Tallahassee Railroad
The Tallahassee Railroad, headquartered in Tallahassee, Florida, was one of the first two railroads in Florida, starting operations in 1836 or 1837. It did not successfully use steam locomotives until 1855, with trains being pulled by mules for more than 20 years. The principal source of traffic on the railroad for many years was carrying cotton bales from Tallahassee to seaports on the St. Marks River.
Origin
Tallahassee sat in "Middle Florida", the part of the Territory of Florida between the Appalachicola and Suwannee rivers. In the 1830s Middle Florida was the most populous and prosperous part of Florida. The heart of Middle Florida and the adjacent part of Georgia formed the "Red Hills Region", which held many plantations producing cotton and tobacco. Export of cotton from the region was difficult. Cotton bales were brought into Tallahassee, from which they were carried in wagons across the deep sand of the Woodville Karst Plain to ports on the St. Marks River. The Legislative Council of the Territory of Florida authorized the Leon Rail-Way Company in 1831 to build a railroad from Tallahassee to the St. Marks River. When that company failed to organize, the Legislative Council then authorized the Leon Railroad Company, which forfeited its charter after it was unable to raise the required capital.The Tallahassee Railroad Company was incorporated in 1834 as authorized by an act of the Legislative Council. Richard Keith Call, who owned two plantations in Leon County, became president and chief stockholder of the company. The Territorial government granted of land to the railroad company. As part of the proposed route crossed land still held by the Federal government, Call petitioned the U.S. Congress to grant the railroad a wide right-of-way, and in St. Marks. Congress granted a wide right of way, and just at the junction of the St. Marks and Wakulla rivers.
Construction
Much of what is now known about the construction of the Tallahassee Railroad was recorded by the German Bohemian railroad expert, Franz Anton von Gerstner. Gerstner had been commissioned by the Russian government to write a comprehensive report on railroads in the United States. He visited Middle Florida in 1839.Construction of the railroad began in 1834 from Tallahassee, and had reached St. Marks, a distance of, by 1836 or 1837. By 1839, the railroad was extended south to Port Leon by means of a drawbridge across the St. Marks River. The line was constructed using strap rail, using a track gauge of laid on ties spaced at intervals of. Most of the route was over very flat, forested land. Drainage was poor, and rain often washed the sand from under the tracks, throwing them out of alignment. This left the track in poor condition, with high maintenance costs.
The French naturalist, Francis de Laporte de Castelnau, visited Middle Florida from November 1837 until March 1838. While admitting that the railroad was "very useful" because of the near impossibility of transporting cotton by horse-drawn wagon across the sandy soil from Tallahassee to the St. Marks River, he called the railroad "the very worst that has yet been built in the entire world", with such poor construction that it had proven impossible to operate locomotives on the track.
Port Leon
The initial terminal for the railroad was St. Marks. The Federal government had only granted at St. Marks to the railroad, instead of the it had requested. The land grant from the Territory of Florida included a larger area across the St. Marks River and a little nearer to the mouth of the river. Siting the terminal of the railroad on the territorial grant land gave the company more room for its terminal facilities, and full control of the transfer of goods between the railroad and ships. Starting in 1838, the railroad company laid out and sold lots in Port Leon. The residents of Magnolia, a port town up the St. Marks River from the port of St. Marks, which had been bypassed by the railroad, moved en masse to Port Leon. The railroad reached Port Leon in 1839. The town had quickly grown to a population of about 450, and was incorporated in 1841. Yellow fever struck the town in 1841, killing 139 residents. About 200 residents were still in Port Leon in early 1843 when it was made the county seat of Wakulla County, which was newly created out of Leon County.When it began selling lots at Port Leon, the railroad company had claimed that site was the highest on Apalachee Bay, above the highest tides. The Apalachee Bay Storm of 1837 apparently had not seriously flooded the site. The Port Leon, Florida Hurricane of 1843 struck Port Leon in September of that year. The hurricane was accompanied by a storm surge of. While only one person was killed, every structure in the town was destroyed or severely damaged. The bridge across the St. Marks River was carried upstream past the town of St. Marks. The town of St. Marks also suffered damage from the storm. Many residents of Port Leon moved to a new town north of St. Marks, [Newport, Wakulla River|Wakulla County, Florida|Newport]. The railroad company quickly repaired its line into St. Marks, and made it the new shipping terminal for the line. Port Leon then faded away.
Operations
Trains on the railroad were pulled by horses or mules for many years. The company had purchased two locomotives, but could not use them because of the poor condition of the track. As of 1839, besides the two unused locomotives, the railroad owned three passenger cars, 45 freight cars, 35 horses and mules, and 23 slaves. The railroad also owned a sawmill, of woodlands, a plantation for raising fodder for the horses and mules, and the town of Port Leon. Slaves performed most of the work on the railroad and the plantation.Daily passenger service in each direction was provided with a single car pulled by two horses. The horses were changed at the half-way mark, and the one-way trip took two-and-a-half hours at a speed of about. Passenger fare was $1.50 per passenger, and some 4,000 passengers were carried in 1838. Freight trains of five to eight cars also ran in each direction once a day. The freight trains were pulled by six horses or mules at a speed of. Most of the freight carried from Tallahassee to the seaports was cotton, about 14,000 bales of cotton out of carried in 1838. About of goods were carried from the seaports to Tallahassee that year. The freight charge for a bale of cotton was 75 cents.
The condition of the railroad remained poor throughout the almost 20 years that the original owners of the Tallahassee Railroad operated the line. A traveler who was a passenger on the railroad in 1855 was unhappy with his journey. He noted that rails and ties were sometimes missing, and that the iron straps on the rails were sometimes fastened only in the middle, so that both ends of the strap curled up. At one point a forest fire had set the ties on fire for a distance of, which the train nevertheless proceeded across. When the slave driving the train was asked why he did not try to fight the fire, he replied that he was not a fireman. The passenger train was delayed because a freight train had derailed, and the passengers had to help place the freight cars on the track again. As there was no way for the passenger train to pass the freight train, it was further delayed by the slow speed at which the freight train moved. The traveler noted that delays of this sort occurred almost every day.