The Civil War period
Florida has sometimes been called the forgotten state in the Civil War. “Although the third state to secede, Florida’s small population and meager industrial resources made the state of little strategic importance to either side” (Florida in the Civil War, n.d., par. 1).
Florida's industrial resources may have been scant, but the state played a role in supplying the Confederacy with "beef, pork, fish, fruit and salt" (Florida's Role in the Civil War, para. 9). Learn more about Florida's Civil War, from secession to war's end, at the link below.
http://www.pbchistoryonline.org/middle-school-lessons/015-Civil%20War/015-FL_Civil_War1.htm
Railroads and Agriculture
Florida’s first rail line, the Tallahassee-St. Marks Line, was chartered in 1834, but the first to operate connected the town of St. Joseph to the Apalachicola River in 1836. After statehood, the 1855 Internal Improvement Act granted companies large tracts of land in exchange for building railroads. When the Civil War came to Florida, tracks were seized to supply iron for the war effort and the modest progress Florida’s fledgling railway industry had experienced came to a halt (Tracks, n.d., pars. 1-3). It started up again in a big way in the late 1800s.
Hamilton Disston, a prominent Philadelphia industrialist, is believed to have first visited Florida in 1877. In the post-Civil War period, the State of Florida’s Internal Improvement Fund was deeply in debt. Disston had visited Florida as a guest of diplomat Henry Sanford (for whom the city of Sanford is named) and realized the possibilities for agriculture in the state. In 1881, after a period of negotiation, Disston purchased four million acres of Internal Improvement lands at 25 cents per acre (which is still thought to be the largest single land purchase in history). Disston set about draining the Everglades and Florida entered a new era of muck-farming agriculture in south Florida, as well as railway building around the state (Hamilton Disston, 2013, pars. 7-10).
Two of the important rail builders of the era were Henry Flagler, who developed rail lines along the east coast of Florida, and Henry Plant, who developed lines across the peninsula. Henry Flagler can be credited with developing St. Augustine, Daytona Beach, Palm Beach, and Miami, and building major hotels and infrastructure in St. Augustine and Palm Beach. Flagler also completed seven miles of track over open water to reach Key West (although this was not a commercial success). Plant can be credited with helping to develop Tampa and building, like Flagler, a major hotel that incorporated the most advanced technology of its time (Hamilton Disston, par. 20). A third major railway builder was William Chipley, who built the lines connecting the Panhandle with the rest of the state (Growth, 2002, par. 4).
Read about Florida’s railroad builders at the link below.
http://fcit.usf.edu/florida/lessons/railrd/railrd1.htm
Read a brief history of Florida's railway development here. (Scroll to the link at the bottom of this page for articles on Florida's first railroad and a Civil War railway skirmish, as well as photos of the Atlantic Coast Line.)
