Florida & Back. Part 1

Trip to the archives in Tallahassee, Fl

My interest lately has been on the Tavares & Gulf Railroad so I concentrated on the annual reports of that road in the Railroad Commission boxes. The  books start at 1899 and ran until 1945. No idea where the earlier books are, there should be an 1886 for the Tavares Apopka & Gulf and there should be T&G books from 1896 to 1898. They probably slipped under the radar and only started filling out the reports after the Commission forced them too. The early reports are not filled out properly and did not have any old records of the original cost of constructing the TA&G.

The 1900 report was really gloomy, very little freight or passengers were carried between 7.1.1898 and 6.30.11899 and revenues were very low, while expenses were high. They did build the extension from Oakland to Winter Garden and the FC&P also let them slide on their $100 a month rental on the Tavares facilities. They later negotiated it down to 25 a month. This extension would save them from bankruptcy and turn them around, though it would take them 10 years to finally show a profit.



Don