William Chipley

William D. Chipley, the son of a Georgia Baptist preacher, became the most important developer of the growth of West Florida, an area of lumbering and farming interests. Chipley had a knack of buying up bankrupted railroads and turning them into profitable enterprises, by improving the rolling stock and developing a shipping system that saved farmers money. In 1874, he received a charter to construct the Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad across West Florida to Apalachicola. The Panhandle was dependent upon river transportation which only flowed southward until Chipley spanned the rivers and connected the Panhandle to northbound railroads in East Florida.

Chipley's railroad promoted large scale development of the Panhandle's lumber and farming assets. It was, however, not until 1906 when developer George M. West started the Gulf Coast Development Company on St. Andrews Bay that coastal urban centers developed. West named his fishing port Panama City since it was halfway between Chicago and Panama. The railroad turned the steamboat towns into fishing villages.