It was in the 1960s that the population of Gainesville would near the 100,000 mark, but the changes that were happening went well beyond anything that can be measured in numbers.



It was a decade that began with drinking fountains labeled �white only� and with restaurants still reserving the right to refuse service. Former Alachua County Commissioner Tom Coward recalls just how difficult it was as a black man to come home to Gainesville as a World War II veteran, and still face inequality. It was a harsh reality hammered home each day as he taught lessons about liberty and justice to American history and government students at Lincoln High School. Teaching �this was a fair game� didn�t match what was really happening in Gainesville.



Change was coming. In 1964, the Alachua County School Board faced a suit filed by the NAACP to force integration. That decision was eventually made at the school board office, not in a courtoom. The board voted to accept black students in formerly all-white schools. That fall, Lavon Wright, Joseph �Joel� Buchanan and Sandra Williams became the first black students to enter Gainesville High School. Four years later, Eddie McAshan would be calling signals in the GHS backfield, becoming the first black quarterback on a predominantly white high school team in the South.



It was a tense time, but reading through Gainesville history in the 1960s, there�s no mention of race riots or neighborhoods going up in flames. Coward says that�s because a lot of work was going on behind the scenes to make change happen. Organizations such as the NAACP and Gainesville Women for Equal Rights kept the pressure on.



The attitude that prevailed, says Coward, was, �Let�s do this around the table rather than out in the street.�



And in 1969, Neil Butler became the first black man elected to the Gainesville City Commission since the days of Reconstruction following the Civil War.



Coward, who in 1974 became Alachua County�s first black county commissioner since Reconstruction, says, �I was optimistic it would happen, but a lot of people weren�t.�



Butler�s election was evidence of another major shift in Gainesville politics, sparked initially by a UF professor who describes himself as a �fifth generation Florida Cracker raised on a one-sick-mule farm.� John Degrove accepted a faculty position in 1958, making the move from the University of North Carolina. He arrived to discover just how tightly his hands were tied by Florida law.



�The Civic Action Association grew out of my outrage that, as a faculty member you couldn�t run for political office or contribute to anyone that did,� he says.



So he button-holed politicians, who were surprised to discover he wasn�t some disgruntled newcomer, but somebody with deep Florida roots. The laws changed, and the Civic Action Association began backing candidates for the city commission. One election at a time, it shifted power from the city�s old guard to the new.



�It meant that Gainesville started to look at things in what we now call a �smart growth way�,� says Degrove, now retired and splitting his time between Gainesville and the mountains of North Carolina.



Politics weren�t all that was changing downtown. The grand old courthouse of 1885 came tumbling down in 1961 and was replaced by the grand old eyesore that now serves as the county administration building. The businesses that once thrived around the courthouse square were replaced by empty store fronts.



The 1967 opening of the Gainesville Mall on NW 13th Street � where a vacant Kash �n� Karry and Kmart now stand � pulled even more business away from the city�s core. Home-owned shops were closing, replaced by corporate chains. Fast-food followed the same trend, with Pizza Hut, Frisch�s Big Boy, Jerry�s and Arby�s competing with local favorites like Capt�n Louie�s Galley and Alan�s Cubana. Out on Waldo Road in 1968, Fat Boy�s Barbecue opened, launching Sonny and Lucille Tillman�s hickory-smoked empire.



It was the cutting of a ribbon on the morning July 25, 1964, that had the largest impact on growth for the region. As that ribbon fell, Interstate 75 opened, providing four stoplight-free lanes of asphalt between Gainesville and Perry, Georgia, to the north, and Wildwood and the Florida Turnpike to the south. Small towns that had relied on the flow of traffic down the old favorite routes shriveled quickly. And the interstate began drawing the city west like a magnet.



The small North Florida town that sprang to life thanks to farming and railroads was becoming the University City. UF�s transition to a major research institution got a boost with the graduation of its first class of physicians from the medical school in 1960. Cardiologist Dr. Mark Barrow, who now lives in Melrose, was a member of that class.



Barrow was an undergrad student at UF when the medical school�s first dean arrived on campus. He recalls that, as Dr. George Harrell was unpacking, he stopped by to offer his assistance, and mentioned he was interested in becoming a doctor. About two hours later their conversation ended with Harrell saying, �Well, son, you�re in,� leaving Barrow surprised that he�d just become the first student admitted to a class of 40 that would include many students seeking second careers.



�The class was very close,� he says.



Santa Fe Community College was born in 1965. New buildings would sprout on the UF campus that would grow so fast that offcampus apartments along SW 16th Avenue, dubbed Sin City, were built to handle the overflow. A young kid from Tennessee named Steve Spurrier, who had a knack for throwing a football, garnered the university a lot of welcome attention. The university�s mention in a 1969 Playboy magazine article as the country�s most sexually promiscuous campus was a source of embarrassment and pride, depending on whom was asked.



The town that was �dry,� but where most filling stations offered half-pints of locally-manufactured white lightning, voted in 1963 to go wet. Within a year, 17 businesses were granted liquor licenses.



It was in the 1950s that street names became numbers in Gainesville and it was in the 1960s that a zip code was added to each address. And it was in the 1960s that TV antennas began disappearing from roofs, and University City Television Cable began delivering by wire stations from Jacksonville and Orlando into what had been a black hole of TV reception. There was no commercial TV station in rabbitear range of local viewers, and WUFT, which became the city�s first TV station in 1958, was part of the National Educational Television network, offering programming that was mostly instructional and not aimed at home audiences. By the decade�s end the 11,500 cable subscribers could gorge themselves on seven channels from four networks for $5 a month.



WGGG, one of four AM radio stations in town, beamed a 1,000- watt daytime signal at 1230 on the dial from 1230 Waldo Road, providing a rock beat for the city that was growing its own future rock legends.



At Teen Time dances at what�s now the Thelma Boltin Center, you might have heard Stephen Stills � yes, that Stephen Stills � or future Eagles Don Felder and Bernie Leadon. The skinny kid waiting on you at the counter at Lipham�s Music might have been Tom Petty.



At the movies, the days of singlescreen theaters were numbered, and drive-ins were already starting to feel the pinch of competition from TV. It was in the �60s that Gainesville got its first multiplexes, The Center and The Plaza.



It was a decade packed with change, and more was on the horizon as Gainesville marked a special birthday. April 14, 1969, the once small town on the North Florida frontier turned 100. Next issue: Gainesville in the 1970s.



Sources: �Florida�s Eden� by John B. Pickard, �The History of Gainesville� by Charles Hildreth and Merlin Cox, Lisa Auel, director of the Matheson Museum and The Gainesville Sun1966.