Conceived and financed by cotton planters who needed a way to get their crop to textile mills in northern states, in 1834 the Tallahassee Rail Road was organized in the Territory of Florida. Being one of the first operational railroads in the United States, construction for its route began in the same year, and it opened for service two years later.
Its initial route was quite short by today’s standards. It ran a mere 22 miles from Port Leon on the east bank of the St. Marks River, northward to Tallahassee. During its brief existence, Port Leon was one of the largest cotton ports along the Gulf Coast, and possessed a vast array of warehouses for storing cotton crop while it awaited to be loaded on ships.
In the railroad’s beginning, steam-powered locomotives weren’t used. Instead, mules were used for motive power, and the system’s tracks were made of wooden rails and stringers, rather than iron or steel.
In 1837 locomotives were put into service on the line. However, as was the case with other southern railroads, the system’s tracks weren’t sufficiently built or maintained, and the company was forced to abandon their use, and regress back to using mule power.
In addition to freight, the system also provided primitive passenger service. Riders could disembark from either terminus, cross the St. Marks River via trestle, and travel the 22 mile journey in relative comfort.
On September 13, 1843 a massive hurricane struck Florida’s gulf coast. In its wake, the town of Port Leon was obliterated. The railroad’s tracks and trestle bridge were destroyed. Scarcely much was left of the town, including the warehouses that were full of cotton. Rather than rebuild, the entire port and railroad infrastructure were abandoned.
In response to the devastation, the railroad relocated its southernmost terminus northward, at the juncture of the St. Marks and Wakulla Rivers. A new railroad facility was constructed, just north of where the trestle bridge once stood. A new port was established, and the new terminus became known as St. Marks.
Overnight, St. Marks transformed into a bustling and thriving port. The railroad fastly became a profitable enterprise, despite shippers being charged a mere 75-cents for each bale of cotton transported.
In 1855 the Pensacola & Georgia Railroad acquired the Tallahassee Rail Road. Immediately its new owners began moderning and standardizing its infrastructure. Workers widened the railroad’s gauge to the broadly used 5-foot gauge, and replaced the track with 56lb iron T-rail. In addition to the railroad’s improvements, management operated the system independently from the Pensacola & Georgia Rail Road.
In 1869 the Pensacola & Georgia Railroad entered receivership. Never profitable, the parent company, and its profitable Tallahassee subsidiary were sold-off and consolidated under the new Jacksonville, Pensacola & Mobile Rail Road.
Over the course of the next 144 years, despite multiple iterations of railroad consolidations and buyouts, the remnants of the line still exist under the possession and ownership of CSX Transportation. Below is a table which outlines the lifespan of the railroad.
Numismatic Specimen
Below please find a two-dollar Tallahassee Rail Road obsolete note. Cataloged as a Bernice-111 / Freeman-78, the specimen is About Uncirculated in grade, and is a green and black remainder that was printed by the American Bank Note Company. These notes were issued much like private bank notes of the era, and could be used as instruments for payment, much like today’s Federal Reserve Notes are used.
Issued circa 1866 and 1867, these notes were produced and issued when the company was a subsidiary of the Pensacola & Georgia Railroad. Sometime in this specimen’s past, it was mounted in an album, as evidenced by the two squares atop the back..
Aaron Packard ![[End Mark]](https://www.novanumismatics.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/EndMark2.png){kind=small}
Notes and Sources
-
State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory
-
Seaboard Air Line Railway, Richard E. Prince, Wheelwright Lithographing Co, ©1966
-
Library of Congress Digital Archives
- New York’s Crystal Palace & The H.B. West Tokens - November 6, 2019
- Edward Aschermann’s Cigar & Tobacco Tokens - November 2, 2019
- George T. Hussey & His Special Message Tokens - October 30, 2019
Two questions:
Are WW II ration coupons of any value?
Are old railroad stock certificates of any value? The company eventually became CSX.
Hi Trudie –
Railroad stock certificates and WWII ration coupons are not my area of expertise.
I recommend browsing ebay and searching for similar items to yours to attain a valuation.
Thank you,
Aaron Packard
Please reply about WW II ration coupons and/or old railroad stock certificates to the accompanying email.
Hi Trudie –
Railroad stock certificates and WWII ration coupons are not my area of expertise.
I recommend browsing ebay and searching for similar items to yours to attain a valuation.
Thank you,
Aaron Packard
I have $1, $2, and $3 Tallahassee Railroad notes of the type shown in the photo which I have listed for sale online. They are cut, no a sheet. A person has messaged me to tell me that my notes are, in his opinion, reproductions made in the 1960’s by World Wide Coin of Atlanta,GA. I am not knowledgeable about these notes. My only suspicion he might be correct is that they are unsigned/undated, and appear to be uncirculated and very high grade condition. When I compare them to the few examples I can find, which are officially graded and in a high grade, those don’t have nearly as square of a cut and don’t have nearly as much of a margin at the boarders. However, I can find nothing else different between mine and authenticated examples. With confederate money there is usually an easy tell…the paper will be wrong, or most often the reverse will have “Facsimile” of some company’s name on it. The only reason the person who messaged me gave is that “you can see the reverse from the front”…this is true, you can in the 2 photos where I hold the note up to the light to show there are no pinholes, but the same is true for a U.S. silver certificate or a modern dollar so this is hardly evidence of a reproduction for me. Can you or anyone seeing this help me with more information? I don’t want to scam anyone. These Tallahassee notes were bought as part of a small collection, the rest of which was U.S. currency up to 1917 which I know is authentic, so given the type of collector and quality of the other notes it seems unlikely they would own unmarked repro’s(but this too is not strong evidence). Thank you.
Hello and thank you very much for your explanation about these banknotes.
I have seen a few sheets of these Tallahasse bills with values of $1, $2, and $3. It happens that some of these sheets that I have seen seem to me to be simple photocopies or forgeries. Perhaps I am a bit too suspicious in this case, but in any case I would like to know your opinion about these ticket sheets. These are the links to the bank note images:
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/ZokAAOSwtLVjvw-o/s-l1600.jpg
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/XvAAAOSwwi9jvw-q/s-l1600.jpg
thanks in any case, Emilio Álvarez