Guides · Apalachicola, Florida
How Apalachicola Got Its Name
The town now called Apalachicola spent its first decades unsure what to call itself. It carried three names in as many decades: first Cottonton, then West Point on incorporation in 1828, and finally Apalachicola from 1831.
The name comes from the river. Apalachicola is a Muscogee word, commonly rendered as "people on the other side." The river itself was the boundary, the route, and the reason the settlement existed at all. The town sits at the river's mouth, where fresh water meets the Gulf.
West Point was the incorporated name, but it did not hold. In 1831, the town took the river's name. That was the end of the renaming, though not the end of the town's reinventions.
A town built on water
The water gave the town its first industry. Oysters were sold locally as early as 1836. By the 1870s, sponging had become a mainstay. In 1879, Apalachicola had 16 sponge vessels working. By 1895, between 80 and 120 men were employed in the trade. The Ruge Brothers Canning Company was established in 1885 by Herman Ruge and his sons.
Timber came next, and it came fast. Commerce rose from $2,000,000 in 1898 to $13,324,000 in 1903. The first Apalachicola Northern Railroad engine reached the town on 30 April 1907. The river had made the town; the rails would keep it.
The doctor who made ice
The most remarkable chapter has nothing to do with seafood or lumber. Dr. John Gorrie (1803–1855) practised medicine here. An 1841 yellow fever outbreak led him to cool sickrooms with ice. Then he built a mechanical ice-making machine.
Gorrie received an 1851 patent for mechanical refrigeration. He is recognised as the father of air conditioning and refrigeration. The museum later built to commemorate the invention stands on Sixth Street. The site was donated to the State of Florida in 1955, and the one-storey brick museum building was constructed in 1957.
What remains
The town today is small. The population is 2,304 people, with a median age of 51.8 years. There are 1,506 housing units; 323 are vacant, and 191 are held for seasonal or recreational use. The median home value is $247,900. Median gross rent is $1,235. Median household income is $61,083. The unemployment rate is 5.8 percent. Just under a third of residents hold a bachelor's degree or higher: 32.9 percent.
The waterfront still anchors the town. Battery Park sits at the mouth of the Apalachicola River. It is the ground on which the Florida Seafood Festival is held, billed as Florida's oldest maritime event. The two-day festival draws tens of thousands. The 63rd annual edition runs 6–7 November.
Further up Market Street, the Orman House Historic State Park holds its grounds, including the Chapman Botanical Garden and the Three Soldiers Detail South memorial.
The name settled in 1831. The town kept changing anyway.
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