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Hello my name is Christopher Lydick, I'm the district archeologist
and historian for the U.S. Forest Service here at Olustee Depot,
the stepping off point for visitor adventures here on the Osceola National Forest in Florida.
Located in the town of Olustee, Flordia, the Olustee Depot has been
the keystone of the community for over 150 years. Today the Olustee Depot
serves as the stepping of point for visitors and history buffs alike
who visit the Osceola National Forest,
located between Jacksonville and Lake City, in the interior of the state of Florida.
As early as 1835 stagecoach and postal service begun as what was then
known as Olustee Station. The location was important due to the number
of major roads and former Indian trails that converged near the location.
The importance of this area increased over the next 16 years when the
Florida Atlantic and Gulf Central Railroad announced that Olustee
had been selected as the location for a freight station.
On the 22nd of February 1864 the Battle of Olustee provided
confederate forces the victory they desperately needed
to turn back Union expeditionary forces attempting to sever
the state of Florida from the rest of the Confederacy.
During the battle, the station was used by Confederate forces (Original 1858 freight platform)
for troop transportation, ammunition distribution,
and as an ambulance depot to evacuate wounded troops following the engagement.
With the decline of Florida's timber and land markets prior to the great depression,
and with the increase in truck-based commerce ushered in with the paving of U.S. Highway 90 in 1923,
the importance of Olustee Depot waned.
By the 1920s much of the surrounding countryside had been severely cut over,
burned and subsequently abandoned by the lumber companies that formerly worked them.
In the early 1930s the U.S. Forest Service began purchasing much of this undesirable land
in order to create the Osceola National Forest,
proclaimed in 1931 by Hubert Hoover.
The economic decline of Olustee continued.
And, finally with the construction of U.S. Interstate 10 in 1962,
the Seaboard Coast Airline Railway decide to partially retire the station
as larger more prosperous stations in Lake City and Baldwin
were more easily accessible to Olustee by road.
1971 the station was officially retire from active service
and was relocated to a private citizens farm.
In 1994 Olustee Depot was donated to the U.S. Forest Service.
The Following year it was moved to its present location
only about 100 yards from where it stood for over 150 years
in the town of Olustee, Florida.