Railroad Depot at Mt. Pleasant in Gadsden County, Florida
Mt. Pleasant first became a rail stop in 1872 when the Jacksonville-
Pensacola & Mobile Railroad extended their rail line from Quincy to
Chattahoochee. A train schedule
published in 1881 lists arrival and departure times for Mt. Pleasant every day
except Sunday.
Painting by John Raymond Bevis about 1916. Ray Bevis was born in Mt. Pleasant in 1899,
youngest child of Charles Franklin Bevis and Frances (Creswell) Bevis. The home he grew up in was just down the lane
from the Seaboard Railroad Depot. Ray’s father, Charlie Bevis, owned a general store and watch repair shop just a few hundred yards from the depot. The post office was across the street from the depot, inside another general store owned by Daniel Grubb. From
young adulthood Ray painted, primarily
local scenes in watercolor and oil. He
married Nina India Thomas in 1919. Ray was employed by the
Quincy State Bank as a young man and later worked as a merchant in Quincy. Painting remained a hobby he enjoyed
throughout his life. He died in 1953.
Mt. Pleasant was a small but thriving rural community at the turn of the 20th century. The train brought the mail twice a day, and provided shipping service for produce and other items to and from the two general stores. This photograph is believed to have been taken in 1915.
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