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Lake City, Florida: A Sesquicentennial Tribute (2009) H. Morris Williams, Dr. Kevin M. McCarthy
Andrew Sledd (1870 - 1939), the youngest president of
the University of Florida, had taught Latin at Emory College (1896 –
1902), earned a Ph.D. in Latin from Yale (1903), taught Greek at
Southern University in Alabama, and was then selected as president
of UF at Lake City in 1904. After he encouraged the Florida
Legislature to consolidate the state’s institutions of higher learning, the
legislature did just that.
He apparently had assumed that Lake City would be the site
of the new university, but went along with the decision to move the
school to Gainesville and helped in that move, actually driving one of
the wagons to Gainesville. He helped choose the first faculty of UF in
its new location, most of whom had taught in Lake City. At that time,
the school had a little over one hundred students and fewer than a
dozen teachers.
The UF Cadet Band in 1904
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