Page 36 - lake-city-florida-a-sesquicentennial-tribute-(h-morris-williams-kevin-mccarthy)-2009

Lake City, Florida: A Sesquicentennial Tribute (2009) H. Morris Williams, Dr. Kevin M. McCarthy

Poet Sidney Lanier,
traveling through the state in 1875
writing a travel book for a railroad,
wrote the following about the city:
“Lake City itself [is] a pleasant town
of some two thousand inhabitants,
county-site of Columbia County,
with seven churches, three hotels
(probably thirty rooms in each), a
newspaper, and terminal station of
the Cuban telegraph line....” The Sidney Lanier
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“Cuban telegraph line” referred to a
series of telegraph offices in Florida, one of which was in Lake City.

The International Ocean Telegraph Company had lines running through
the state, ending at Punta Rassa on the lower west coast of Florida.
Workers had laid the first cable from Punta Rassa via Key West to
Havana, Cuba, in 1867. In a way, then, Lake City was doing its part
in connecting the rest of America with Cuba and South America.

Local people in the 1870s

The Rev. C. William Camp, rector, signed the first record in
the register of St. James Episcopal Church in 1870. By 1871, the
Episcopal Church was supervising a local school, which later became
St. James Academy, an Episcopal school.

The Rev. Hugh B. McCallum began publishing a newspaper
in Lake City in 1873: The Southern Baptist. It later became The
Florida Baptist Witness, the official organ of Florida Baptists.

The mayors for that decade were M. Whit Smith (served
from 1859 to 1875), Judge W.M. Ives (served from 1875 to 1876),
and W.J. Bacon (served from 1876 to 1885).
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