Rochelle is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

Alachua County Alachua County ( ) is a county in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 278,468. The county seat is Gainesville, the home of the University of Florida. History Prehistory and ear ...

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

, United States. It was found in the 1830s on a former native settlement and mission site. and was built around the Plantation of Madison Starke Perry.

History

Rochelle was at a junction on the

Florida Southern Railway The Florida Southern Railway was a railway that operated in Florida in the late 1800s. It was one of Florida's three notable narrow gauge railways when it was built along with the South Florida Railway and the Orange Belt Railway. The Florida ...

(later, the

Plant System The Plant System, named after its owner, Henry B. Plant, was a system of railroads and steamboats in the U.S. South, taken over by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in 1902. The original line of the system was the Savannah, Florida and Western ...

), with lines running to Gainesville,

Ocala Ocala ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Marion County, Florida, United States. Located in North Central Florida, the city's population was 63,591 as of the 2020 census, up from 56,315 at the 2010 census and making it the 43rd-most popul ...

and Palatka. Originally known as Perry, or Perry Junction, the community was renamed Gruelle in 1881 after N. R. Gruelle, General Manager of the Florida Southern Railway (the station was still listed as Perry on the first timetable issued by the railway after it reached Gainesville in 1881). In 1884, the community name was changed again, to Rochelle, the maiden name of Governor Perry's wife. The town was described as having a hotel, two or three stores, a sawmill, and an express-office in 1883, and a population of 150 in 1884. Citrus growing became important in the area, and in 1885 the town had two sawmills, two churches, two schools ( Rochelle School, also known as the Martha Perry Institute, for whites, and a school for blacks), and a couple dozen houses. The

Great Freeze The Great Freeze was a period of back-to-back freezes during the winter of 1894–95 in the Southern United States, particularly notable for destroying much of the citrus crop in Northern Florida. Entire communities, such as Earnestville, fa ...

of 1894–1895 destroyed the citrus industry in the area, and the town declined afterwards. The Rochelle School closed in 1935. Today, the only remnants of the former town are now the schoolhouse, the General Pacific plant, a radio tower, and some houses and barns. The 16-mile Hawthorne Trail has a trail head at the Witness Tree Junction near the Rochelle Vicinity Historic Marker, and follows the trail of the old railroad railbed.Gainesville-Hawthorne State Trail (Florida State Parks)
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Geography

Rochelle is located at (29.59639, -82.21778).

References

Unincorporated communities in Alachua County, Florida Unincorporated communities in Florida {{AlachuaCountyFL-geo-stub