Construction began in Fernandina in 1855 on the Florida Railroad, the first railroad in Florida to connect the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. Completed in Cedar Key in March 1861, just a month before the start of the Civil War, the line stretched 156 miles and was the longest railroad in Florida before the war. It was built to streamline shipments between the east and west coasts, but in 1862 the USS Hatteras raided Cedar Key and destroyed the railroad depot, seven freight cars, and several other buildings, and that same year a Union squadron seized Fernandina. In 1864 the Confederacy dismantled the railroad to build a new line from Live Oak, Florida, to Lawton, Georgia, for troop and supply movements. The railroad's president and chief stockholder, who oversaw its initial construction, was Florida’s first U.S. Senator David Levy Yulee, later nicknamed the Father of Florida’s railroads, and the town just east of this location was named for him. Although the Florida Railroad no longer exists, portions of its bed form the foundation of this trail.