The Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad (P&A) was incorporated by an act of the Florida Legislature on March 4 1881 to run from Pensacola to the Apalachicola River near Chattahoochee a distance of about 160 miles (260 km). No railroad had ever been built across the sparsely populated panhandle of Florida which left Pensacola isolated from the rest of the state. William D. Chipley and Frederick R.
