National Register Listing

City of Alachua Downtown Historic District

a.k.a. AL3780

Roughly bounded by NW 150th Ave., NW 145th Terrace, NW 143rd Place and NW 138th Terrace, Alachua, FL

The City of Alachua Downtown Historic District is significant at the local level for community planning development and architecture. Alachua's collection of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century commercial buildings and period houses reflects the growth and development of this center of commerce for the surrounding agricultural region between 1898 and 1949. The work of master masons and builders has been reflected in the extant buildings as well as the skill of carpenters who built many of the frame and masonry vernacular structures.

Historic Context

When Florida became a United States territory in 1821, white settlers from states north of the border began to claim land in the 1820s. The Bellamy Road, authorized by Congress in 1824 as the first federal highway project in Florida, passed near this area as it stretched from St. Augustine to Pensacola. The Bellamy Road, which closely followed the pathways created by early native peoples and the Spanish who ruled Florida for more than three centuries, crossed the Santa Fe River over the natural land bridge and linked the remote inland heart of Florida to both the Gulf and Atlantic coasts.

Members of the Dell family were among the local pioneers of the territorial period. The first settlement, located about a mile northeast of the present site of the City of Alachua, was called Dell's CourtHouse; it was established as a post office in 1831. The name was changed to Newnansville in 1837, in honor of Indian fighter Daniel Newnan, under whom three of the Dell brothers had served. The history of Newnansville, which became the first county seat of Alachua County, has been extensively researched, including the Newnansville Town Site. The frontier village, located at the junction of the east-west Bellamy Road and the north-south road between Lake City and Micanopy, became a military post and a refuge for scattered farm families when their lives were threatened by roaming Indians during the Seminole Wars in the 1830s and early 1840s. When peace came to the area, more settlers poured into Florida, and Newnansville, as the county seat, became a busy center of business and politics. Many of the early land grants were recorded in the wood-frame courthouse. The Methodist congregation outgrew its log cabin and built a new church with a steeple and classical facade in the 1850s. The town cemetery was laid out beside this church. The rich soil, gentle climate, and other natural advantages drew cotton planters as well as small farmers, and agricultural pursuits flourished.

Newnansville would have continued to grow had it not been for the routing of the Florida Railroad many miles to the south as it linked the state's coasts, running from Fernandina on the Atlantic to Cedar Key on the Gulf of Mexico. Bypassed by the cross-state railroad, Newnansville lost out to the new town of Gainesville, created about fifteen miles to the south in the 1850s, and became the new seat of government for Alachua County in 1854.

Local significance of the district:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 2000.