Main Street and went out, going by Burnett's Lake. In later years, they put up this new highway through here. This became the main route you used to go from Alachua to Gainesville. Nestled beneath huge live oaks, magnolias, cedar and hickory trees the town of Alachua is steeped in Florida history dating back to the Spanish explorers who were looking for land for their cattle ranches. The DeSoto trail winds through the area and can be followed by those interested in Indian and Spanish culture.  You can`t talk about the history of Alachua without mentioning the history of another settlement nearby called Newnansville. The two are entwined in early history. In the early 1800`s Alachua County was a wild land inhabited and controlled by the Seminole Indians. Indian raids were common in the area. In 1818, a settlement was established in the area now known as Newnansville. A treaty was signed in 1824 and the Seminoles were moved to a reservation further south. Early in 1826, a post office was established, roads were built, stores were set up and a settled land began to emerge. This area was then called "Dell`s Post Office" in one historical document and in another it is referred to as "Dell`s Court House". It was named for the Dell brothers who came to the Alachua area during the "Patriot War" (1812-1814). They liked the area and decided to return after the war. A land grant office just east of the present site of the city was built and offered early settlers land, provided they promised to live on the land, farm and keep the Indians off of it. It was located about a mile northeast of present day Alachua.The name "Dell`s Post Office" or "Dell`s Court House" was changed by the Territorial Legislature to "Newnansville" in honor of a Patriot War hero, Daniel Newnan and officially made the Alachua County seat. Alachua was one of the largest counties in the state at this time. The county`s land area has decreased considerably over the years.

"I have a true passion for photography, creavitity, and secrets that photography allows you

to explore. Every picture tells a secret about a secret. This is why every time I hear the

shutter a photograph comes alive". Samantha Hitchcock: lifelong family/resident of Alachua.

The Alachua Swamp - where it all began...  

Alachua County 1865: The year Jesse Mansfield Shaw arrived in Alachua

Alachua County 1874

Alachua County, 1880

The city of Alachua has its roots in the 1818 pioneer town of Newnansville, which was built on the major trade route crossing Florida, Old Bellamy road. In 1854 when the railroad replaced the historic trails as the major route of transportation, Alachua was born. In 1995, the State of Florida awarded Alachua the honor of "Most Outstanding Rural Community" in the state. Today Alachua is a prosperous town, which is a wonderful mix of local folks who are direct descendants of the Newnansville founders, and transplanted folks who fell in love with the friendly small town atmosphere. Newnansville was a crossroad point for several important trails through early Florida. During the Second Seminole War (1835-1842), hundreds of displaced settlers were sheltered there and at Ft. Gilleland. There were eight forts in Alachua County for the protection of whites against the Indians between 1835-1855, but bear in mind that Alachua County was much larger at the time. When the war was over, Newnansville became a commercial center for an area that was beginning to grow as a large number of the refugee settlers stayed and others moved in. Newnansville and the surrounding area was the most thickly populated section of Alachua County for fifty years. More than one third of the voters lived in Newnansville in 1857. Just as the Bellamy Road added to the importance of Newnansvilie the loss of the county seat in 1865 and the coming of the railroad to the south heralded its demise. In an interview of Mr. Barnard (Barney) Cato when he was 96 for the High Springs Herald, Mr. Cato told of his father having a fresh meat market in Newnansvilie before Alachua existed. At that time the old county courthouse was used as a schoolhouse and the top floor was the Masonic Lodge. Newnansville was so much in the main stream it served as the Alachua County seat until 1854 when a railroad was constructed from Fernandina to Cedar Key. It bypassed the town to the east. To be nearer the railroad the U.S. Land Office located there, along with the Alachua County seat was moved to the new railroad town of Gainesville, located more in the center of present Alachua County. The town of Newnansville was no longer a center for activity and declined for the next 30 years. In 1884 when the Savannah, Florida and Western Railroad bypassed it about a mile to the south, the settlers moved their businesses closer and a new town, Alachua, began as a shipping point. Newnansville slowly became a town of the past as it gave way to this new town.

Meanwhile in Alachua, Mr. F.E. Williams took advantage of the tracks running through his property. According to a March 1885 issue of the Alachua Advocate (the forerunner of the Gainesville Sun) "F.E. Williams is making an effort to get a post office established in his new town at the railroad depot. He has about 150 signatures to his petition for the same. This new town is laid off into large lots..."Several fine houses are already completed and others are being erected. Mr. Williams will soon remove his stock of merchandise from Newnansville to his new town," the advocate reported. Mr. Williams didn`t actually succeed in getting a post office until April 30, 1887. A hotel, livery stable, and several other stores opened. A few homes were already occupied. A grist mill and lumber mill were being erected. The Advocate reporter wrote: "Alachua will swallow up the trade of Newnansville." The prediction came true, although one man continued to operate a store in Newnansville until his death in the 1930's.

1901-2 Group portrait from the old Alachua school

Alachua's first store was opened by C.A.Williams in 1885 with his brothers F.E. and J.R. Williams. The Savannah, Florida and Western Railroad with a station named Alachua was completed in 1885. The Alachua Post Office opened April 30, 1887. A schoolhouse was built in Alachua in 1895 on the site where the present Alltel telephone building is located. The first brick building in Alachua was erected in 1898 and by 1903 many more brick buildings were going up. In 1899 construction began on a new school building located on a four acre site on the hill where the Alachua Elementary School is now located. This three classroom building with an auditorium on the second floor was the first brick school building in Alachua county; it was dedicated on February 22, 1901. Later a two story wing was added to accommodate more students when the Newnansvilie school closed on may 3, 1904. 

On April 12th, 1905 the City of Alachua was officially incorporated and had a population of 526. By 1912 it had three hotels: the Sheffield Hotel; Transient House; and a second Transient House. In 1914 Alachua had two banks, three hotels, a number of stores ranging from a fruit stand to a large, well-stocked department store, ice plant, electric light plant, waterworks, two cotton gins, two grist mills and bottling works. The electric light and waterworks plant began operating in 1913. Electricity cost $1 per month for the first 300 watts and $1.25 for 300-500 watts. The cost of water was $1 per month "for the first opening and 25 cents for each additional opening." 

Alachua Depot 1975

By this time in 1915, the new township of Alachua had constructed two church buildings, Baptist and Methodist. The local Presbyterians held their own services in the Baptist church. The school building stood on the hill "to the northeast of town." At first, there were seven teachers. The school`s first graduating class, two boys and a girl, were to graduate in May. The schools grew and in 1924, the Alachua High School Basketball team upset the sports world with a victory in the state tournament over Duval High of Jacksonville and in nearby Gainesville people were becoming aware that the Florida Gators were being supported by a state-wide audience. By 1925 Alachua had a population of 1,100. It still had two banks and its own utilities but all three churches now had their own building. There was now a telephone connection to the outside world.

Main street originally was a dirt road lined with trees running through the middle of town. Saturday on main street in Alachua was the busiest time of the week. Local farmers from miles around would come to town with their families to buy groceries, plow lines, bridles, nails, buckets, cloth, shoes, and any other household needs. 

On the right the first store was Fugate Grocery..across the street Mrs. Fugate had a restaurant. It was not on the south corner, but next door.

Early in the morning the wagons would start lining up with the mules pulling into shady places where they were parked for the day. Most of them behind stores or out in the vacant lots behind Fisher`s Hotel (where the famous Ma Barker once spent the night with her boys). Everybody came dressed up in clean overalls and starched and ironed dresses, including the children. They`d spend some of the time standing around in front of the Post Office, Mr. Hasting`s or Mr. Joseph Edgar Fugate`s grocery store or Dale`s or Joiner`s Drug Store, where they`d buy liniment, Grover`s chill tonic, 666 tablets and ice cream cones.

Most of the families brought their own shelled corn to Mr. Petitt`s to be ground into meal and grits. He`d do the grinding for half the corn so there was no exchange of money. The store windows had prices painted on them with white watery chalk. Inside the stores, rice, beans and sugar were scooped up out of barrels into brown paper bags and tied with white string that came down through a hook in the ceiling and up through a hole in the counter. White bacon and cured meat along with beef and pork that was recently butchered, hung behind the counter, and Mr. Hastings would cut off a pound or two at a time with the same knife he used to cut the yellow wedges of cheese. Canned goods were stacked in rows and people would wait in line for a clerk to take their order. They would fill up their kerosene cans for their lamps and put a raw potato back in the spout. Many farmers would bring eggs to sell and each would be held over a light bulb to determine if it was good. 

In the afternoon visiting would begin again and the streets would be so crowded no one could move around too much. After a few hours of this, they would begin to load up and the children would begin to be packed in between sacks of flour and meal and other good things. One by one they would pull out and drive slowly home in time to feed the livestock before dark.

Some of the men who had been working in the stores all day would go to Mr. Stoke`s little barber shop down by Mr. Eddy`s hardware store or to Willie Cauthen`s bigger barber shop by Charlie Smith`s dry cleaners. They`d sit for hours on the benches covered with green oil cloth until it was their turn for a hair cut, shave and sometimes a bath in the large tub in the back of the shop. They`d come out in a puff of steam and always smell like Palmolive soap and show up at church the next day smelling like a combination of soap, Mennen`s shaving lotion and Three Roses talcum powder.

The next Saturday would be a repeat of the day. One of the popular sites on Sunday afternoon`s was Burnett`s Lake, which got it`s name from a Mayor of Gainesville, Samuel W. Burnett. The wagons didn`t stop suddenly, but rather dwindled down to a trickle and were gradually replaced by the Model T Ford. The farmers still came to town to buy supplies but now most of them now drove a Model T pick-up. Later the Model T was replaced by the Model A and in 1932 everyone went to Enneis Motor Company to see the brand new Ford with the new V8 engine, the rumored choice for bootleggers. 

As the thirties came so did adversity. Banks began to fail and long lines formed, and when some banks weren`t able to produce the money people had in checking and savings accounts, they closed their doors, leaving people in financial disarray. However, some banks withstood the runs and The First National Bank of Alachua was one of them. People coming out of the bank were asked how much money remained, and their assurances that there was plenty left helped return the confidence of those who had withdrawn their funds and they returned to redeposit their money. Watermelons were being grown in increasing number and fresh corn, cucumbers, beans, and squash were being shipped to northern markets. Demonstrators from North Carolina showed people how to grow tobacco. Tobacco barns and packing sheds then began to replace cotton gins. In 1928, Copeland Sausage Company opened its doors. It was first built near The Alachua Recreation Center. However, they were not allowed to kill the hogs inside the city limits. Therefore, they would kill the hogs across the street (which was not in the city limits at the time). When they built the new plant, they built it outside the city limits.

Although the Depression hurt everyone, there always seemed to be enough to eat and the farmers brought produce into town and shared with those less fortunate. According to one article, you could always tell who had a good year in cucumbers or tobacco. In the fall of the year there were peanut boilings and cane grindings. Neighbors in this community still integrated their work and play. They came together to butcher hogs, make syrup, or raise a house or church. Births, deaths and marriages were told through word of mouth. Then came World War II and things were never the same in Alachua. Boys and girls left for the armed services, many never to return again. Families moved to find work in the shipyards or other war related jobs. Most of the old buildings in town survived though the old oaks that lined the street were cut down because of old age or to make room for "progress."  

The Suwanne Store which was run by Mr. Martin. Joe and Doris Thigpen lived on Main Street in Alachua for decades, just a block away from the pharmacy that he operated from 1940 until his death in 1970. Thigpen's had a soda fountain and you could always find doctor Goode in there. Thigpen drug store on the corner of Main Street and Willie's barber shop was behind the drug store, where Joann Stengel's beauty salon is there now. Joe's son, Millard Thigpen worked at Copeland Sausage Company for 16 years. Although the packing sheds have disappeared from town, area farmers still plant crops of beans, corn, squash, peppers and cucumbers. In this small community, local folks still spread the news of births, marriages, and deaths by word of mouth. Families still watch out for each other`s children. Neighbors still come to each other`s aid in the time of need and farmers still come to town on Saturday. Now they stop at the local supermarket and you can find them sitting on a bench outside one of the local stores or restaurants for a neighborly chat and the post office is still a popular place to catch up on the local gossip.

In 1987, the historic Main Street, with its quaint brick, 1900's architecture and grand old Victorian homes, was redeveloped. This revitalization has provided the perfect environment for our Main Street business to flourish. Through the continued support and efforts of our citizens in the downtown Redevelopment Committee, additional grants have been obtained to build a sitting garden park within the towering, antique brick walls of the old Main Street cinema.

First National Bank of Alachua

The bank was chartered in 1908 (unknown when building was constructed). It was bought out by Capital City Bank Group, Inc. in 2005. It is now home to a retail establishment. This is a contributing building on the National Register of Historic Places and a part of the City of Alachua Downtown Historic District.

The Bank of Alachua

The Bank of Alachua ran into trouble during the Depression era. Mr. Enneis, whose family owned the local Ford dealership, remembers his father driving a Lincoln Touring Sedan on a trip to Barnett Bank in Jacksonville with Mr. LeRoy and Police Chief Clarence Brown to arrange for a cash infusion. In spite of all good efforts, the January 22, 1931 edition of The Gainesville Daily Sun reported, "Bank of Alachua Forced to Suspend Operation Business…closing its doors shortly before the end of the day's business yesterday. Officials of the bank said steady withdrawals caused the bank to close. There was no concerted run on the institution .. Alachua's other institution, The First National Bank, was not greatly affected by the closing of its sister establishment…Officers of the closed bank said last night it was probable that plans would be made within a few days to reopen the institution. Nothing definite has been planned, however.." On December 23, 1931, the Sun informed its readers, "Depositors at the Bank of Alachua will be paid a five percent dividend today, F.G. McIntosh, liquidator, announced yesterday. Payment will begin at 10 o'clock this morning at the bank. Mr. McIntosh said the five percent payment today would bring the total dividends, paid since the bank closed in January of this year, to 15 percent.

Main Street

Main Street 1980

Conye Rimes Shaw's Alachua Home

Her home was built by Garland Wheeler in the late 30's. He was here from the Carolina's working with the tobacco farmers-demonstrators from North Carolina showed people how to grow tobacco) CSWaters-Mixon 

Vida Water's Alachua Home - Main Street CSWaters-Mixon

2022 Vida Water's Alachua Home - Main Street CSWaters-Mixon Vida Waters Home, Main St, Alachua JWShaw 

DS Waters Dry Goods Store-Main Street 2022 (Green building)

Mrs Fugate's Cafe-Main Street-14822 Main St.2022

Blanche LeRoy's Alachua Home CSWaters-Mixon

This large frame house with the three-story tower on one corner and fish scale shingles on the dormers and tower, was built near the turn of the century by Furman E. Williams. He was postmaster from 1897 to 1907 and a founder of the Bank of Alachua. A nephew, H.N. LeRoy, who lived with the Williams and served in the bank, later inherited the house. A daughter, Blanche LeRoy, owns the home. 

Ivy House (LeRoy Home) on Main Street, Alachua JWShaw

LeRoy - Ivy Home

 Meyer Home: Queen Anne Victorian

Built in 1898, The Meyer House is the oldest structure on Alachua Florida's Historic Main Street

Stephens House on Main St Alachua JWShaw

This home, shaded by two trees in the front, was built by J.T. Mizell, an Alachua builder. There is evidence to indicate that the house was built prior to 1904. The piping of an acetylene gas lighting system is still in this house. About 1918 it became the residence of Frazier Stephens, a prominent merchant. It is presently the residence of George Stevens.

Historic Main Street, Alachua JWShaw 

ALACHUA WOMEN'S CLUB

Originally called the Alachua Improvement Club, it was organized in 1912 with the objective of improving the schools. Members met in homes until this native stone building was constructed with WPA labor in the early 1930's. Some of the early Presidents included Mrs. W. E. Enneis (1937-39)   2013-2014 Corresponding Secretary, Linda Kay Shaw.

Alachua's Milam Funeral Home

William Lloyd Huggins, age 85, passed away January 23, 2013, after a long illness at the Veterans Hospital Gainesville FL. Born in Hague, FL. Lloyd attended Gainesville High School and the University of Florida he also served in the U. S. Navy during WWII. He was a lifelong member of the First United Methodist Church of Alachua and a member of the Alachua Lions Club where he received the Melvin Jones Award. Prior to retirement Lloyd was a loyal & devoted associate with Milam Funeral Home. He is survived by Katherine (Kitty) his wife of 61 years, son Mickey Huggins (Linda) of Gainesville, and Melody McIntyre (Artie) of Ft. Myers. Katherine P. Huggins age 89, passed away October 7, 2015, at home in Lehigh Acres. She was born in Bell, Florida and retired from American General Life Insurance, where she was office manager for over 40 years. She was a member of the First United Methodist Church of Alachua and a lifetime member of The Alachua Womens Club.

Shaw Farm House CSWaters

Shaw Farms Old Dairy Barn & Silo CSWaters

 Our Old Alachua Home 1960's CSWaters

(Picture taken in 1980) 

Alachua_Pearce-Bishop House photographed around 1898

Alachua grade school 1935

Church of God By Faith, Inc., Alachua complex in the 1930s to 1940s.

The Church of God By Faith, Inc. is a religious institution founded in 1914 in Jacksonville, Florida, United States, by John Bright, Aaron Matthews, Sr., Nathaniel Scippio and Hubert Steadman. In 1922 an assembly was held in Alachua, Florida, US, a charter was drafted, and the name Church of God By Faith, Inc. officially adopted. A General Assembly was held in Alachua, Florida in 1922 where the leading elders drafted a charter, now known as the "Church of God By Faith, Inc." The GeneralAssembly was moved from Alachua, Florida to Ocala, Florida, in December 1941. The practice of continuing education in  Churuch of God By Faith was first introduced at the 1926 General Assembly in Alachua, Fl. 

 Indexes of Original Alachua County Land Patent Holders

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~flalachu/ACLPmain.htm

'ALACHUA PORTRAIT: The Living Heritage Project' 1999

Sponsored by the Florida Endowment for the Humanities, and the City of Alachua.

http://archive.org/stream/alachuaportraitl11999unse/alachuaportraitl11999unse_djvu.txt

1985

"Oldest Methodist Church in Florida."

2022