Tallahassee-St. Marks Railroad

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Drawing by Francis Count de Castelnau

The Tallahassee-St. Marks Railroad was one of the first operational railroads in the United States headquartered in Tallahassee, Florida.

1 History
- 1.1 1830s
- 1.2 1840s
- 1.3 1850s
- 1.4 1860s
- 1.5 1880s
- 1.6 1983

[edit] History

[edit] 1830s

The railroad was conceived and financed by leading cotton planters who needed a way to get their crop to textile mills in England and New England. It was also used by naval store merchants and timber interests of the area to transport the their goods to East Coast ports.

The Tallahassee Railroad Company was approved in 1835 by the Florida Legislative Council. Also that year, the Tallahassee Railroad Company received the first Federal land grant to a railroad. In 1835 construction began on the Tallahassee St. Marks Railroad.

The drawing by Francis Count de Castelnau is captioned with: "Railway depot at Tallahassee. Florida already has a railroad, which although short renders great service. It extends from the capital to Saint-Marck on the Gulf of Mexico about 7 leagues away. It crosses such a very deep sandy region that, before construction, it was scarcely possible to cross it on horseback. It serves chiefly to transport cotton from the interior to the sea."

The railroad was completed in 1837 and began operation that year. It was a mule-drawn railroad that connected Tallahassee, Florida, then the territorial Capital, with the Gulf port of St. Marks - a distance of 20 miles. By 1838 the railroad extended three miles south to Port Leon.

[edit] 1840s

In 1843, Port Leon destroyed by massive hurricane. The railroad terminal there is moved back to St. Marks.

[edit] 1850s

In 1856, the wooden rails are replaced by steel rails and mules are replaced by locomotives.

[edit] 1860s

During the Civil War, the Confederates used the railroad extensively to move troops, artillery and supplies in defense of Tallahassee. In March 1865, the railroad achieved its highest military significance when it was used to deploy Confederate troops quickly south from Tallahassee in the face of an advance by Union troops. The railroad enabled Generals Samuel Jones and William Miller to put enough men into place to defeat Union General John Newton at the Battle of Natural Bridge on March 6, 1865.

[edit] 1880s

In 1880, the railroad begins use in transporting naval stores and hauls timber for Leon County's logging industry.

[edit] 1983

In 1983, the Seaboard Railroad files to have railroad abandoned between Capital Circle in Tallahassee and St. Marks. The Tallahassee-St. Marks has the distinction of being the longest operating railroad in Florida and served the area for 147 years. One unknown traveler called it "the worst that has yet been built in the entire world."