Settled in the 1840s by cotton planters from Georgia and South Carolina, Bland became a diverse agrarian area where farmers and sharecroppers raised cattle and grew cotton and a variety of fruits and vegetables. Joseph "Fate" Lafayette Matthews (1868-1934), the town's most prominent citizen, moved there from Bradford County in 1899 and, with Thomas A. Doke, first bought 720 acres that had once been part of the Samuel R. Pyles plantation. Matthews built a large home and a general merchandise store just under a mile south of here, and with cotton gins and a grist mill the store became the area's center of commerce. In May 1903 he opened a post office named for his son, Blan C. Matthews (1902-1927), and he served as its only postmaster until it closed in July 1906. By the late 1920s he was one of the county's largest landowners, but on December 1, 1934, while serving as president of the Bank of Alachua, he was murdered in his home by a man whose house he had foreclosed. William and Elsie Washington successfully homesteaded 104 acres in the area in 1879, and among their many descendants is actress, comedienne, and humanitarian Whoopi Goldberg. About one mile west, Ogden Elementary School No. 49 was built by the Alachua County School Board in the early 1900s to educate African-American children in the Bland community. Serving grades 1-6, it began with one room, one teacher, and one outhouse, operated generally from September to May from 8AM to 3PM, and according to oral tradition drew 30 to 70 students each day. African-American teachers, usually from outside the area, often lived with local families during their tenure, and the children, some of whom worked in the fields with their families before and after school, walked miles each day and used secondhand books. A wood stove heated the building in winter, while open windows and doors provided cooling, and by the 1940s the school had grown to two rooms, two teachers, and two outhouses. The year ended with plays, picnics, and spelling bees, and although the school closed at the end of the 1950-51 school year and the building later collapsed and was removed, former students remembered an education grounded in respect, discipline, and the belief of parents and teachers that education offered a better life.