AAF Construction finds lost FEC station

[spuwho]

Everyday when I drive by the Overland Bridge project, I always wonder if they will find left over ties or rail from the old FEC Mayport Branch. None found yet, but down in South Florida, they stumbled on something else.

Per the Palm Beach Post:

http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/news/local/digging-at-train-tracks-leads-to-historic-discover/nrJMb/

Digging at train tracks leads to historic discovery in Lantana

LANTANA — While preparing the tracks in Lantana for All Aboard Florida's Brightline trains, crews happened to dig up brick pillars that local historians say are from the town's Florida East Coast Railway station destroyed in the 1928 hurricane.
The bricks were spotted on the ground at Federal Highway and Ocean Avenue just east of the post office by Ginger Pedersen, who works with the Boynton Beach Historical Society.

"I glanced over at the right side of the road and I see the pile of brick pillars there," Pedersen told The Palm Beach Post. "It just flashed in my mind and I said 'I know what those are.'"

Since then, Pedersen and Janet DeVries, a member of the town's historical society and also works with Boynton's, have been on a journey finding pictures of the original station, comparing the bricks in the pictures to what was found, trying to determine when the station opened, and wondering what should be done with the artifacts.

The women have determined the bricks are from the loading platform.



For now, the historic pieces are with the town.

Councilman Tom Deringer requested the town obtain them, said Town Manager Deborah Manzo. But there are no plans on what to do with them.

Pedersen is looking toward a location about 45 minutes north of Lantana. In 2012, crews moved a historic FEC depot from Tequesta back to its original location of Jupiter. The depot, built in 1915, closed in 1965. Pedersen said the Lantana bricks would give the Jupiter station have a more "authentic" look after the remodeling.

There's also talk of applying for a State of Florida Heritage Site Marker at the location, DeVries said.

Finding the bricks disproves the myth the building was where The Station House restaurant is, north of where the bricks were found, and was used to build the eatery.

That's significant for researchers and historians, DeVries said.




Actually, Pedersen said, these bricks are the only remnants of the station.

They aren't as sure about when it was built. They've been told 1925, but they've found newspaper articles about the station dating back to 1916. Pedersen plans to visit an FEC historian who believes the station was built in the 1900s, she said.

The train depot was also a freight station where oysters, fish and crops such as pineapples and tomatoes were loaded.

After the hurricane destroyed it, crews probably just buried the leftover bricks, Pedersen said.

"Some people might not think of this as an exciting discovery, but to historians, preservationists, and archaeologists, it is discovering and documenting long-forgotten, buried relics of the railroad and station that brought travelers and mail communication to the tiny east coast communities," DeVries said.