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The year 1894 was the midst of the Golden Era of Nassau County and Fernandina. Timber was being cut at an alarming rate throughout mainland Nassau County and was being shipped to the harbor at Fernandina. Timber was loaded all along the railroads and at docks along the St. Marys River. Timber was shipped to England, mainland Europe, the Caribbean and around the world. In another 5 years the forests of the county would be 95 percent gone.
Main street businesses of railroad communities were along the tracks and would remain there until highways were improved in the 1920s.
Nassau County, Florida - 1894
We welcome you to our Internet site and hope to introduce you to what we have to offer at our historic Callahan depot headquarters and recently established museum within the depot.Though we are located at the Callahan railroad depot in the heart of old Callahan, we are about ALL of West Nassau County. Our boundary runs from southwest of Bryceville, north along the St. Marys River to Boulogne. It then runs east along the St. Marys River to an imaginary north/south line through Italia to the Nassau River, then west along Thomas Creek to near Ratliff, then southwest to the beginning point. Our colleagues at Yulee and Amelia Island Museum of History share with us our interest in preserving and teaching the history of Nassau County. Our legacy goes back beyond 500 years to the days of the first French, Spanish and English explorers when Amelia Island and the mainland where first inhabited by Europeans. Before those that came by square-rigged vessels were the Native Americans that came to the area more than four thousand of years ago yet had all but disappeared by the mid-19th century.The historical society's theme is aimed at the history of the railroad which opened up the interior of Nassau County and much of the rest of wilderness of the south and west. David Yulee's Florida Railroad began at new Fernandina, was finished through central Nassau County by mid-1856 and completed to Cedar Key by 1861. 
It is fortunate that one of the old railroad depots remains as the showpiece of an era gone by to help us collect, archive and display the historic gems of the past. Below are pictured the two Callahan depots that stood side by side from the early 1880s until the original passenger Florida Railroad depot on the left burned about 1909. The two railroads collaborated by doubling the size of the elevated freight depot on the right, adding a clerk's office and ticket sales windows and passenger waiting rooms for white and colored on the far end. It is this building that remains as the headquarters of the West Nassau Historical Society/Museum and the Greater Nassau County Chamber of Commerce.
A Florida Nonprofit 501(c)3 Tax Exempt Organization
West Nassau Historical Society - West Nassau Museum of History
Located Inside the Historic Train Depot at 45383 Dixie Avenue, Callahan
Mail to P.O. Box 1758, Callahan, FL 32011 (904 879-3406)
Collection of WNHS
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Looking northeast with Brandies Avenue to the left and Dixie Avenue to the right.
Abner McGehee
This page was last updated: February 13, 2012
2011 Society Officers
President: Donnie Sain
Vice-President: Cleo Horne
Treasurer: Janice Sain
Secretary: Tina Capps
The Callahan Depot
Collection of WNHS
Map courtesy of the University of South Florida Library Internet site.
New Society Logo
This is the recently approved logo of the West Nassau Historical Society as adopted at the October general membership meeting. It is displayed here as our society flag on a green background.
WELCOME
Click on the Railroad Days tab above to get all the information for visitors, vendors and society members. Mark your calandars, tell the kids and neighbors and search out an old artifact or photograph that you can donate or loan to the museum.
Railroad Days Festival 2012
Is Coming
March 23rd & 24th
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Help the West Nassau Historical Society
maintain its facilities, research and archive, and showcase what brought us to this point.
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