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Newberry

Founded in the early 1890′s, Newberry was officially put on the map when a post office was established in 1894, followed by incorporation in 1895. Before the 1890′s, families had moved to the area and farmed in the region and also made a living from timbering. However, it was the discovery of phosphate that brought the hidden Florida town to life as a booming mining town. Newberry quickly grew as people came from literally everywhere to work in the mines. Subsequent businesses grew from the mining industry to serve the needs of a growing community of people who came to a town that didn’t have a permanent home until 1891. In addition to mining, Newberry also became known as a railroad town.

1920 Newberry's Suwannee Drug Company with a Model T parked in front

Inside the Suwannee Drug Company

Drug stores, hotels, barbers, photographers, milliners, dentists, and doctors were among the many thriving businesses established in town. Pool halls and an opera house were two popular forms of entertainment. And of course, schools and churches were also established to fulfill educational and spiritual needs. In many respects, early Newberry resembled a town in the old west.

Mines 1909

Newberry The Lemuel Harris drug store 1911

Prior to 1900, the ‘Newberry Miner Newspaper’ reported more than 500 men working at the 14 mines located within 6 miles of town. As the mines prospered, so did the fledgling town of Newberry. Newberry developed as a mining town after phosphate was discovered in the western part of Alachua County in 1889; and, the town was located along the route of the Savannah, Florida, and Western Railway, that in 1893 was extended southward from High Springs. A post office established in March 1894 was named Newton, but changed to Newberry in August of that year. In 1896 there were fourteen mines operating nearby, and the town had hotels, boarding houses and saloons to accommodate the area's transient and sometimes unruly population. By 1907 the city’s occupational license rolls listed livery stables, restaurants, boarding houses, hotels, barbers, cleaners, pharmacies, meat markets, general merchandise stores, photographers, bicycle shops, pool halls, saloons, side shows, and theaters. The demand for phosphate ended abruptly in 1914 when war was declared against Germany, the principal customer for Newberry's phosphate.

Phosphate washer #3

Newberry’s population of 1,500 swelled on the weekends as the miners came to town for supplies and entertainment. Cuttings and shootings were common – they kept Newberry’s three doctors busy. W. N. “Doc” Barry, Sr. worked at his mother’s pharmacy during this period. Mr. Barry described Newberry as “A real wild west town in the East.” Despite its wild nature, Newberry’s prosperity also brought the trappings of civilization in the form of churches, schools, and in 1913, an electric light plant. Those early electric customers enjoyed four hours of light each night. I-75. See below for The Historic Dudley Farm.

Leroy N. Pearce in his 1914-1915 Chase Flareside truck

1916

Cheves Ice Factory

Newberry Train Depot

Early 1900's

Newberry 1900’s Phosphate Plant

Newberry 1900’s Phosphate Plant

Newberry High School

Newberry School House

The Historic Dudley Farm

Capt. Phillip Benjamin Harvey Dudley, 1814-1881 CSA 

In the mid-1800s, the Dudley family moved from Charleston, SC to North Central Florida. Three generations owned and worked the 640-acre piece of land. By the 1880s, the Dudley farm was a significant crossroads community, successfully maintaining livestock, crops and large vegetable gardens and attaining prominence in Alachua County. Phillip Benjamin Harvey Dudley, Jr. assumed ownership of the farm in 1881 and began to develop the complex farm. Eighteen buildings constructed between the 1880s and 1945 include the 1880s family farmhouse and separate kitchen, general store, dairy shed, canning house, smokehouse, syrup house and mill, hay and tobacco barns, stables, and drinking well. Now an authentic working farm, the homestead consists of the original eighteen buildings, including the family farmhouse with some of the original furnishings, an 1880s kitchen outbuilding, a general store, sweet potato cellar, and a cane syrup complex. Interpreters may be working the farm in the lifestyle of the 1880s to 1940s as they perform daily chores, work the crops, and tend to livestock.

Staff and volunteers dress in period clothing and complete traditional chores, including tending to livestock and sugar cane farming. Dudley Farm Historic State Park, also listed on the National Register, has been described as the best-documented pioneer family farm in the nation. Dressed in period clothing, park staff members perform daily chores, raise crops and tend to livestock in traditional ways. Visitors can enjoy seasonal events such as cane grindings and learn about heritage varieties of livestock and plant.