Greetings from Gainesville

Every picture tells a story, and anew coffee-table book by Dr. Mark Barrow and historian Murray Laurie uses picture postcards to document life in Gainesville and Alachua County the during first half of the 20th century. It was an era when trains traversed Main Street and battalions of cadets practiced military drills on the University of Florida campus as a matter of course.

The book, "A Penny for Your Thoughts: An Album of Historic Postcards of Alachua County," consists of some 250 full-color picture postcards depicting street scenes, daily life and buildings – some from bygone days and others that are still standing – in and around Gainesville. The postcards were culled from Barrow's extensive collection of more than 1,400 postcards from all over Florida.

Barrow began collecting picture postcards of the area in the early 1970s, when he and his wife, Mary, became interested in the preservation of historic buildings in Gainesville and Alachua County — and when collectible postcards were cheap. In those days, he says, vintage postcards could be purchased for as little as 25 to 50 cents. (Collectible postcards now fetch anywhere from $25 to $30 a piece.)

Barrow's hobby soon turned into an obsession. Based on the numbering systems that postcard manufacturers used to track the postcards they printed, Barrow estimates that his collection contains about 90 percent of all of the postcards printed of Gainesville and the surrounding area between 1900 and 1940.

"Postcards contain a virtual trove of important information, not including the messages that were written on them," says Barrow, a retired cardiologist.

Actually, Barrow says, the backs of some of the earliest postcards had nowhere for senders to write messages. As a result, the senders often wrote cryptic messages on the pictures themselves. But in 1907, the U.S. Post Office allowed postcard manufacturers to divide the backs of the cards in two, with a space for the mailing address and another for a brief message.

According to Barrow, postcards were first issued by the U.S. Post Office in the 1870s, but they didn't become popular until the government added illustrations and dropped the postage on the cards from 2 cents to a penny. Private manufacturers soon got in on the act. By 1908, the picture postcard industry was flourishing — more than 600,000,000 postcards had been handled by the U.S. Post Office.

A hundred years ago, postcards literally sold for about a dime a dozen. But Barrow sees much more value in them.

"Each one is like a miniature work of art," he says.

Alachua Avenue East

This postcard provides a sidewalk view of the stylish houses along Alachua Avenue (which is now SW Second Avenue) in 1907. Some of these Victorian homes with their tidy wood fences still stand, including the one at the right, the 1895 McKenzie House, which is now part of the Sweetwater Branch Inn, a popular bed-and-breakfast inn on East University Avenue.

A Busy Day in the Cotton Field

Alachua County was famous for its fine Sea Island cotton, which brought a good price for growers from the late 1800s to the early 20th century. After the Civil War most cotton in Alachua County was grown on small farms rather than larger plantations worked by enslaved laborers.

Business Section, University Avenue

A busy day in downtown Gainesville is suggested by the pedestrians dodging a variety of cars and trucks on University Avenue across from the courthouse in this postcard dating from around 1925. The stores on the left are still open for business, although the Coca Cola sign on the wall is no longer visible. If it looks as though some of the figures have been "dropped" into the photo, they probably were. According to Barrow, doctoring postcard photos was a common practice.

Corner of the Square

A monument to victims of a yellow fever epidemic in 1888, later moved to Evergreen Cemetery, stood on the northeast corner of the Courthouse Square. Brick stores and offices were built on all four sides of the square after a fire in 1883 destroyed most of the original wood buildings.

Strawberry pickers

Picking strawberries was hard work, but it was a popular crop in the 1920s. Local farmers learned to grow various fruits and vegetables and employed pickers of every age to bring in the harvest.

Alachua County Courthouse

The imposing red brick Alachua County Courthouse was built in 1886. It cost more than $50,000 and was 10 times as expensive as the original wood courthouse built in 1856. It was torn down and the County Administration Building on University Avenue between Southeast 1st Street and Southeast 2nd Street replaced it in the 1960s.

Union Academy

African Americans attended the Union Academy, a wood frame school opened by the Freedmen's Bureau in 1866, on Pleasant Street, where the Rosa B. Williams Recreational Center now stands (524 Northwest 1st Street). The school was enlarged and became one of the most important normal schools for training African-American teachers in the state. The two-story frame school closed in 1923 when a new Lincoln High School building was completed. The Union Academy was later demolished.

Battalion drill in front of Buckman Hall

When the University of Florida was established in Gainesville, one of the first two buildings was named Buckman Hall for the Florida legislator who introduced the 1905 Buckman Act creating the institution. The first students, all men, moved into the red brick building in 1906 to begin their quest for a first-class University education. A few years later, UF students could send postcards to their parents and sweethearts showing the Cadet Battalion formed in front of Buckman Hall. The building sported the crenulated roofline and other architectural features that marked the traditional Collegiate Gothic style.