Florida Historical Markers Programs - Marker Detail

Description: The Carrabelle Town Center was once part of the Franklin Lumber Company mill site owned by James Coombs, which operated along the north shore of the Carrabelle River from 1875 to 1928. Ships came from around the world seeking cypress timber, turpentine, and naval stores. At that time, Carrabelle was only accessible by railway and steamboat. In 1923, the new McIntyre Ferry, at the confluence of the Ochlockonee and Crooked rivers near Sopchoppy, opened and allowed travel from Tallahassee to Carrabelle. The old growth cypress was fully harvested by 1928, and the mill was shuttered. The next year, the former mill site was platted and surveyed into blocks and lots known as the Coombs Addition, which became Carrabelle Town Center. The brick building on this site, built in 1930, served as a Standard Oil filling station, a Western Union telegraph, and a small grocery. Owned by the Wathen family, it had the first electric-powered gas pumps in town. In 1931, the opening of the Davis Island Ferry across the Carrabelle River allowed for travel west to Eastpoint. Construction of the John Gorrie Bridge across Apalachicola Bay in 1935 completed the new Highway 98 for automobile travel along the gulf coast in Franklin County.