Rutledge, Florida is an unincorporated community in central

Alachua County, Florida 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 ...

. The community was established for formerly enslaved persons during

Reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology *Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *''Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Union ...

by the

Freedmen's Bureau The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, was a U.S. government agency of early post American Civil War Reconstruction, assisting freedmen (i.e., former enslaved people) in the ...

. The First Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church and the Greater Liberty Hill United Methodist Church, both founded in the 19th century, continue to serve the community. The Greater Liberty Hill church is the site of the Liberty Hill Schoolhouse, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Rutledge Community Cemetery, formerly called Union Cemetery of Rutledge, is under the stewardship of the Second Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church. The center of the community was located about five miles west of

Gainesville, Florida Gainesville is the county seat of Alachua County, Florida, United States, and the most populous city in North Central Florida, with a population of 145,212 in 2022. It is the principal city of the Gainesville metropolitan area, Florida, Gainesv ...

in the 19th century. it extends from just west of the Gainesville city limits to

I-75 Interstate 75 (I-75) is a major north–south Interstate Highway System, Interstate Highway in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes and Southeastern United States, Southeastern regions of the United States. As with most Interstates that end ...

. A post office was established in 1886, and closed in 1905. In 1888 the community had three stores and a boarding house. It was on the planned route of the Gainesville, Tallahassee and Western Railroad, which was never built.

Notes

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