The Tallahassee-St. Marks Railroad was the first Florida railroad chartered by the territorial government in 1831, and in 1835 the Tallahassee Railroad Company received the first Congressional Land Grant ever given to a railroad, including timber rights on public lands and ten acres for a terminal where the St. Marks and Wakulla Rivers join. Its original right of way was at least 60 feet wide and 23 miles long, and both slaves and free laborers cleared land and built a track of longitudinal timbers topped with iron straps. By 1837 the line was open, with mules pulling a tram-like car from Tallahassee to St. Marks, and two years later a new bridge over the St. Marks River extended service to Port Leon. A hurricane in 1843 destroyed the town and bridge, returning the terminus to St. Marks. Despite delays, rough rides, and travel through the wilderness, the railroad was essential to regional business, shipping as many as 50,000 bales of cotton each year, importing salt, firebrick, and other commodities from east coast ports, and after the Civil War exporting naval stores, timber, and turpentine. By 1856 solid T-iron track replaced the primitive rails and steam locomotives were added. The railroad operated for 147 years, the longest operating railroad in Florida history, and in 1988 the southernmost 16 miles became the Tallahassee-St. Marks Historic Railroad State Trail, the first state rail-trail in Florida.