Trail Stops

516 NE 2nd Ave, Gainesville, FL 32601

https://maps.app.goo.gl/51XM3UwDSGFizq5h8

     Thelma A. Boltin Center was a community recreation facility that once hosted "Teen Time" dances and concerts, for which teenagers could purchase a membership card that would allow them entry to all events. While in junior high school, Tom Petty would go here with friends to listen to the music being played by a DJ spinning records or by a band on the stage. It is here where Tom and his neighborhood friend Keith Harben first heard The Beatles' "I Wanna Hold Your Hand," which Keith told me immediately sparked Tom Petty's interest in the band. Tom soon began collecting Beatles records. 

     Eventually Petty performed on stage with his pre-Heartbreakers band Mudcrutch for a high school prom in 1972.  

     Other Gainesville musicians to have performed on stage here include Don Felder (The Eagles), Bernie Leadon (The Eagles, The Flying Burrito Brothers) and Stephen Stills (Buffalo Springfield; Crosby, Stills, Nash +/- Young). 

     Closed since 2020 during the pandemic, as of January 2024 it had yet to reopen. The Gainesville Sun reported in May 2023 that it was to undergo restoration. 

Photo by Shawn Murphy.

1414 NE 23rd Ave, Gainesville, FL 32609

https://maps.app.goo.gl/nNJRNS7uKrA3H3838

     Currently this building is a Christian academy, but the Gainesville’s Moose Lodge was once located here. The Moose Club, as it was commonly known, held wholesome events and concerts geared toward Gainesville youth. One such event was a Battle of the Bands. The contest winner in 1964 was a recently formed Gainesville band, The Sundowners – that included 14-year-old Tom Petty. The contest prize included a contract for a standing Friday night gig throughout that summer, for which the band would be paid $100 for each show. 

     By summer’s end, Tom Petty had saved up $200, which he invested into the band’s amp. But Tom’s mother  was skeptical about where he had acquired the cash. Petty told Paul Zollo during interviews for Zollo’s 2005 book “Conversations with Tom Petty”: “My mom was like, ‘Where did you get this money?’ and I told her I got it for the show. She said, ‘Really, where did you get this money? If you took this money, you’re gonna have to own up to it’' I said, ‘I swear to God, Mom, they paid me this for playing.’ She didn't believe me. So she called the Moose Club, and the guy said, ‘Yeah, they get the door, and that’s what they made.’” 

Photo courtesy of Google Maps.

1004 N Main St, Gainesville, FL 32601

https://maps.app.goo.gl/VSdNnHfXBDWdeczp7

     As of October 2024, a Citi Trends clothing store was located here, at the intersection of North Main Street and NW 10th Avenue. But from the late 1950s to 1976, this Gainesville Shopping Center location was the site of Lipham’s Music Store, the largest retailer in the region at the time. It was a popular spot for the area's teenage musicians to hang out and play the instruments, among them Tom Petty. 

     It is at Lipham's that Tom Petty worked in 1967, Gainesville's Don Felder (later an Eagle) showed him how to work out songs on the piano, where Mudcrutch performed, where Tom met Benmont Tench, and where Stan Lynch got his first drum kit while he was in the band Styrophoam Soule. 

     Customers included Bo Diddley and members of the Allman Brothers; Duane Allman tested a guitar and Marshall amp on the sideway outside of the store so that the volume could be cranked up, surely much to the delight of those unloaded their groceries from the adjacent Publix into their car in the parking lot. 

     Keith Harben, who was Tom Petty's lifelong friend and lived in Tom's neighborhood through their child and teen years, recalled to me that he would pedal his bicycle for a mile downtown, with Tom sitting on the handlebars, so that Tom could buy Elvis Presley 45s from Lipham's, which once stocked records as well as instruments. This came after Tom met Elvis in the summer 1961 during the filming of "Follow That Dream" in Ocala. After this meeting, which was arranged by Tom's Uncle Jernigan, who owned a movie logistics company, Tom was eager to tell Keith back home in Gainesville all about the encounter. Tom was so inspired by Elvis that day, he traded his slingshot for Elvis 45s with Keith. 

     Lipham's relocated to 3433 W University Ave. in 1976, after Tom Petty had left Gainesville for California. In 2014, Buster Lipham retired and closed his business that had been a Gainesville staple for 59 years. As of January 2024, this location was a store to buy home and patio goods.

     To read more about Lipham's, check out this Gainesville Sun article: https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/local/2018/09/29/gainesville-where-tom-pettys-dreams-began/9740920007/ 

     As well as this one, written when the store, open since 1954, closed in 2014: https://www.gainesville.com/story/business/economy/2014/04/11/with-liphams-closing-gainesville-losing-link-to-rock-royalty/31218859007/ 

     And read this transcript from an interview of Buster Lipham in 2012 that was part of the research that Marty Jourard did for his 2016 book Music Everywhere: The Rock and Roll Roots of a Southern Town, which is found at a companion website:

http://www.gainesvillerockhistory.com/BusterLipham

Photo by Buster Lipham, courtesy of Lonnie Morris. Gainesville musicians hanging out in Lipham’s Music Store in the late 1960s. From left to right: Robert Crawford from the Sundowners, Tom Petty (smiling, wearing tie), Tom Leadon from the Epics and later Mudcrutch, Lonnie Morris’ father who served as band manager for Styrophoam Soule, one or both of the Rucker brothers from the Epics, and Styrophoam Soule lead singer Lonnie Morris with his back to the the camera.  

21 Graham Area, Gainesville, FL 32611

https://maps.app.goo.gl/hTnc53MaKoHZCQhk8

     Graham Hall, a dormitory built in 1961 on the University of Florida campus, is where the Epics performed a concert in 1966 in a venue called Graham Pond. The band's lineup included Tom Petty, who had recently left his first band, the Sundowners. Tom played bass guitar and sang lead vocals along with Rodney Rucker.

     Dickie Underwood from the Epics recalled Tom's performance on stage that night to Warren Zanes for the 2015 book Petty: The Biography: "Petty was like a wild man, all over the stage. That was probably the first time he got to be the front guy. And he loved it. And so did the people watching us. We all said, 'This guy is good.'" (pg. 38)

     Graham Pond was one of the nicer venues where the Epics performed, Petty recalled to Zanes. 

     "The Epics would just play down and dirty fucking places, a whole circuit of hick towns," Petty told Zanes.

     Note also that Road Turkey (which included future Heartbreaker Stan Lynch) also performed a concert here in 1972 with a band named Flood, which I thank Marty Jourard for noting for me.

Photo by unknown photographer.

1900 NW 13th St, Gainesville, FL 32609

https://maps.app.goo.gl/tW7ADarpFLJ1b5fT7

     Gainesville High School is where Tom Petty graduated in the class of 1968 -- although he skipped out on the graduation ceremony so that he could play a gig with his band, The Epics, as explained in this Gainesville Sun article: https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/2006/09/20/memories-of-petty-how-singer-found-way-in-area/31538840007/.  

     A song lyric would stem from GHS in "Harry Green," a 1994 song recorded during the sessions for the "Wildflowers" album, but not released until 2020 in the "Wildflowers & All the Rest" box set. School peer Harry Green,  or Harris Harding Green, the song's inspiration,  died in a car crash in 1966. His gravesite can be found at Evergreen Cemetery, 401 SE 21st Ave., in Gainesville. You can read more about the real-life Harry Green by going to the "Dreamville Ghosts" page of this website. Here is part of that song lyric: 

“Harry Green was my old friend 

We met in Spanish class 

Helped me out of a spot I was in 

He stopped a redneck from kickin’ my ass...

Harry Green was strong and tall 

Played on the football team... 

Well, them high school halls can sure get rough

when you ain’t like everyone else... 

Harry Green was alright by me.” 

     Other GHS graduates include Bernie Leadon and Don Felder (both later in the Eagles), as well as Stephen Stills (later in Crosby, Stills, Nash +/- Young).

Photo by Shawn Murphy.

4732 Millhopper Rd, Gainesville, FL 32653

https://maps.app.goo.gl/7rh1AVWFMk2LEqQB9

     Devil's Millhopper was featured in “Southern Accents,” a mini-documentary from 1985 as a way to promote that album by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. In the film, Tom Petty, keyboardist Benmont Tench and drummer Stan Lynch reminisce about bringing girls there as youth, and Tom notes there were no stairs or boardwalk at that time. The full half-hour documentary can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmVU3LOcLds 

Photo by Shawn Murphy.

1826 W University Ave, Gainesville, FL 32603

https://maps.app.goo.gl/rVS9FeD1f6LJCMNi6

     On the northern side of University Avenue, across the street from the campus, is the University Evangelical Lutheran Church, which is flanked by two fraternity houses. It was once sponsored the Bent Card coffee house in a building located outside the church hall that was a childcare center by day and a coffee house by night. 

     Run by its Bent Card Coffee House Ministry, the concert series began in 1965. From 1966 to 1970, it hosted musicians performing acoustic folk and country music. Among them was the earliest lineup of Mudcrutch, a drummer-less version of the band that included Tom Petty, but did not yet include Mike Campbell or Benmont Tench, both of whom would later join Petty in the Heartbreakers -- as well as the rebooted version of Mudcrutch for its 2008 and 2016 albums and tours.  

Image of poster from Gainesville Rock History website research that Marty Jourard created as a companion to his 2016 book Music Everywhere: The Rock and Roll Roots of a Southern Town.

1200 SW 6th St, Gainesville, FL 32601

https://maps.app.goo.gl/ckppLf9ViDNovSL6A

     The P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School is where Stan Lynch (future drummer for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) graduated in 1973. He was also the drummer for Road Turkey, a popular Gainesville-based band in the early 1970s.

     It is also where Mudcrutch (with future Heartbreakers Tom Petty, Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench) performed in the school gym on June 1971 for a students-only Sock-Hop. 

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

1230 NE Waldo Rd, Gainesville, FL 32641

https://maps.app.goo.gl/dKzUF1hLxr77xNUX6

     This was once the location of the radio station WGGG. The office, studio, transmitter and tower of the 250-watt station, under the AM frequency of 1230, were here. During the formative years of the youth of Gainesville during the 1950s and 1960s, WGGG played the music that they listened to on their transistor radios. Among them was Tom Petty. The station would spin 45s by local bands as well as the hits from nationally and internationally known groups. The Sundowners, Petty's first band that was formed by the 14-year-old while a student in junior high school at Howard W. Bishop, performed songs live on the air as in-studio guests.

     In 1973 when Mudcrutch, Petty’s third band, recorded a 45 at Miami's Criteria Studios, it lobbied for WGGG DJs to play their record. Eventually they did – and the song topped the station’s charts.

    The radio station has since rebranded itself under a different name (WRBD), location and format.

Post card photo courtesy of University of Florida Digital Collections

2200 NW 45th Ave, Gainesville, FL 32605

https://maps.app.goo.gl/L1Msy2ydLnWtcUkM6

     The address of Norton Elementary School, 2200 NW 45th Ave., is a stone's throw from the address given for the free Sunday, Dec. 13, 1970 Mudcrutch Farm Festival, 2203 NW 45th Ave., which would approximately be where the bike trail meets the road, slightly west from this school. 

     The property that is referred to as "Mudcrutch Farm" was a 10-acre parcel of land on which there was a decrepit home with no hot water. It was rented by Randall Marsh and Mike Campbell, as well as William "Red" Slater, a university engineering student who had a knack for photography (he shot most of the iconic photos of Mudcrutch from this era). The moniker Mudcrutch Farm came about after the band formed and solidified -- and used the house for its near-nightly rehearsals, which lead to a standing nightly gig a short distance from here, at Dub's Steer Room (4562 NW 13th St.). 

     That formation came about when Marsh and Campbell noticed an advertisement for a drummer on an announcement board at Lipham's Music (3433 W University Ave.). Marsh responded to the ad and invited the ad-poster -- the early lineup of Mudcrutch: Tom Petty, Tom Leadon and Jim Lenahan -- to come out to their then-rural place for tryouts. After Marsh had earned a spot in the band, Campbell managed to get an impromptu tryout. 

     Lenahan told Warren Zanes for the 2015 book Petty: The Biography that he heard Campbell strumming his guitar in the next room, so told Marsh to summon his housemate to join them.

     "So Mike Campbell comes out with the worst guitar I had ever seen in my life. It looked like it had been cut out of a door," Lenahan recalled for Warren Zanes' 2015 book Petty: The Biography. "He was super skinny, just looked unhealthy. He plugged into Leadon's amp. We asked if he could play 'Johnny B. Goode.' He ripped into that opening, and our jaws dropped. By the end of the song, we said, 'You're in our band now.' He said, 'No, I'm in school'" (pg. 56). 

     The opportunity to join Mudcrutch was too much of a temptation, though. Campbell, the new kid in town, had recently moved from Jacksonville to attend the University of Florida. Musically gifted, Campbell wanted to major in music, yet was rejected because he lacked regimented training. So, he majored in general education with thoughts of switching to architecture. 

     Campbell's memory of the Mudcrtuch tryout goes this way: "I was sitting back there reading a book, but I was thinking, 'God, that sounds like fun.' And Randall tells them that there's a guy in back who plays guitar. He comes in and asks me to play. 'Yeah, sure,' I tell him. I got my little Japanese guitar, went out there, the only one with short hair, cutoff jeans, and this stupid little guitar. You could just see their disappointment, like, 'Oh, great. The drummer's good, but does he have to bring this guy along?' They ask what songs I know, and I say, 'Johnny B. Goode" (Zanes, pgs. 62). 

     In the years of 1970 and 1971, three Mudcrutch Farm Festivals were held here. All had free admission, including free catered food, yet donations were accepted. After the last one, which included overnight camping, the property landlords paid a surprise visit on the morning after. Since the bandmembers had not yet cleaned up the property of the litter, it left an impression about the renters, so they were evicted -- and thus sealing Mudcrutch Farm to history and memory. 

     Four band members then moved to Earleton, on the west side of Lake Santa Fe -- a 25-minute drive east of here. 

     The band continued performing in Gainesville, across the state, and even in some Deep South locations until it played a farewell-to-Gainesville show on April 1, 1974, at what was then called Westside Park (1001 NW 34th. St.; today called Albert "Ray" Massey Park). It then drove to Los Angeles for a record deal. There, Mudcrutch would disband, with Tom Petty, Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench morphing into the core of the Heartbreakers, who released its first album in 1976. 

Photo courtesy of Mudcrutch.

1500 NW 45th Ave, Gainesville, FL 32605

https://maps.app.goo.gl/DJ6YKMYVCKBbFKAaA

     Northwest 45th Avenue was once the boondocks, far from the rest of Gainesville, though today you will find this nature park, an elementary school, and upscale housing developments. Was today's Hogtown Creek Headwaters Nature Park where Mudcrutch Farm was located? Yes, according to Lauren Poe, the mayor of Gainesville when Tom Petty Park was dedicated on Oct. 20, 2018. In his speech to the crowd that day, he noted that the city's second choice for a park named after Tom Petty was here. In it he said that "Mudcrutch Ranch" was located here, as you can see in this video of the event (start at 2:50 marker) -- despite the fact that the park is in the 1500 block and Mudcrutch Farm was in the 1700 block, according to a famous concert flier from 1970: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbwl5tVZ9go 

Photo by Shawn Murphy.

1001 NW 34th. St., Gainesville, FL 32605

https://maps.app.goo.gl/me55mZTvYTcP3oqm9

     In early 1974 in this public park, then called Westside Park (now called Albert "Ray" Massey Park), members of Mudcrutch (including Tom Petty, Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench) performed with members of Road Turkey (including Stan Lynch). It served as a fundraiser for Tom Petty's Mudcrutch, which did this farewell-to-Gainesville concert before leaving town, driving to Los Angeles for a record deal. 

     On April Fool’s Day, April 1, 1974, Mudcrutch departed Gainesville in Benmont Tench’s mom’s station wagon, a rented U-Haul truck and a VW bus. The truck broke down at the Gainesville city limits. Later along the road, the station wagon broke down, which delayed their trip for a couple days while parts were ordered. To hear Tom Petty and Benmont talk about this cross-country adventure, see this clip from “Running Down a Dream,” the 2007 Peter Bogdanovich documentary:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=285430103747041

     Mudcrutch would morph into the Heartbreakers, who released their first album in 1976.

Photo provided by the City of Gainesville.