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Book Review, February 19, 2010
This review is from: A Journey into Florida Railroad History (Florida History and Culture) (Hardcover)
Reviewed by Nicholas Linville
Published on H-Florida (October, 2009)
Commissioned by Jeanine A. Clark Bremer
Turner's Worthwhile Journey
Countless communities in Florida trace their beginning to the establishment of
railroads. Given this fact, it is surprising that, until recently, the body of
literature on Florida history has lacked a manageable volume on railroads.
While certainly valuable, the existing histories of Florida railroads often
focus on one company, one region, or one period, and are frequently more
concerned with imagery than analysis. To be sure, crafting a broader history of
this ever-evolving and ultimately massive system presents a great challenge.
With A Journey into Florida Railroad History, veteran railroad historian Gregg
M. Turner takes on this challenge and does a fine job of providing a broad yet
digestible analysis of railway development in the Sunshine State.
Turner chooses a roughly chronological structure for this book. Chapter 1
offers a valuable discussion of the process of creating a railroad, from the
promotional and capital raising stage, to choosing a route and bringing a line
into operation. In chapter 2, he analyzes the pioneering railroads of the
territorial period noting that in this era of steamboat competition and
nationwide economic setbacks, only several lines came into existence. So
unfavorable was the atmosphere that Florida had only one surviving railroad at
statehood in 1845--the Tallahassee Railroad Company, between the capital and
St. Marks. A decade later, the state of Florida provided land grants and
financial assistance to railroad builders. These government incentives, as
Turner explains in chapter 3, brought about five pioneers--the Florida,
Atlantic, & Gulf Central Railroad; the Pensacola and Georgia Railroad; the
Alabama and Florida Railroad; the St. Johns Railroad; and the
Florida Railroad--all of which were, in his assessment, "the very foundation
of Florida's future railroad network" (p. 57). There is probably no better
discussion of Florida's territorial and antebellum railroads than what Turner
offers here.
Turner focuses on the Civil War and Reconstruction period in chapter 4. The war
left Florida's nascent railroad system a shambles, both physically and
financially. Turner describes the tension that arose between Southern and
Northern business partners, such as David Yulee and E. N. Dickerson, as well as
the demands the Confederate government of Florida placed on railroads. Battered
and broken, Florida's railroads languished in the years after the war and
became tools of corruption and fraud as "carpetbaggers" sold worthless bonds to
unknowing foreign investors.
After decades of fits and starts, railroad development finally soared across
Florida in the closing decades of the nineteenth century, as Turner glowingly
relates, spreading new settlement in every direction. Again, liberal land
grants were crucial to this growing web of trackage. Vast agricultural
opportunities, particularly in citrus cultivation and winter vegetables, fueled
this long-awaited boom, and in addition to superior transportation, railroad
companies offered land, wharves, phosphate storehouses, and hotels. Turner
recounts the fairly well-known stories of the two Henrys--Flagler and
Plant--but casts light on other big developers, including the Englishman Sir
Edward Reed who grabbed up many of the failing lines to create "the state's
first true railroad system," the Florida Railway and Navigation Company (p.
116). This period of bold, new development was met with a backlash from farmers
who bemoaned high rates, cattle owners who decried the
trains' lack of concern for their stock, angry investors who invested in
routes to nowhere, and government entities pushing stronger regulations.
Turning away from the mega-companies that dominated the early twentieth century
(the Atlantic Coast Line, the Seaboard Line, and the Southern Railway), Turner
devotes chapter 8 to a handful of smaller companies that did not fare so well.
In many cases, these lines disappeared along with environmental
resources--particularly timber, naval stores, and phosphate.
Though unprepared for the surge in traffic associated with the 1920s boom,
Florida's leading lines managed to reap a hefty profit. Interestingly, half of
the Florida East Coast Railway's revenue in the good days of the 1920s was from
its Okeechobee Branch, which pierced the agricultural mecca of the Everglades
region. The Great Depression (chapter 9) saw many lines abandoned. Breaking
records with $29.4 million in revenue in 1926, the Florida East Coast Railway
pulled a fourth of that in 1934.
Once the centerpiece of many Florida communities, railroads today more often
skirt the edges. Turner, however, reminds us of their present-day importance to
the state's largest industries, including agriculture, paper, and distribution
and retail, and discusses the major players in the concluding chapter. While it
seems clear that Turner's passion lies in nineteenth- and early
twentieth-century railroads, one would be hard pressed to find a better source
for understanding Florida's modern railroad history. Turner clearly has an
encyclopedic knowledge of Florida's railroads, past and present. He has chased
down information on some of the most obscure railroad lines--such as the
short-lived St. Augustine and North Beach Railway--and straightened out the
history of the better-known lines, drawing on an array of historical newspaper
articles, congressional documents, railroad commission reports, manuscript
collections, and secondary literature to tell the
story.
In crafting a broad yet digestible history such as this one, Turner necessarily
had to leave out certain topics related to Florida railroads. His descriptions
of lines from long ago often list communities that are now obscure--Waylonzo,
Norwills, and Nichols, for example--but provide no accompanying geographical
information. In such instances, even the avid student of Florida history will
be stumped. Also, there is little information in Turner's book about the life
span of segregation on Florida's railroads. Similarly lacking is his discussion
of the federal government's takeover of the railroad system during World War I.
Especially as the resurgence of rail travel is in the air, Turner's concise and
organized work arrives in a timely manner. He has a pleasant, engaging style of
writing that makes this book an enjoyable and eye-opening read that will appeal
to classroom instructors and also the general reader. Florida historians will
be thankful that we now have a well-executed history of railroading.
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