Why is the University of Florida in Gainesville?

Carl Van Ness’s program will focus on the Buckman Act of 1905 and Florida’s draconian decision to abandon the campus of the University of Florida in Lake City. Had the Buckman Act not been passed, what would Gainesville be like without the University of Florida? Van Ness’s book, The Making of Florida Universities: Public Higher Education at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, was recently published by the University Press of Florida.