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A History of Columbia County Florida (1996) Edward F. Keuchel 145/340

A History of Columbia County, Florida

the following day. One way fare from Lake City to Chicago was
$32.2512
Although railroads offered the fastest and easiest way in and
out of the county, most interior travel was over county roads. The
end of Reconstruction witnessed considerable expansion of road
construction, although by today’s standards the roads of the late
nineteenth century were little more than graded trails connecting
the county’s communities. In 1879 the County Commissioners
inventoried the county’s public roads.
The “White Springs Road” connected Lake City with White
Springs. Traveling out of Lake City on this road another road
branched off and ran over to the Lower Mineral Springs on the
Suwannee County line. The “Blounts Ferry Road” connected Lake
City with Blounts Ferry. In 1878, T. J. Summerall was paid $549
to build a bridge over Jones Mill Creek where the Blounts Ferry
Road crossed. Another important road in the northern part of the
county was the “Old Georgia Road” running across the north­
eastern part of the county to the Baker County line. In 1878 the
county commissioners authorized a road to be opened leading from
Lake City and connecting with the Old Georgia Road near Craw­
ford Brown’s residence. The “Old Stage Road,” also called the
“Lake City and Tallahassee Road,” ran west from Lake City to the
Suwannee County line. A spur off of this road near G. B. Smith­
son’s farm also ran over to the Suwannee County line.13
To the south the major road was the “Wire Road” or “New-
nansville Road” running from Lake City to the Natural Bridge on
the Santa Fe River on the Alachua County line. A road leaving the
Wire Road about two miles from Lake City and extending to Fort
White was known as the “Fort White Road.” Another road leaving

12 Century in the Sun, p. 8; Wanton S. Webb, Webb's Historical, Industrial and
Biographical Florida (New York, 1885), p. 39; Lake City Reporter, January 4,1901.
,3County Commissioners Minutes Book No. 1, Meetings of August 6, 1878,
March 5, 1878, October 1, 1878, August 5, 1879.
142

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