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Locals swear that once this Gulf Coast town gets into your blood, it never leaves.
Story and photographs by Michael Zimny
Like a child awakening from a nearly two-hundred-year slumber, Apalachicola
rubs its eyes to begin another day along Florida's "Forgotten Coast." From
its waterfront once alive with the whistles of steamboats laden with cotton
comes the distant putter of a shrimp boat's engine. On silent shady streets,
century-old live oaks shelter spreading houses of the same vintage with wide
moatlike porches. The town's single stoplight—and a flashing one at that—directs
a slow parade of traffic. Drivers exchange greetings with a wave or roll down
their windows to chat; pedestrians join in the conversation.
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Apalachicola is a special place: a historic working fishing village with a rich
history that is just now beginning to welcome tourists. Formed in the 1820s and
1830s, Apalachicola (the name means "people on the other side" in the language
of the native Apalachee Indians), the town grew slowly until the economic potential
of its location at the mouth of the Apalachicola River was realized.
Apalachicola's town plan was based on the plan executed in Philadelphia. Peter
Mitchell of New York designed the Apalachicola plan, which was adopted by the
Apalachicola Land Company in 1836.As in Philadelphia, Apalachicola's plan laid
out the town in a rectangular fashion with an open square located near each
of its four corners and a larger square at the town's center. Wharf lots were
laid out along the river, with warehouse, commercial, and residential blocks beyond.
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Apalachicola quickly became Florida's largest cotton port before the Civil War and the third largest on the Gulf behind New Orleans and Mobile. In the town's heyday, some 15 steamboats plied the river between it and Columbus, Georgia, ferrying cotton to the town where it would be sold and compressed for shipment to the mills of New England and Europe. The construction of east-west railroads siphoned off Apalachicola's cotton trade to Savannah in the 1860s but the town's economy recovered after the 1870s with development of the area's vast timber resources.
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Ultimately, though, it was fishing that sustained the town through good times and bad.
With its perfect mix of salt and fresh waters, the town seized upon the bountiful harvest
of Apalachicola Bay's world famous oysters and the nearby Gulf seafood, marketing them
to the world.
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To Learn More:
Apalachicola is located on U.S. 98 about 80 miles southwest of Tallahassee and
60 miles east of Panama City. If this is your first visit, plan to stop at the Apalachicola
Bay Chamber of Commerce at 99 Market Street (on U.S. 98). The chamber is open 9:00 a.m.
to 5:00 p.m., Monday - Friday; call 850.653.9419 for more information or visit their
website at www.apalachicolabay.org/. An annual tour of
the town's historic homes is offered the first weekend of May; check with the chamber
for more information. To learn more about the history of Apalachicola see At the Water's
Edge by William Warren Rogers and Lee Willis, III. The book is available for purchase
locally.
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