Timeline Block

The modern University of Florida traces its origins to 1853, when the East Florida Seminary, the oldest of its four predecessor institutions, was founded in 1853 as the East Florida Seminary in Ocala, Florida. The seminary was Florida’s first state-supported institution of higher learning and operated until 1861 with the outbreak of the American Civil War. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Florida

In 1866, the East Florida Seminary reopened in Gainesville on the grounds of the Gainesville Academy, a small private college that had closed during the war. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Florida

Florida Agricultural College (FAC), the state’s first land-grant college under the Morrill Act, established in Lake City. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Florida

The Florida Legislature passed the Buckman Act, which reorganized the state’s publicly supported institutions of higher education. Under the act, Florida’s six state-supported institutions were merged to form the State University System of Florida under the newly established Florida Board of Control. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Florida

The Buckman Act did not specify where the new University of the State of Florida would be located. The City of Gainesville, led by its mayor William Reuben Thomas, campaigned to be the site of the new university, with its primary competitor being Lake City. After a brief but intense period of lobbying, the Board of Control selected Gainesville on July 6, 1905, and funds were allocated for the construction of a new campus on the western edge of the town. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Florida

The University of Florida’s first semester in Gainesville began on September 26, 1906, with an enrollment of 102 students. Two buildings had been completed at the time: Buckman Hall, named after the primary author of the law that created the university, and Thomas Hall, named after the mayor of Gainesville who had led the successful effort to bring the school to town. Both structures were designed by William A. Edwards, who designed many of the university’s original buildings in the Collegiate Gothic style in his role as lead architect for Florida’s Board of Control. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Florida