History of Mossy Head

Margaret Wooten

The wonderful Margaret Wooten  talked about the names of places in Walton County. She says, "I used to go to school at Mossy Head and back in those days a head means the beginning of a stream and there was a spring there and on those magnolia trees there was moss and along some, along the oak trees too there was Spanish moss hanging down, so they called it, because it was the beginning of a stream -- they called it Mossy Head because the moss which hung down from the trees."

There is still moss in trees and a spring that flows into a small gorge. You can see this stream as you walk the trail at the nearby Mossy Head Park or cross the bridge to Mossy Head School.

Wikipedia

Mossy Head is an unincorporated community in Walton County, Florida, located at the intersection of U.S. Highway 90 and County Road 1087, 2 miles (3.2 km) east of the north end of State Road 285. It is at the head of Mossy Head Branch, a tributary of the Shoal River. In 1951, Mossy Head became the interchange point for a base railroad constructed between the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and Eglin Air Force Base, located partially in Walton County. The line operated until the early 1980s, and a short section on the north end of the alignment still exists for rail shipments.

In 1941, the U.S. Government began considering to build a railroad line that would serve the various areas of the massive Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. 10 years later, 45 miles of track were operational, and accessed two auxiliary air fields and an ammunition dump, among other pertinent locations. (The tracks were re-constructed from the Clairborne and Polk Railroad at Camp Polk, Louisiana, which was abandoned in 1945.) The railroad, called the B&F, or the "Back & Forth", had a single connection to the outside world at Mossy Head, where it interchanged with a Louisville & Nashville line (still in use today by CSX). It was operated under the Air Proving Ground Command's transportation division, and utilized three ALCO RSD-1 military diesel-electric locomotives, which have since been donated to the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum.

The line was abandoned in the late 1970s; most of the tracks remain. A small section of track is still in use nearby the wye with the former Louisville & Nashville line.

History of Walton County - McLendon 

Mckinnon, John Love. History of Walton County. Atlanta, Ga. The Byrd printing co, 1911. Library of Congress Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/12001450/.