AV&W History                                  

Tuesday, 12 October 2004

AV&W Timetable 1900

In 1896-7, G.S. Baxter & Company acquired by purchase approximately 150,000 acres of timber lands in Clinch and Echols counties, southern Georgia. In order to develop these lands, it was necessary to build fifty miles of tram-road, which Baxter & Company proceeded to do, starting at a point on what was then the Plant System ten miles south of Dupont. Here a station was erected and given the name Haylow (hence - Haylow, GA). Ten miles of tram-road were built from this point to the operations of the company in naval stores, cross-ties and lumber, but when the first shipment was offered to the Plant System at Haylow, that company demanded higher rates for hauling to different ports-Jacksonville, Fernandina, Brunswick and Savannah-than Baxter & Company could afford to pay. Failure to secure more favorable rates resulted in the organizing and chartering of what afterward became the Atlantic Valdosta & Western Railway.

Upon the failure of the negotiations with the Plant System, Walton Ferguson, father of the junior partner of Baxter & Company, offered to furnish the money to build a railroad from Haylow westward to Valdosta, 22 miles, and extend it easterly 88 miles to Jacksonville, and for the equipment of the same.

Construction of the road was placed in the hands of the resident partner of the firm, E.C. Long. It was completed from Jacksonville to Valdosta in 1899, and opened for passenger service on July 13, 1899. This was usually considered the best built and equipped road in Florida up to that time, and it was the first in the State to lay 70-lb steel rails. Its rolling stock was first-class in every particular and thoroughly up-to-date. The engines were equipped with electric headlights, between the first, if not the first, used in this section of the country.

This road was named the Atlantic, Valdosta & Western. It proved to be a successful enterprise and opened a new field to both Valdosta and Jacksonville. The AV&W Railway was sold to Samuel Spencer, president of the Southern Railway, in May 1902, for an amount that was entirely satisfactory to the promoters of the enterprise. That part of the road between Valdosta and Grand Crossing (near Jacksonville) was conveyed by Mr. Spencer to the Georgia Southern & Florida Railway Company, the Southern Railway gaining control of the GS&F in the transfer. The balance of the property, from Grand Crossing into and around Jacksonville, was transferred to the St. John's River Terminal Company.