Paradise was an unincorporated community in Alachua County, Florida, United States. [1] It has been annexed into the city of Gainesville, and is located approximately where Alachua County Road 232 (N.W. 39th Avenue) crosses U.S. Route 441. [2]
The area around Paradise was settled in the 1830s. A station was built on the recently completed Savannah, Florida and Western Railway line between High Springs and Gainesville in 1885, and named Paradise after one of the farm fields in the area. By 1888 the community included some twenty houses, the railroad station and a school. [3] A post office was established in 1885, and closed in 1908. [4] Part of the area of Paradise was annexed into Gainesville in 1961. The remainder of Paradise was annexed into Gainesville in 1992. [5]
Alachua County is a county in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 278,468. The county seat is Gainesville, the home of the University of Florida since 1906, when the campus opened with 106 students.
Hawthorne is a city in Alachua County, Florida, United States, incorporated in 1881. Indigenous peoples of the Americas had been living in the area since around 100 CE; Hawthorne grew around their trading trails. Throughout its history, Hawthorne has been known for its agriculture, railroad, and rural lifestyle. Hawthorne's population was 1,478 at the 2020 census, with an area of 7.38 sq mi (19.1 km2).
High Springs is a city in Alachua County, Florida, United States. It is the fourth-largest city in Alachua County and seventh-largest in North Central Florida. The population was 6,215 at the 2020 census.
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. Jonesville has no city government but is an informal name for a region on Newberry Road between Gainesville and Newberry.
Alachua County Public Schools is a public school district serving Alachua County in North Central Florida. It serves approximately 29,845 students in 64 schools and centers.
Evinston is an unincorporated community in Alachua and Marion counties, Florida, United States.
Rochelle is an unincorporated community in Alachua County, Florida, United States. It was found in the 1830s on a former native settlement and mission site. and was built around the Plantation of Madison Starke Perry.
Windsor is an unincorporated community in Alachua County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 256.
Hague is an unincorporated community in Alachua County, Florida, United States. It is located on Alachua County Road 237 between U.S. Route 441 and the Deerhaven Subdivision line of the CSX Railroad, between the cities of Alachua and Gainesville.
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 Alachua County School Board operated the Ogden School for African-American students of the Bland community from the early 1900s until 1951. William Washington, who successfully homesteaded 102 acres (41 ha) in the Bland area, has been identified as an ancestor of Whoopi Goldberg.
Campville is a community in eastern Alachua County, Florida, north of Hawthorne. 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. It was named for three brothers by the name of Camp who ran a large sawmill in the area. The population was about 300 in 1928, when a brick factory, several tree nurseries, and four stores were located in the community. The brick factory was also founded by the Camp brothers and bricks produced there can be seen in Gainesville's old downtown buildings. The bricks are a tan buff color. The post office was closed in 1966.
Arredondo, Florida is an unincorporated community in Alachua County, about seven miles southwest of Gainesville on the highway from Gainesville to Archer. It was established as a shipping station on the Florida Railroad that ran from Fernandina through Gainesville to Cedar Key, largely absorbing an earlier community called Kanapaha. The Florida Railroad later became part of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, which abandoned the line from Archer to Cedar Key in 1932. The tracks were removed in the 1970s.
Fairbanks is an unincorporated community in Alachua County, Florida, United States. It is located along Florida State Road 24 between Gainesville and Waldo.
Grove Park is an unincorporated community in Alachua County, Florida, United States, on Florida State Road 20 west of Hawthorne.
Rutledge, Florida is an unincorporated community in central Alachua County, Florida. The community was established for formerly enslaved persons during Reconstruction by the Freedmen's Bureau. The First Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church and the Greater Liberty Hill United Methodist Church, both founded in the 19th century, continue to serve the community. The Greater Liberty Hill church is the site of the Liberty Hill Schoolhouse, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Rutledge Community Cemetery, formerly called Union Cemetery of Rutledge, is under the stewardship of the Second Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church. The center of the community was located about five miles west of Gainesville, Florida in the 19th century. As of 2021 it extends from just west of the Gainesville city limits to I-75. A post office was established in 1886, and closed in 1905. In 1888 the community had three stores and a boarding house. It was on the planned route of the Gainesville, Tallahassee and Western Railroad, which was never built.
Fort Clarke was an unincorporated community in central Alachua County. The fort established was by the US Army during the Second Seminole War. A historical marker commemorates the fort, which was abandoned by the US Army in 1840. In 1841, 16 citizens voted at Fort Clarke on adopting a proposed constitution for Florida. In May 1845, the community was a precinct at which seven residents voted in the election of the state governor and legislators, and the representative to the US House of Representatives, after Florida was admitted to the union as a state. A post office was established in 1846 and closed in 1858. In 1883, John Bevill, who was described as the model farmer of Alachua County, had over 1,000 acres (400 ha) in cultivation at Fort Clarke. Two churches, the Fort Clarke United Methodist Church and the Greater Fort Clarke Missionary Baptist Church, are currently located in the vicinity of the former site of the fort. The site is now part of the urbanized area west of Gainesville.
Gordon is a community in northern Alachua County, Florida.
Monteocha is an unincorporated rural community in northern Alachua County, Florida, near the Santa Fe River. A post office was opened in Monteocha in 1889, and closed in 1913. The Homowo-Afi African Cultural and Educational Festival has been held annually in Monteocha since 2005. Alachua County's Monteocha Park is located in the neighboring community of Gordon.
Flora was a community just northeast of the city of Gainesville, in Alachua County, in the late 19th century. A former colonel in the Union Army, Louis A. Barnes, who had served as sheriff and tax collector for the county, and registrar for the U.S Land Office, laid out a 2,000-acre (810 ha) subdivision between the Florida Transit and Peninsular Railroad and the Live Oak, Tampa and Charlotte Harbor Railroad north of the Gainesville city limits. In 1883, five-acre (2.0 ha) lots were being sold for fruit and vegetable farming. A post office was opened in 1895 and closed in 1896. The community was annexed into the city of Gainesville, beginning in 1905.
The historic communities of Alachua County were populated places and/or places with a post office that were established in the 19th century or early 20th century in what is now Alachua County, Florida, but which were abandoned, annexed into an incorporated municipality, or had a much reduced population by the later part of the 20th century.
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