Apalachicola, FL USDA Benefits

Apalachicola (/ˌæpəlætʃɪˈkoʊlə/ ⓘ AP-ə-lach-i-KOH-lə) is a city and the county seat of Franklin County, Florida, United States, on the shore of Apalachicola Bay, an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico. The population was 2,231 at the 2010 census.

The Apalachicola Province, after whom the river and, ultimately the city, are named, lived along the lower part of the Chattahoochee River in Alabama and Georgia in historic times, until the 1830s (the Spanish included the Chattahoochee as part of the Apalachicola River). The name is a combination of the Hitchiti words apalahchi, meaning “on the other side”, and okli, meaning “people”. In original reference to the settlement, it probably meant “people on the other side of the river”.

Between the years 1513 and 1763, the area that now includes the city of Apalachicola was under Spanish jurisdiction as part of Spanish Florida. While the Spanish established missions with the Apalachee people to the northeast of the city of Apalachicola (centered around Tallahassee), and with the Chatot people to the north in the upper Apalachicola River valley and the Chipola River valley, the Spanish did not establish any missions in the area of the lower Apalachicola River during the duration of Spain’s first occupation of Florida. In the 1750s, during the French and Indian War, the British captured the Spanish colony of Cuba; however, because Cuba was a prized possession for the Spanish and Florida was mostly unused backwater, the Spanish traded Florida to the British in return for regaining Cuba. Between the years 1763 and 1783, the area that is now Apalachicola fell under the jurisdiction of British West Florida. A British trading post called “Cottonton” was founded at this site on the mouth of the Apalachicola River. In 1783, British West Florida was transferred to Spain; however, the trading post (and its British inhabitants) remained and continued facilitating trade along the Apalachicola River (which was connected to the trading network along the Chattahoochee River). Gradually, after acquisition by the United States and related development in Alabama and Georgia, it attracted more permanent European-American residents. In 1827, the town was incorporated as “West Point”. Apalachicola received its current name in 1831, by an act of the Legislative Council of the Territory of Florida.

Trinity Episcopal Church was incorporated by an act of the Legislative Council of the Territory of Florida on February 11, 1837. The building was one of the earliest prefabricated buildings in the United States. The framework was shipped by schooner from New York City and assembled in Apalachicola with wooden pegs.

In 1837, a newspaper at Apalachicola boasted that the town’s business street along the waterfront “had 2,000 feet [610 meters] of continuous brick stores, three stories high, 80 feet [24 meters] deep, and all equipped with granite pillars.”