Willow, Florida
Willow is a ghost town in Manatee County, Florida, in the United States.
Overview
The Florida Railroad Museum operates on a six mile railroad line between Parrish and Willow. The organization is working to restore some of the old sites such as maintenance facilities in Willow.[1] This railroad line that the Florida Railroad Museum uses is a very small part of a 55 mile route that was built south from Durant to Manatee County and into Sarasota with construction starting in 1895. It was first incorporated in 1902 as the United States & West Indies Railroad and Steamship Company. It became the Florida West Shore Railway before being engulfed into the Seaboard Air Line Railroad Company. The rail is 85 lb and jointed. It is class I track.
In 1924, a mill was built at Willow by the MoGowin-Foshee Lumber Company. James I. Robbins, Bruce Robbins and James A. Robbins bought it in 1926. The Robbinses also bought 40,000 acres of woodlands that ran south to where State Road 70 is today. The area is believed to have included a sawmill, turpentine still, a planer mill, a dry kiln, Robbins family home, general store (known as the commissary), 70 worker houses with garden plots, a house of prostitution, Snowden's filling station, a post office constructed in 1889, a railroad depot with a water tower and a church, school and juke joint located in the black section of town. At its height, as much as 50,000 board feet a day was cut. There were around 250 workers. They were paid in scrips (samll round tokens) that were to be spent in the general store (the commissary.) Willow was separated into white and black sections. The black children went to the school in Willow and the white children went to school north in the town of Wimauma.
The town failed with the onset of the Great Depression as the price of lumber dropped and the business moved to Tampa in 1937. The business's steam engine used to move lumber to market is on display at the Robbins Manufacturing Co., located in Tampa on Nebraska Avenue.[2] A railroad truss bridge crossing the Little Manatee River built in 1913 remains, as do foundations of some of the old buildings.[2] The railroad bridge needs repair before it can be used again and some of the rails leading to it on the south side have been removed, so that trains can not currently travel across it. On the north side of the railroad bridge, at about Saffold Road, all of the rails have been removed from the rest of this route north to Durant. This abandonment occurred in 1986.
At Willow, there is a railroad spur that leads east off of the mainline to a Florida Power & Light Company plant. CSX Transportation provides rail service to the plant.
The area of Willow is accessible from Willow Road east off of U S 301.
See also
References
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Coordinates: 27°38′36″N 82°20′48″W / 27.64333°N 82.34667°W