Amazing Hunter/Jumper

Newberry developed as a mining town after phosphate was discovered in the western part of Alachua County in the 1880s. In 1893, the Savannah, Florida, and Western Railway was extended southward from High Springs to Newberry, leading to its development as a railroad town and trading center. A post office established in March 1894 was named Newton, but changed to Newberry in August of that year. In this period, racial violence against blacks rose in Alachua County, where lynchings took place to enforce white supremacy. A total of 21 people, 19 of them black, were lynched in the county between 1891 and 1926.