Built for Speed!

Crestview was largely an outgrowth of the coming of railroad service to the west Panhandle of Florida. The Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad Company, chartered in 1881, opened its line between Pensacola and Chattahoochee in January 1883. Soon two express passenger trains, the Atlantic Express and the Gulf Express, and a local accommodation train that stopped everywhere, were in daily operation. The expresses took about six hours to make the run, the local, thirteen hours. When the railroad company was unable to cover the interest owed bondholders, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad covered the shortfalls until 1885, and then foreclosed, merging the route into their system as the L & N's Pensacola and Atlantic Division.