East Florida Seminary

Founded as the Gainesville Academy before the Civil War and later renamed, the East Florida Seminary served Gainesville's need for higher education until the University of Florida was created by the Florida Legislature in 1905. The Seminary school building, erected ...

Earleton, Florida

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Earleton is named for General Elias B. Earle (1821-1893) who received government land grants in Florida for his service in the U.S./Mexican War (1846-48). Born into a prominent South Carolina family, Gen. Earle fought in the Palmetto Regiment, ...

Archer Florida

When Europeans first arrived in this area in the 16th century, the inhabitants were Timucuan Indians. In 1774, traveling botanist William Bartram visited Seminole Indians nearby. In the 1850s a town called Deer Hammock was established here, probably in anticipation ...

Unearthing Florida: The Battle of Olustee

The 1864 Battle of Olustee was by far the largest battle fought in Florida during the Civil War and yielded a plethora of battlefield artifacts.

Nearly 11,000 soldiers engaged in the battle -- that ended in more than 2800 casualties ...

Unearthing Florida: Fort Barrancas

In 1862, Fort Barrancas in Pensacola was an important base of operations for Union movements into Florida and Alabama, but it was not always controlled by the North.

Just days before Florida joined the Confederacy, state troops seized two of ...

Unearthing Florida: Salt Works

During the Civil War, salt production in Florida was vital to keeping the Confederacy supplied with long-lasting sources of perishable food, such as meat and fish.

The Union strategy of cutting off supplies from the north and blockading southern ports ...

Unearthing Florida: Camp Walton

At the start of the Civil War, Confederate Florida looked to local militias to begin the difficult task of raising an army.

Most militias were made up of men from different social orders in the community- farmers, bricklayers, teachers, fisherman, lawyers ...

Florida Memorial College

In the late 1800s, the American Baptist Home Mission Society created two colleges in North Florida: The Florida Baptist Institute for Negroes in Live Oak (1879) and the Florida Baptist Academy in Jacksonville (1892). The two institutions merged in 1941. ...

Black Archives, History and Research Foundation of South Florida

Founded by Dr. Dorothy Jenkins Fields and incorporated in 1977, this research center contains documents, photographs and artifacts documenting the black experience in Miami-Dade County from 1896 to the present. Artworks showcase Overtown's Little Broadway and local historic sites.

Information ...

Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park

Situated on the southern tip of Key Biscayne, Cape Florida was the point from which many black Seminoles and escaped slaves sought passage south to the Bahamas when Florida was transferred from Spain to the United States in 1821. Those ...