The weekly Floridian. [volume] (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1867-19??, 1885-11-26

During Eve years past Florida has
much more than doubled her length Of
railroads, having built. about eight hum
dred miles, and during the same time the
wealthy and populous State of Georgia
built but about FIVE hundred miles. The
length Of railroad track in Florida is in
creasing every day, for number Of lines
are In course of construction, and scarcely
month passes that some new road is
not undertaken. And the work of rail-
road building is likely to continue for
many years, not only to keep pace with,
but to aid, the wonderful development OF
the State and to accommodate the i'm
mense winter travel. Wherever route
is opened travellers flock over it, and Of
those who come as visitors many remain
as settlers, to make permanent business
for that road which renders the locality
accessible. Roads are cheaply built COM
pared with the cost in most other coun-
tries, and land owners can well afford to
construct them when they make thou
sands of acres worth hundreds of thou
sands Of dollars in the real estate market.
Even land that is but sand has its value
as supplying the ground plan of full,
undivided interest in the invaluable ell
mate, and the winter sanitarium of a
continent will continue to be the field of
speculation and the resort of invalids.
And the area of productive land will
attract settlement and furnish constantly
increasing freights of fruit and vegetables
for roads built and to be built. Thus
it will be that network of rail
shall soon cover Florida in its peninsular
part, and it is quite impossible that long
time will elapse before there is another
route into the Peninsula than that via the
eastern avenues which each succeeding
season are more crowded with travel.
Much of this is from direction north
west of its objective points in Florida, and
the present routes are consequently indi-
rect, and the necessity OF another, shorter
and less expensive, is constantly felt.
Such a ronte would be provided by a
line from the Georgia system of roads
passing through Tallahassee and extend
| ing into the Peninsula in a southeasterly
direction. This would reach the heart of
the orange section by distance as much
shorter than the present route as the n.y.
potenuse is shorter than the two sides OF
the right angle-for the traveller would
move directly southeast instead of first
going east and then south to reach the
same point. Such a line would certainly
be the thoroughfare of vast amount OF
travel and traffic, and passing through
counties which now have no railroad
would create large property values. 1t
would provide the greatly needed gate
way into Florida from the West, North
west and Central South, and would un-
doubtedly be one Of the best paying roads
in the Southern States. 1t would open
up the Gulf coast country Of Jefferson
Taylor and Lafayette counties for more
than hundred miles-and would supply
to Leon county and Tallahassee all that
we need in the way of rail communities
tion to enable US to keep up with other
parts of the State in progress and devel
opment Of resources. 1t must be convinc
ingly apparent to railroad projectors that
the shortest line down into Florida from
the direction whence a great portion o.
the travel comes would be paying road
especially as it would cross number of the
principal roads in the State. Therefore
there ia reason to believe that it will bt
built in the near future.