On Jan. 6, 1853, Florida Governor Thomas Brown signed a bill that provided public support to higher education, and East Florida Seminary (EFS) in Ocala was one of the first schools to use this funding.. The school was closed during the Civil War, but in 1866 reopened in Gainesville, and later merged with the Florida Agricultural College, the state’s land-grant university.

Today, the University of Florida is one of the five largest universities in the nation, and is home to 16 colleges and over 150 research centers and institutes.