Florida Southern Railroad
Embedded Files
From Wikipedia
The Florida Southern Railway (later known as the Florida Southern Railroad) was a railroad that operated in Florida in the late 1800s. It was one of Florida's three notable narrow gauge railways when it was built along with the South Florida Railroad and the Orange Belt Railway.
The Florida Southern was originally chartered to run from Lake City south through central Florida to Charlotte Harbor. However, with the influence of Henry B. Plant, it operated with two discontinuous segments that would make up the Plant System, which would later become part of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad.
Original Charter
The Florida Southern Railway was originally chartered in 1879 under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. Its ambitious goal was to connect Lake City in north-central Florida to Charlotte Harbor on the Gulf Coast, with a branch line to Palatka to link up with steamboat traffic on the St. Johns River.
The charter route and key developments:
Original Charter Route (1879)
Main Line: From Lake City - Gainesville - Ocala - Leesburg - Pemberton Ferry (now Croom) - Bartow - Charlotte Harbor
Branch Line: From Rochelle (near Gainesville) - Palatka, to connect with riverboats on the St. Johns River
Key Milestones
1881: Renamed the Florida Southern Railway; first segment opened from Gainesville to Rochelle, including the Palatka branch
1883: Reached Leesburg; construction began northward from Gainesville to Hague
1884–1885: Extended to Pemberton Ferry (Croom), then west to Brooksville
1886: Completed the Charlotte Harbor Division, reaching Punta Gorda (then called Trabue) on July 24, 1886
The first segment of the line opened on August 21, 1881 from Gainesville to Palatka. In Palatka, a roundhouse with a turntable was built as well as a wharf in the St. Johns River.
The line was extended from Rochelle just south of Gainesville to Ocala by the end of 1881. Track from Gainesville to Ocala would be the main line and the track from Rochelle to Palatka would be the Palatka Branch. A branch to Micanopy was also included. By 1883, the southern end of the main line reached Leesburg, and the northern end was extended from Gainesville to Hague.
Henry Plant’s involvement
In 1883, Henry B. Plant was in the midst of building his own system of railroads south from Du Pont, Georgia to Live Oak, Florida and south to Charlotte Harbor with plans to build in a similar path. When he learned of the Florida Southern's plans, he invested in the Florida Southern and made an agreement with them to avoid having two competing lines. In the agreement, Plant would not build his railroad, the Live Oak, Tampa and Charlotte Harbor Railroad, past Gainesville.
He bought the Florida Southern's unfinished line and charter north of Gainesville. Under the agreement, the Florida Southern would operate the combined network from Gainesville south to Pemberton Ferry where it would connect with a branch of the South Florida Railroad Company, another railroad Plant had invested in. The South Florida Railroad's Pemberton Ferry branch would then operate from Pemberton Ferry south to Lakeland, where it would cross and briefly join the South Florida Railroad's mainline, and then turn south to Bartow. In Bartow, the Florida Southern would resume and finish the route south to Charlotte Harbor.
Later years the Florida Southern Railway reached Leesburg by 1883, where it connected with the St. Johns and Lake Eustis Railway, which extended east towards Tavares, Astor, and beyond. The Florida Southern later leased this branch line.
The Florida Southern Railway reached Pemberton Ferry (known today as Croom) by 1885, and a branch from there to Brooksville was also built. Construction began on the southern segment of the line, known as the Charlotte Harbor Division, in September 1885 from Bartow along the Peace River (where large deposits of valuable phosphate was discovered in 1881) to Arcadia and Charlotte Harbor.
The line was initially intended to terminate on the north side of Charlotte Harbor at a location known as Hickory Bluff (just southeast of Port Charlotte). Just across the harbor from Hickory Bluff was a small town was being planned by Isaac Trabue. Trabue owned waterfront property and successfully convinced the Florida Southern to instead run the railroad to his planned town, which would later become Punta Gorda.
Trabue offered half of his land holdings to the Florida Southern in exchange for the railroad coming to his town. Surveying work to determine the route for the Charlotte Harbor Division was accomplished by Punta Gorda civil engineer Albert W. Gilchrist, who would later serve as Florida's 20th governor. The Charlotte Harbor Division was completed with its first train to Punta Gorda (initially known as Trabue) on July 24, 1886.
The Florida Southern Railway went into receivership in 1890, though the Charlotte Harbor Division was operated independently through the receivership. It came out of receivership in 1892 and was reorganized as the Florida Southern Railroad. The Charlotte Harbor Division was converted to standard gauge in 1892.
The Good Neighbor Trail runs on the former right of way between Croom and Brooksville.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse