The Charlotte Harbor and Northern Railway is a historic railroad line that at its greatest extent serviced Gasparilla Island in Charlotte Harbor and a major shipping port that once operated there. The railroad's principal purpose was to transport phosphate mined along the Peace River and in the Bone Valley region of Central Florida to the port to be shipped. It also brought passengers to the island community of Boca Grande on Gasparilla Island, and is largely responsible for making Boca Grande the popular tourist destination it is today. Part of the line remains in service today between Mulberry and Arcadia, which is now owned and operated by CSX Transportation. Today, it makes up CSX's Achan Subdivision and part of their Brewster Subdivision.
At its greatest extent, the Charlotte Harbor and Northern Railway ran from Mulberry to the southern tip of Gasparilla Island, a distance of nearly 100 miles. From Mulberry, the line proceeded south in a mostly straight trajectory through Bradley Junction, Fort Green Springs, and Ona to Arcadia.
What remains of the line today terminates in Arcadia, but historically it continued from Arcadia southwest, paralleling the Peace River and the adjacent Atlantic Coast Line Railroad (former Florida Southern Railway) through Nocatee and Fort Ogden. Near Fort Ogden, the line crossed the river and continued southwest into southeastern Sarasota County and Port Charlotte, where it ran alongside of what is today Raintree Boulevard, Veterans Boulevard, and State Road 776 (which has since been widened into the former right of way). It crossed the Myakka River in El Jobean and continued running south just northwest of what is today Gasparilla Road toward Placida and Gasparilla Island.
In Placida, the line crossed a causeway consisting of three major trestles onto Gasparilla Island, where it ran the length of the island and terminating at the Boca Grande port at the south end of the island near Port Boca Grande Lighthouse.
History
Background
In the late 1800s, phosphate rock was discovered on the banks of the Peace River southwest of Arcadia. Shortly after, the Peace River Phosphate Company and other companies began phosphate mining operations in the area. The Peace River Phosphate Company built a narrow-gauge railroad along the banks of the river between Arcadia and Liverpool, just south of Fort Ogden. The phosphate industry led to Liverpool quickly becoming a phosphate mining town. A dock on the Peace River in Liverpool allowed for loading phosphate from rail cars on to barges for shipping.[1]
In Arcadia, the Peace River Phosphate Company's railroad connected with the Florida Southern Railway. This allowed for some phosphate to be interchanged to the Florida Southern, who then transported it south to Punta Gorda to be loaded onto vessels at the Long Dock. The Florida Southern Railway converted its line to standard gauge in 1892, and the Peace River Phosphate Company also converted its line to standard gauge at the same time.[1]
In 1892, Joseph Hull of the phosphate mining company Comer & Hull, acquired a portion of the Peace River Phosphate Company and its railroad. By 1894, Hull merged both companies, along with three other phosphate companies, into the Peace River Phosphate Mining Company. In 1899, the Peace River Phosphate Mining Company and other companies further north were merged into the American Agricultural Chemical Corporation (AACC).[1]
After the acquisitions, AACC President Peter Bradley sought a location for a new port on the southwest coast of Florida to simplify the shipping of phosphate. The shallow waters of the Peace River in Liverpool limited the size of vessels that could be loaded there.[2] The company identified Boca Grande Pass, a natural deepwater inlet at the south end of Gasparilla Island, as the perfect place for a deepwater port. The AACC, under Bradley's direction, then acquired the charter of the unbuilt Alafia, Manatee, and Gulf Coast Railroad, which had been chartered in 1897 with the authority to built a railroad from Plant City to Charlotte Harbor.[3] After gaining the charter, Bradley changed its name to the Charlotte Harbor and Northern Railway.[4]
Construction and early years
Swing bridge over Gasparilla Sound as seen in 2013.
In 1905, construction began on the Charlotte Harbor and Northern Railway from the port on Gasparilla Island to Fort Ogden. From Fort Ogden north to Arcadia, the Charlotte Harbor and Northern incorporated the pre-existing railroad built by the Peace River Phosphate Company with track south of Fort Ogden to Liverpool becoming a branch line. To connect Gasparilla Island to the mainland, a two-mile long causeway consisting of three trestles was built over Gasparilla Sound. The trestles contained two steel swing spans built by Virginia Iron Works to accommodate vessel traffic.[4] The northernmost trestle's swing span would later be replaced by a bascule bridge.[5] Another major trestle was built over the Myakka River near Southland (later renamed El Jobean). Company repair shops were built in Arcadia.[4] The Charlotte Harbor and Northern was officially complete from Port Boca Grande to Arcadia in June of 1907.[3]
Historic passenger depot at Boca Grande built in 1910
In addition to transporting freight, the Charlotte Harbor and Northern also provided passenger service to Boca Grande. Three passenger depots existed on Gasparilla Island, with one at the north end of the island, one in downtown Boca Grande, and one at the port at the south end of the island where boat connections could be made to nearby Useppa Island and Pine Island. Initially, passengers were interchanged in Arcadia with the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, which had acquired the former Florida Southern Railway in 1902.[4]
The railroad would also invest in infrastructure in central Boca Grande, which would become famous for its world-class tarpon fishing. In 1907, Peter Bradley created the Boca Grande Land Company as a subsidiary to the AACC along with area landowners John Wall and Albert W. Gilchrist (the latter of whom would serve as the 20th Governor of Florida). The Boca Grande Land Company built homes and a golf course in Boca Grande. They also built the Gasparilla Inn, which was completed in 1911 and is still operating today.[6][3]
In 1910, a two-story Mediterranean revival passenger depot was built in central Boca Grande replacing an earlier wooden structure. The upper floor of the depot, which still stands today, contained the Charlotte Harbor and Northern's corporate headquarters.[4]
Extension north
Historic marker for Pierce, Florida
Around the time the Charlotte Harbor and Northern Railway was completed from Boca Grande to Arcadia in 1907, much of the phosphate deposits on the lower Peace River had been depleted.[2] By then, the AACC owned additional phosphate mines and facilities north of Arcadia as the phosphate industry moved further north. In 1909, work began to extend the Charlotte Harbor and Northern beyond Arcadia north through the Bone Valley to Mulberry to reach more facilities. By 1910, a nearly 40-mile stretch of the extension was complete, which connected to the Seaboard Air Line Railroad's newly built branch from Edison Junction to Agricola. The line's connection to the Seaboard Air Line would be named Bradley Junction after AACC President Peter Bradley.[7] In addition to penetrating more phosphate-rich regions of the state, the extension provided a shorter route for passenger trains traveling between Boca Grande and Tampa.
Northern terminus of the Charlotte Harbor and Northern Railway (right) in Mulberry as seen in 2021.
Just north of Bradley Junction was Pierce, a phosphate town run by the AACC. By then, Pierce was served by a spur of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad's Bone Valley Branch. In early 1911, the Charlotte Harbor and Northern was extended north from Bradley Junction to Pierce, providing a direct connection to the town. By the end of 1911, the Charlotte Harbor and Northern was extended one last time to Mulberry. The extension ran beside the Atlantic Coast Line's spur before crossing their Bone Valley Branch at Bruce (later known as Achan). It then proceeded north to Mulberry, where it terminated at a connection with the Seaboard Air Line's route that would later be known as their Valrico Subdivision.[3]
The Palmetto Phosphate Company would build a spur from the Charlotte Harbor and Northern at Cottman east to its facility at Tiger Bay (near Fort Meade) in 1911. This spur was sold to the Charlotte Harbor and Northern Railway in 1913.[3] Another short-lived spur from Achan to Ridgewood was also built in 1913.[8]
By the early 1920s, the branch to Liverpool was abandoned.[9]
In the early 1900s, the Railway produced an advertising brochure for its Gasparilla Inn near the end of the line on Gasparilla Island that claimed that the area was once home to José Gaspar, a renegade Spanish pirate who was supposedly based in Charlotte Harbor when Florida was still Spanish territory. The brochure claimed that Gaspar had been the most feared buccaneer of his generation during his 40-year career spent ravaging shipping and taking hostages across the Gulf of Mexico to the Spanish Main, that he named most of the islands in the Charlotte Harbor area, and had left an as-yet undiscovered treasure cache in the vicinity of the Gasparilla Inn upon his dramatic death in battle.[10] The tale was unsupported by any evidence, and Pat Lemoyne, the publicist who wrote it, freely admitted in later years that "there was not a true fact in it" and that it was simply an advertisement written in the style of a romantic adventure to attract the attention of tourists.[11] Still, the colorful legend of Gaspar presented in the brochure helped inspire the annual Gasparilla Pirate Festival in nearby Tampa and has led to ongoing confusion as to Gaspar's historic authenticity.[12]
1925-1967: Seaboard Air Line ownership
Bridge over Peace River near Arcadia
In 1925, the line was leased by the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, who then fully purchased the line from the American Agricultural Chemicals Company a year later. This gave Seaboard direct access to the Boca Grande port.[13] Almost immediately after the purchase, Seaboard began construction of its Fort Myers Subdivision, which branched off the line at Hull (near Fort Ogden) and ran south to Fort Myers and Naples. That route was completed in 1927 but was abandoned by 1952.[14][pageneeded]
The line became part of the Seaboard Air Line's Agricola Subdivision (later renamed the Achan Subdivision) north of Bradley Junction and the Boca Grande Subdivision south of there. Seaboard continued to provided service on the line to both Boca Grande as well as to Fort Myers and Naples when the Fort Myers Subdivision was active. By 1940, two daily local passenger trains were running the line to Boca Grande.[15][16] Passenger service to Boca Grande was discontinued in 1958 shortly after the opening of the Boca Grande Causeway, which was the last passenger service to ever operate on the line.
Increased competition from the Rockport Terminal in the Tampa Bay area led to the closure of the Boca Grande Port in 1979.[17] Due to the closure of the port, the Seaboard Coast Line (which was in the process of being merged into CSX Transportation at the time) abandoned and removed the line from the port to just south of Arcadia in 1981.
Current conditions
Empty phosphate train on the still-active segment of the Charlotte Harbor and Northern Railway near Agrock Yard in 2020
As of 2025, the track between Mulberry and Arcadia is the only active track remaining of the Charlotte Harbor and Northern Railway. The northernmost seven miles of the line (between Mulberry and Bradley Junction) still operates as CSX's Achan Subdivision. Track from Bradley Junction to just north of Arcadia is now part of CSX's Brewster Subdivision.[18] The Brewster Subdivision also includes track from Bradley Junction west to Edison Junction.[19][20][18]Seminole Gulf Railway owns the southernmost four miles of the remaining line in Arcadia, who also operates the connecting ex-ACL route south to Punta Gorda and Fort Myers.
South of Arcadia
Boca Grande Bike Trail on former right of way on Gasparilla Island
Despite its abandonment in 1981, evidence of the line south of Arcadia can still be found on Gasparilla Island and Charlotte County. Most of the right of way on Gasparilla Island was purchased by a local entrepreneur and converted into the popular Boca Grande Bike Path in 1985, which was the first rail trail in the state of Florida. The Cape Haze Pioneer Trail was later built on the right of way between western Port Charlotte and Placida in the mid-2000s.
The most substantial remnant of the line is the historic Boca Grande passenger depot at Park and 4th Streets, which is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The depot was restored in the 1970s and today houses shops and a restaurant.
Southernmost Gasparilla Island trestle. It has since been converted to a fishing pier.Abandoned drawbridge tower on the former bascule bridge over Gasparilla Sound
A number of bridges along the abandoned route also remain to this day as well, the most notable of which is the causeway over Gasparilla Sound that connected the line to the island. The southernmost trestle is now a fishing pier as is the northernmost trestle up to the abandoned drawbridge tower.[21] The rest of the causeway and trestles, which remain just to the south of the Boca Grande Causeway, are now completely abandoned. The center trestle's swing span is still in place and is locked open to facilitate boat traffic. The bascule span on the northernmost trestle was removed and reinstalled in 1988 over Reynolds Creek in Long Beach, New York on the Long Island Rail Road's Long Beach Branch, where it is still in service.[5]
Other remaining bridges include trestles over the Myakka River and Coral Creek, which have been converted into fishing piers.
Historic stations
Placida Bunk House was built by the railroad to house their employees and originally stood in Placida. It now resides at the Cape Haze Pioneer Trail's Mercer trailhead.Artist rendering of the former Brewster Depot
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