When Cotton Was King

Franklin County’s earliest maritime economies depended on the river. One of the earliest industries was cotton.

Less than 10 years after Apalachicola was established in 1831, the town reveled in a cotton boom that lasted nearly 20 years and catapulted the region to rank as third largest cotton shipping port on the Gulf of Mexico.

Apalachicola’s claim to early success lies in its location at the mouth of the Apalachicola River.

During the 1800s, nearly all of the country’s cotton was produced in the south and the Apalachicola River played a crucial role in getting the crop from farms to merchants and mills in the Northeast and Europe.

During the 1840s and early 1850s, steamboats loaded with cotton from farms upriver crowded the waterfront. Cargo was unloaded onto the docks where it was weighed and stockpiled in warehouses that lined the waterfront. From there it was sold and reloaded onto shallow-draft schooners that ferried the cargo to larger vessels waiting offshore.

During Apalachicola’s cotton era, mountains of “white gold” spilled from the warehouses and clogged the streets.  During the winter of 1853, 140,000 bales of cotton passed through the bustling port town and the town’s population had swelled to several thousand.

Apalachicola’s economy during the mid 1800s was dependent upon cotton and upon the river which brought that cotton to market. Fortunately, writes historian Dorothy Dodd, the months when the river was high enough for steamboat traffic coincided with the period when cotton was ready for shipment. The “commercial year” she writes started October 1 and last through May although low water sometimes prevented any appreciable amount of commercial river traffic for weeks, or even months.

“Vessels are making their appearance in the bay, and lighters are passing and repassing laden with their omnifarious freight. The ringing of the auction bell – the cries of auctioneer, and the puffing and blowing of the steamers, as they traverse our waters, reminds us of the busy scenes which will ensue they come booming down the river with their tall chimneys just peeping over the bales of of cotton with which they are laden…”
~ Apalachicola Commercial Advertiser, Sept. 30, 1844

Apalachicola’s cotton boom was not destined to last however. A combination of transportation challenges hampered Apalachicola’s growth as a cotton shipping port. River travel by steamboat was often dangerous and, by the 1860s, an expanding railroad network siphoned off much of the river shipping business.  The Civil War and ensuing river blockades were also disruptive forces.

The end of cotton era heralded the beginning of the lumber era in Franklin County. Several lumber mills were established along the river in the years right after the Civil War and by the late 1870s, the lumber industry flourished.