Alachua County residents used to have beach access.

Back then, Alachua County stretched north to Georgia, west to the Gulf of Mexico and south past Tampa.

Florida had only been a territory for three years when Alachua County formed on Dec. 28, 1824, as the seventh county. Now, Alachua County enters its 200th year a fraction of its original size. It’s the matriarch of 14 other counties, mostly sliced off to accommodate Florida’s growing population and organization as a state.

But Alachua County’s bicentennial also aligns with another birthday that splits the history of the area in half—the formation of Gilchrist County in 1925.

The division had several factors that differed from the other counties that peeled off.

Summed up, the split concerned a long-standing desire for a good road from Gainesville to Trenton, concern over “no fence” laws that came to the forefront of Florida politics, and a bluff by local citizens.

Before the split

The word “Alachua” predates the county. The origin story, as given on different historical markers, notes that the word is a Spanish corruption of a Native American word that meant “jug” or “sink.”

After Spain sold the territory, the Florida Territorial Council created the original counties—Escambia and St. Johns—before territory leaders further divided the areas into more manageable chunks as Florida organized and grew.

By 1840, five years before statehood, Alachua County lost its border with Georgia and the southern border moved above Tampa Bay and Pasco County. In the following decade, Levy County and parts of Marion, Putnam, Citrus and Hernando counties had been removed but most of Bradford County was added.

After Bradford County formed in 1858, Alachua County had no more coastline and consisted of its current boundaries, Gilchrist County and a sliver of Levy County.

While the Florida Territorial Council and subsequent state of Florida were busy building a manageable state, Alachua County lost none of its value with the reduction in territory, according to Car Webber.

In his 1883 book “The History of Gainesville,” Webber lavished praise on the area’s intrinsic worth with the newly formed city at its center.

“Within this charming circle, of which Gainesville may well be termed the ‘Hub’ as she is of the State, rests Alachua County, sitting like a queen upon the southern brow of the hill portion of the state, nearly 200 feet above the level of the sea, surrounded by her sister counties, who bow reverently before her with due homage and respect, because of her richest of all God-given gifts, healthfulness and productiveness,” Webber said.

Alachua County’s territory held steady after 1858. But after the Civil War and the dawn of a new century, tensions started simmering, eventually leading to an overwhelming vote in 1925 to divide Alachua County one last time and to create Gilchrist County—the last Florida county.

A Road

Local Gainesville historian Don Davis said Gilchrist County was known as the West End before the split. While modern Gainesville sits an even distance between the eastern and western borders of Alachua County, the territory was lopsided at the time.

The West End took up a lot of territory, forming a third of Alachua County’s area. But Davis said it felt cut off.

West End residents used horses and carts, and later cars, to trek into the county seat for official business. Although trains became available, they cost money, and no direct line connected Trenton with Gainesville.

According to the Gainesville Daily Sun (GDS) in 1914, it took residents 40 hours by train to conduct business in Gainesville and return home to the West End.

In 1911, the GDS reported that parties returning from the west said roads were in good condition until they reached Newberry.

“…but from Newberry to points further out in the West End the sand is so bad that it is hardly passable,” the article said.

The opposite was also true. County officials needed to take multi-day tours of the West End.

“Everything legally had to go through Gainesville, which meant they had to go to Gainesville,” Davis said. “And so, you could see how just that trip to Gainesville would be irritating to them, and then the type of road they traveled on would be irritating.” 

A 1911 GDS article reported that the sheriff had spent three days in the West End serving papers for upcoming court cases. In 1912, the Alachua County superintendent of schools visited the West End for two to three days and planned to inspect other schools in that area as soon as he could spare the time from office duties.

Citizens petitioned the county government for a better road, and the county commissioners approved a resolution calling for more brick roads. Progress seemed underway in 1916 with the planned purchase of Caterpillar engine for road construction, and a citizen reported in the GDS that traffic had increased along the road.

While better, the new thoroughfare still wasn’t paved. Three years later the school district’s attendance officer, Mark Moore, reported that the schools in the West End were splendid, but the roads were in bad condition.

“He said that he did not have any idea there were such roads in the entire county,” a GDS story said.

The Alachua County commissioners would try to finance road construction to create a more robust road district in the West End, but as of May 1920, no bids had been received and no bonds sold yet.

Rumors of a county division, though, had long started. One of the first reports was in a 1911 GDS article: “Our sister town, Trenton, is prospecting highly for a new county off the west end of Alachua and a small slice off the north side of the west end of Levy.”

As the West End continued without paved roads, rumors would turn to action in the 1920s, with a new concern to divide the rural, cattle-oriented West End from the more urban Alachua County core.

A Fence

Across Florida, concern is rising.

A new tick transmitted by cattle and swine has come over 1,200 miles from Texas.

In the early 1900s, animals could roam free to graze, especially in rural areas like the West End. This unfenced cattle system helped spread the virus born by the tick, called Texas Fever.

To combat the problem, leaders consider “no fence” laws. The new laws would require ranchers to keep cattle fenced on private property, prohibiting the free-range lifestyle that had been passed down for generations.

“It was their way of life,” Davis said. “They just ran the animals out in the woods, and that was the case even in Newberry.”

Still feeling neglected without a decently functioning road—15 prominent men of the West End “stormed” the governor’s office in early 1925 to demand inclusion in a state-wide road paving program—the new “no fence” laws sparked action to prevent an urban Alachua County core from prohibiting free range cattle.

Proposals were drafted to create a new county—initially named Melon County for the area’s main agricultural export.

At the time, Alachua County was protected by a river boundary to the north and west and lakes along the south and east. A new “Melon” County that allowed free-range cattle and swine could mean infected animals entering Alachua from the west.

“It is reported that efforts to secure the new county are to combat the no-fence law, which looks like it will pass in Alachua County,” a GDS article reported on Nov. 15, 1925. “It has been pointed out that in the event ‘Melon’ county is created, the protection of Alachua County against free range territory will be considerably lessened.”

The Melon County proposal moved forward and acquired a new name in honor of former Florida Governor Albert Gilchrist.

But how serious was the West End about creating a new county and all the work involved?

A Bluff?

In 1925, Alachua County was one of the most populated and powerful counties in Florida.

As The Tampa Times phrased it that year, Alachua County was one of the older counties of the state and “it may be said in passing, one of the most prosperous.”

For years, the less populated West End failed to get a decent road and now their way of life seemed headed for disruption if the densely populated core of Alachua County passed the no-fence law.

Citizens in the West End tried to force a change: make the Alachua County commissioners pay attention by threatening to split.

The Works Progress Administration’s Historical Records Survey collected an account of Gilchrist County’s formation in 1939. Along with oral interviews in the area, the survey said the West End citizens drew up plans for secession to show the seriousness of their threat.

“Armed with this document, they delivered their ultimatum to Alachua: ‘Give us our new road or we will withdraw!’ AND THE BIG AND WEALTHY COUNTY OF ALACHUA COUNTY CALLED THEIR BLUFF,” the Works Progress Administration document said. “Instead of the road—they received a laugh. The unvoiced attitude of the commissioners was, in effect: “If you are so anxious to have a new county, go ahead and get a county—if you can—and see if we care: We are big and solid, we will not even miss you.”

To save face, the citizens pushed on, determined to create and to succeed with their new county.

UF historian, professor and author Kevin McCarthy relates this “popular story” for Gilchrist County’s origin in “The History of Gilchrist County.” McCarthy cited the no-fence laws for Alachua County’s split, as well as Florida’s distribution of racetrack revenue that made a new county seem possible—and better.

“Many people in the West End believed they would be better off financially, especially because a new county would receive an equal share of the state’s racetrack revenue, which the state distributed equally to each county,” McCarthy said.

The Legislature pushed the special bill forward to create Gilchrist County. On Dec. 4, it passed and was signed. But to be finalized, it would require a majority vote of the potential new citizens of Gilchrist County.

The Result

At the Dec. 12 election, residents voted 345 to 17 to create Gilchrist County.

If this disagreement had happened in the Balkans, one Tampa Bay Times article said, a fight would have erupted with a victor decided by force of arms. In America, a peaceful resolution could settle the issue.

To keep animals from roaming over the new border, The Tampa Times said a fence would be built.

“Following the agreement to separate came an appeal to the legislature to establish a new county of Gilchrist,” the article said, “which it did with the [provision] that the new county should establish a fence horse high, pig tight and bull strong to make its neighbor county secure from the ravages of predatory animals.”

Approaching its 100th birthday, Gilchrist County sits to the west with no wall dividing it from the cities of Newberry and High Springs just on the other side.

Alachua County now enters its 200th year a fraction of its original size, like all the early counties in Florida. New counties were formed by the Legislature and earlier council to organize the state.

But Alachua County also got split because of a road, a fence and a bluff, making it the territory we all now know.