Chasing Shadows: Carrabelle becomes a town on Christmas Eve
By Tamara Allen Special to the Times
Editor’s note: This is Part 1 of a two-part series on the founding of Carrabelle.
In 1877, a real estate developer from Minnesota named Oliver Hudson Kelley set up a tent on the east side of the river where the Crooked and New Rivers joined and emptied into Apalachicola Sound. He moved in his wife and four daughters and declared himself the mayor. He began immediately to organize a community named “Rio Carrabella.”
Kelley used his Masonic and Grange connections to meet local businessmen and landowners and to recruit wealthy Yankees in the lumber and the railroad businesses to move to James Island in Franklin County. He became a regular correspondent for the Weekly Floridian newspaper, published every two weeks in Tallahassee, where he posted his” James Island Letters” touting the excellent virtues of St. James Island where Carrabelle is located. He extolled the virtues of su