I used to spend a considerable amount of time in Levy County tracking down old sidings and rail grades. I’m mostly glad that I took plenty of pictures of Otter Creek before all the unique old/overgrown buildings started to be torn down.
Good for you.
Here are some things I do know though;
When you're driving north along US 19-98 between Lebanon Station and just south of Chiefland, you can see the right-of-way for the old ACL line that used to run between Dunnellon and Thomasville, Georgia.
A
historic aerials shot of Lebanon Station shows road construction northwest of the termini of FL 121 and what is today Levy CR 336 as far back as the late-1950's. Beyond that. it's a black space, so there's no way of knowing how long it took for the predecessors of the FDOT to finish widening the road, or how long of a segment of it they were working on at the time.
Georgia-Pacific donated the land for the
wayside park in 1969. If US 19-98 wasn't finished being widened by then, why did it take so long and did GP do it as part of an attempt to enhance the road? And it if was finished before then, why did GP wait until that time to donate the land?
Both Gulf Hammock and Otter Creek still have post offices, despite being ghost towns. Lebanon Station doesn't, and even Usher doesn't. The only thing Usher has is a Florida State Forest ranger station and tower.
That Perry gas station is about 40 miles SE of here down US 27.
It's actually a little
further south than that.