Northeast Gainesville Residential District
Roughly bounded by 1st, and 9th Sts., 10th and E. University Aves., Gainesville, FLThe Northeast Gainesville Residential District is significant for the concentration and evolution of an early residential neighborhood in a sixty-three-block area. The buildings, which reflect architectural styles prevalent in Florida during the 1880s through 1920s, and the public green spaces depict the development of Gainesville between these years. The northeast quadrant of the city incorporates nine former subdivisions: Original Gainesville, Home Investment Company Addition, Robertson's Addition, Sun-Kist Addition, Doig and Robertson's Subdivision, Highland Terrace, and Highland Heights. The development of these subdivisions and the incorporation of these areas into Gainesville's city limits reflects typical residential growth patterns of Florida cities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The District has also been an area where several persons important in the community's development established their residences.
Gainesville was chosen as the county seat for Alachua County in 1853 and platted in 1854.1 The City was laid out in a grid pattern (except the eastern boundary which followed the Sweet Water Branch). The original 103 1/4 acre plat, bought from Major James B. Bailey and from the estate of Nehemiah Brush, was designed with four intersecting ninety-foot thoroughfares, which form the courthouse square in the center of the city. Thirty-foot streets formed the boundaries and forty-five-foot streets were used elsewhere in the grid.2 These paired, ninety-foot thoroughfares divided the city into four quadrants with the original northeast quadrant comprising a portion of the Northeast Gainesville Residential District (that eighteen-block section marked by Northeast 5th Avenue, Sweet Water Branch, East University Avenue, and Northeast 1st Street). Of the 24 extant structures built before 1900, 19 are located within this portion of the district. Construction of these buildings occurred primarily during the 1880s. Reflecting the popular style of the period, a large number of these homes were built in the Queen Anne style. Some of these are located on Northeast 3rd Street 216, and 306. Another example is 420 Northeast 5th Street.
The early growth of Gainesville was limited until the completion of the Florida Railroad in 1859.3 Prosperity, however, was curtailed throughout the 1860s and 1870s by the Civil War and Reconstruction. The establishment of several industries (citrus, fertilizer, phosphate, and an iron foundry), in the 1880s, brought Gainesville out of this economic slump.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.