The Luraville Locomotive is a rare early American wood-burning steam engine built sometime between 1850 and 1855 and is one of the oldest surviving steam engines in the United States. Experts suggest it probably pulled passenger cars in its early years before beginning a later career as a logging locomotive in North Florida, including service after its 1890 sale to Bache Brothers Lumber Company in Suwannee County. Its logging career ended around 1900 when it fell into the Suwannee River near Peek Landing, either after jumping the tracks at a curve or after restraining lines broke while it was being lowered toward a barge. Attempts by skindivers to recover it in 1976 removed some parts but failed to raise the engine. On January 19, 1979, James Lancaster of Luraville salvaged it after 81 years underwater by financing a crane that dragged it 157 feet across the river bottom to the east bank, where he displayed it at his home despite missing wooden parts and its smokestack. After salvage debts could not be paid, the engine was sold to Jack Goyke of Jacksonville Crane Company, who donated it in 1982 to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Division of Forestry. It was then cleaned, restored, moved to the department’s Conner Complex, and officially debuted at a dedication ceremony on July 12, 1983. In 2012, under Agriculture Commissioner Adam H. Putnam, the Florida Forest Service built a depot from salvaged Blackwater River State Forest wood to preserve the locomotive, honoring both the engine and the broader role of logging railroads in Florida’s settlement, economic growth, and the development of many towns during the state’s railroad expansion in the 1800s.