Historic Waterfront Cruise
Introduction
This tour will cover some of the rich history of Apalachicola and its past and present connection to the river—from its beginnings as an internationally recognized port for cotton and timber; as a river town graced by paddle wheelers during the age of steamboats; and as the home of our world-renowned oyster industry, seafood industry, and sponge trade. Once common throughout Florida, working waterfronts have all but disappeared due to development, with seafood industries being replaced by waterfront condos and the like. On this cruise, you’ll see historic waterfront landmarks, shrimp boats, seafood houses, oystermen bringing in their harvest, and vestiges of the cotton era in the city’s historic district. We will also explore the history of some of the many interesting landmarks near the waterfront that are culturally significant.
Occupied by Native Americans for thousands of years, the word “Apalachicola” is thought to have meant “people on the other side of the river,” or “land of the friendly people” or “allies.” The word came from a branch of the Creek Indians from the Carolinas who later settled along the Chattahoochee-Apalachicola River system. The name in historic records is “Apalachicoli,” so the current name is a slight variation of that used by the Native Americans. The Indians used the river for travel and trade in their long canoes, also crossing the bay to Franklin County’s four barrier islands to access oysters and other resources.
Originally a trading post called Cottonton, then incorporated as Westpoint in 1827, Apalachicola’s residents petitioned in 1831 to have the name changed back to the original one given by the earlier Indian inhabitants. At that time, Florida was still a Territory, not gaining statehood until 1845. In these early days of Apalachicola’s history, this was frontier country, with occasional reports of conflicts with the few remaining Indians in the river valley, and even a report of a panther in town.
The Apalachicola River is formed 107 miles upstream by the confluence of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers. The Chattahoochee River is over 400 miles long and originates at the base of the Appalachian Mountains in North Georgia. It forms the southern half of the Alabama-Georgia border. The Flint River is 344 miles long and originates just south of Atlanta. The creation of a port at Apalachicola was due to the shipping of cotton from Georgia and Alabama, the leading cotton producing territory in the world, to New York, Liverpool, and other foreign ports via the Apalachicola River and the Gulf of Mexico. The city development plan was modeled after Philadelphia, the model city of its time, in 1835. The city was laid out in a rectangular shape with wide streets, an open square located near each of its four corners, and a larger park at the town's center. Wharf lots were laid out along the riverfront, with warehouse, commercial, and residential districts further west.
During the cotton era, the atmosphere changed from that of a frontier town to a busy, cosmopolitan, and prosperous port town. Wealthy Northern cotton merchants built stately Victorian homes. Cotton bales cluttered Water Street, while draymen, stevedores, cotton merchants, sailors, and residents went about their business. Seafarers from around the world came ashore from their vessels, where they found bars, hotels, cafes, a bowling alley, a Masonic lodge, coffee shops, barbers, shops, a library, churches, and ships chandleries.
After the cotton era waned, the city reinvented itself many times using the available resources and its ideal location for shipping and maritime economies.
To learn more about Apalachicola’s fascinating history, please peruse our exhibits and library, and visit these other local points of historical interest: The Raney House Museum, The Orman House State Park, and the John Gorrie Museum. The Chapman House Museum will be opening soon. The Apalachicola Municipal Library is an excellent source for historical and genealogical information. There is a walking tour brochure of historic Apalachicola, as well as an Apalachicola Museum Trail map, available for free in our gift shop. Sit back, relax, and enjoy our Historic Waterfront Cruise on the largest river in the Southeast, the Apalachicola.
Leavins Seafood
Our next door neighbors are part of Apalachicola’s authentic working waterfront. Leavins Seafood opened in 1972 and employs a staff of over 75, with drivers delivering to wholesale food distributors from Key West to California. Grady Leavins established the country’s only Oyster Industry Lab in Apalachicola, a partnership with the University of Florida. Leavins’ Frosted Oyster is a patented product growing in popularity across the restaurant industry due to its unique ability to maintain the natural flavors and nutrients of the wild harvested oyster without harming taste. Leavins Seafood is an example of a local business based on an historic industry that also embraces modern technology. Commercial oyster harvesting has taken place in Apalachicola Bay since 1837, using small sailing vessels. The actual process of harvesting the oysters, using long handled tongs, remains the same today. For a time, oyster dredges were used on public oyster beds, but the Franklin County Seafood Worker’s Association supported a ban on this unsustainable harvesting practice.
Popham Oyster Factory
William Lee Popham, the famous "Oyster King," was the first developer of St. George Island during the late 1910s and 1920s. He was also preacher, poet, novelist, lecturer, politician, and promoter. A colorful and controversial character, he had some legal troubles and spent some time in jail. This historic building is now part of the Maritime Museum, and will be renovated to provide additional space for antique boat displays and our popular Wooden Boat School.
Next to the Popham Building, you see the Golden Ball, a classic wooden boat undergoing restoration. This process will serve as a demonstration project of the Maritime Museum, in partnership with the City of Apalachicola and the Florida Communities Trust Stan Mayfield Working Waterfront Program.
The Golden Ball is a shallow-draft leeboard ketch designed by the renowned naval architect L. Francis Herreshoff, and built in 1962. Herreshoff (1890-1972) is remembered for his classic yachts with graceful lines. His legacy includes designing for the Navy during World War I in addition to his racing and cruising yachts. He also designed kayaks, canoes, and other small craft, and was the author of numerous articles and books, including The Complete Cruiser.
As our second Herreshoff boat, Golden Ball will complement the museum fleet well, as the slightly smaller, more agile counterpart to our flagship Heritage. She measures 46 ½ feet overall, 40 feet, 9 inches on the waterline. With a draft of just 2 feet, she is ideal for the shallow waters of Apalachicola Bay. In fact, she was specifically designed for sailing on Florida's west coast. Golden Ball will be used for sail training and excursions throughout the coastal communities of Franklin County. She was donated by Jaime Canfield.
The John Gorrie Memorial Bridge is named for an esteemed local resident who was granted the first U.S. patent for mechanical refrigeration in 1851. Dr. Gorrie’s efforts to manufacture ice, refrigeration, and air conditioning were inspired by a desire to aid victims of yellow fever, a mosquito borne disease that once plagued residents of southern climes. Prior to 1935, Apalachicola and Eastpoint were connected only by private boat or the Wing Ferry. The original John Gorrie Bridge included a rotating section to allow the passage of ships with tall masts. When it was dismantled to allow for construction of the current bridge, it became an artificial reef offshore of St. George Island. The currentbridge was opened in 1988 and is part of the Big Bend Scenic Byway. In the distance, to your left, you can see the St. George Island Bridge. This 5 mile long bridge is the third longest in Florida. The island was reachable only by boat until 1965 when the first bridge was built. The existing structure was completed in 2004. The bridge came 300 years too late for the survivors of the French shipwreck Le Tigre. Trapped on the island with few tools, provisions, or survival skills, they resorted to cannibalizing an African slave before managing to build a raft to reach the mainland. They then had to travel on foot to the nearest European outpost—the fort at St. Marks, 60 miles to the east. The captain’s account of the ordeal was published in French and English and became an international best seller. Ironically, Le Tigre means “tiger” in English, which was the name used not only for jungle cats, but also Florida Panthers until the early 1800s. As the survivors trekked along this wild stretch of coast, the fears that tormented them most were hostile Indians and the panthers they heard calling at night. There are more than 100 shipwrecks in Franklin County.
Mouth of the River
During the cotton era, paddlewheelers brought cargoes of cotton from the fertile fields in Georgia and Alabama down the Gulf of Mexico for shipment to New York and Liverpool. Before extensive roads and rail lines, the river was the highway of travel and commerce. Oyster beds, sandbars near the mouth of the river, and the shallow bay made it difficult for the large ocean-going vessels to enter the port. Instead, they would anchor out near Dog Island and St. George Island, and smaller vessels would ferry the cargo out to them. The pass in between is called East Pass and was marked by the Dog Island light, a red beacon which shone continuously. The pass between St. George Island and St. Vincent Island is called West Pass and was marked by the St. George Light, which was originally located on Little St. George Island and cast a yellow, intermittent beam. On the entire North Florida Gulf Coast, there were only five lighthouses to guide 19th century sailors, so the passes were easy to identify after dark. West Pass was considered more treacherous, as St. George and Little St. George were separated by a narrow, shifting passage maintained by hurricanes. In 1957, the Army Corps made it permanent with Bob Sikes Cut.
As the third largest port on the Gulf, after Pensacola and Mobile; a major part of the lifeblood of the Southern economy; and an entry point into the heart of the South and the Southern Naval ship building and iron works operations upstream at Columbus, GA, Apalachicola was the first port on the Gulf to be blockaded by the Union. Despite the occasional successes of blockade runners, the blockade put a stranglehold on commerce and created dire conditions and food shortages for the civilian population.
Ten Foot Hole
Apalachicola's Battery Park Boat Ramp and Marina, known locally as "Ten Foot Hole." The big anchor pictured here is one of 16 located in Apalachicola. Many are in the immediate downtown area. Archaeologists believe that they originate from 19th and 20th century ships that were part of the various maritime economies that have occurred in Apalachicola’s history, and that most of them were brought to Apalachicola after being caught in shrimper’s nets. The design of each one is different, and offers clues to the anchor’s age and country of origin. Research is underway. See how many you can find as you walk around downtown.
Battery Park
Prosperous local businessman John Ruge, involved in the oyster industry in the late 1800s, deeded part of his land in his will to the City for this park, which was part of the original city plan. Eight Civil War cannons obtained from a fort near Pensacola, once stood here. During World War II, all but two of them were removed and used in the war effort. The remaining two are now at Gorrie Square.
Battery Park is the home of the annual Seafood Festival, which draws thousands of visitors each year. It is the oldest maritime event in the state. In 1992, archaeologists found artifacts representing several Native American cultures on this property, from 1,000 A.D. to the 16th century.
The Gibson Innis located at the foot of the bridge. Originally known as the as the Franklin Hotel, it wasbuilt by James Buck in 1907of native heart pine and black cypress hand-picked from his property on East Bay. This building is an example of Florida "Cracker" Architecture. This was the style of wood frame structure used widely in the 19th and early 20th century in Florida, utilizing metal roofs, raised floors, high ceilings, center hallways, and large wrap around porches to take advantage of cooling breezes. A widow’s walk and cupola adorn the tin roof. Soon after opening, the inn became known as a first class luxury hotel and was the only one between Pensacola and Jacksonville heated entirely bysteam. This photo was taken in 1918.
During World War II, the government temporarily took over the structure as an officer’s club. The $4 per day price for a room and all you can eat meals was so popular with soldiers that it threatened to bankrupt the operation. The inn later fell into disrepair but was restored by the Gibson sistersand reopened in 1985. It is now on the National Historic Register of Historic Places, and is one of the few inns on the list that still operates as a full service hotel.
Across the street from the Gibson stands a memorial to Lt. Willoughby Marks, who lost his life in World War I while trying to save a comrade at the Battle of Argonne, in France.
Apalachicola Maritime Museum
The museum was re-founded in 2007 by George Kirvin Floyd, to celebrate and preserve the maritime history of Apalachicola in a hands-on learning environment with active sailing program and adventure programs, boat-building, restoration and educational programs. Be sure to check our website and sign up for our newsletter for event invitations and information on our wooden boat school, lecture series, and more.
The museum is housed in an authentic part of Apalachicola’s working waterfront. The Kimball Lumber Company complex used to stand on this site. It was part of a sprawling complex of lumber mill operations that dominated the waterfront in the late 1800s to early 1900s. The decline of the cotton economy in the post-Civil War south had slowed the traffic of steamboats on the river. At the same time, new railroad lines diverted cargo shipments from the river system to the port at Savannah, Georgia. These two factors combined to end the era of Apalachicola as a thriving cotton port.
Arriving in Apalachicola in 1878, James Coombs was instrumental in building a new economy based on a different resource: the plentiful supply of cypress and pine. Lumber harvested in the river basin was transported by boat, or fastened into rafts and floated down the river to the saw mills at Apalachicola and Carrabelle.
By the turn of the century, one of Apalachicola’s saw mills had become the largest in the South, and large quantities of lumber were loaded onto schooners for transport to domestic and international markets. Such ships could carry as much as 250,000 feet of lumber. Hewn logs were exported to Europe and South America, railroad ties to Mexico, and sawn pine lumber and shingles were sent north. New Orleans wasa major market for cypress. Lumber became one of Florida’s leading exports. The industry also supported other businesses, such as ships chandleries, which supplied hardware, groceries, and other necessary supplies to the vessels and crews coming in and out of the port.
Our strategic location for maritime industries is also a vulnerable place during hurricane season. One of the most catastrophic storms in our history made landfall after dark on October 10, 1894 and left in its wake two dead, a six-foot storm surge, destroyed docks, streets lined with dead fish, houses with roofs blown off, and a tattered community. Apalachicola being such a prominent lumber port, the story was covered in the New York Times:
Local commerce came to a halt as one of Apalachicola’s major enterprises Murat’s Wholesale Fish Company along with other fish houses and oyster factories laid flatten, while thousands of rotten fish littered the streets.
Kimball Lumber Company reported the greatest loss. Five barges loaded with lumber owned by the company and moored at East Pass, were tossed about and lodged in the marsh two miles north of the city. Both floating lumber and timber churned by winds from the vicious storm, shattered downtown businesses to destruction, while soft mud and brush lined their floors and shelves. The storm caused $20,000 worth of aggregate property damage, with Kimball receiving the bulk of the loss totaling $10,000.