Florida, Atlantic and Gulf Central Railroad

The Florida, Atlantic and Gulf Central Railroad was a railroad company that, in 1860, completed a 5 ft (1,524 mm) gauge railroad line running from Jacksonville, Florida, west to Lake City, Florida. The line was eventually renamed and merged into other railroad companies, the last of which ended up being acquired by the Seaboard Air Line Railway, whose successor, CSX, operates trains over the line today.

The company charter was secured by Abel S. Baldwin in 1851, but ground was not broken on the line to Lake City until 1857. In 1860, John P. Sanderson was president of the company and George R. Foster its secretary. During the Civil War, the railroad figured into the Battle of Olustee when Union Brigadier General Truman Seymour led troops west toward Lake City along the line, destroying the junction at Baldwin, and then engaging Confederate troops near Olustee Station. The tracks and junction were rebuilt after the war, but the railroad defaulted on its payments to the Florida Internal Improvement Fund. Consequently, in 1868, the company was purchased by notorious carpetbagger George W. Swepson, who renamed it the Florida Central Railroad. Two years later, the Central, as it was known, was consolidated into the Jacksonville, Pensacola and Mobile Railroad (JP&M), which had been known as the Pensacola and Georgia Railroad until Swepson purchased it in 1868.

References

• Turner, Gregg. (2003) A Short History of Florida Railroads. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 0-7385-2421-2
• Turner, Gregg M. (2008) A Journey into Florida Railroad History. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida. ISBN 978-0-8130-3233-7