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Some Stuff I Wrote (2001) H. Morris Williams

switched to Gainesville and that tipped the balance.
For a full year after the university moved to Gainesville, the local buildings just sat empty and

idle — a heart wrenching daily reminder of the glory that had been.
One year after we lost the University of Florida, we gained Columbia College, a fine Baptist

School, and it soon became the pride of our community. But some people never got over the
disappointment of losing the University of Florida.

Two Unasked Questions
December 27,1994

Here are two questions nobody ever asks and the answers to them.
First Question . . . When the decision was made back in 1905 to move the University of

Florida from Lake City to Gainesville, why didn’t the state move the University of Florida to
Jacksonville? It would have been a logical move. Jacksonville was just 60 miles from Lake City,

almost as close as Gainesville. Jacksonville was Florida’s major city at the time; it was the
hometown of Florida’s new Gov. Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, and it was the preferred choice of
UF President Andrew Sledd and other influential leaders like legislator Henry Holland Buckman

and Gov. Broward’s campaign manager Nathan P. Bryan. So, in the face of all that, why didn’t the
university move to Jacksonville?

The Answer -.. Probably politics. Gov. Broward had won the governor’s race despite losing
the vote in his home county of Duval, his hometown of Jacksonville, and even his own ward. Thus,

he apparently felt he owed Jacksonville no favors and showed no interest in locating the university
in Jacksonville.

Second Question ... On a similar subject, many people believe Gainesville got UF mainly
because Gainesville offered, among other things, to give the university free water in perpetuity —
forever. So, here is the second question: Does Gainesville still give UF free water?

The Answer... No. Gainesville gave UF free water for 67 years, until 1972. At that time,

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