Railroading in Pinellas County by Vincent Luisi

Author:Vincent Luisi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Published: 2011-09-29T16:00:00+00:00

Four

1920–1930

When World War 1 ended in 1918, thousands of tourists were attracted to the state of Florida. Traveling was in vogue, and tourists spent a great deal of money on vacations. Tourists also came to Florida to buy new homes and to invest in the real estate market. This was the start of an era that was known in Florida history as the “Land Boom,” beginning in 1921 and peaking in 1925. Many “tin-can tourists” took advantage of newly built roads, and the railroad industry benefited from the new tourists as well.

During the boom, the Florida Special continued to be the Atlantic Coast Line’s premier winter train between New York and Miami. The ACL made many improvements during the boom time by expanding its freight yards in Jacksonville and building a major workshop at Tampa’s Uceta yard. By 1926, the ACL reported a net income of $14 million.

S. Davies Warfield was the president and chairman of the Seaboard Air Line Railway. The SAL constructed more new track lines during the boom than any other carrier and, by keeping up with the competition, became a major player. All of this generated an enormous amount of passenger and freight revenue for both the SAL and the ACL.

New stations were also built. The SAL built a new, updated station in Clearwater down the block from the Court Street station. Passenger trains arrived at the new station while the older station became the freight stop. In 1924, Dunedin celebrated the new brick ACL station; a fire had destroyed the original frame-built ACL station from the early 1900s.

Pinellas had a tremendous surge in growth at this time as well. By the time the 1930 census was taken, Pinellas County’s population had grown to 62,149. Unfortunately inflated sales of property and shady real estate schemes helped to bring an end to the Land Boom, which contributed to the stock market crash on Wall Street in 1929. The next decade would bring a much different situation and attitude for the railroad industry.

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