“PORT ST. JOE — When the paper mill closed in 1998, this Panhandle city had a collective heart attack.

The town’s largest employer by far, the closing eliminated more than 800 jobs. Its impact spread farther: The paper mill was the largest property taxpayer, the largest user of natural gas, the largest electric utility customer. [Read more...]

Children grow up, graduate high school, attend college and leave home for good because there are no opportunities to make a living.

Charlotte Faircloth knows all about that. The 21-year-old Port St. Joe resident knows many friends who don’t want to leave, but feel they have no choice.

So count Faircloth as a big supporter of the Port of Port St. Joe. [Read more...]

CRYSTAL RIVER — The idea seemed like something shot out of a cannon — a proposal so lofty that it left some in the audience stunned by its breadth.

“This was really a knock-your-socks-off presentation,” Theodora Rusnak, president of the Citrus County Council, said at the time. [Read more...]

“CRYSTAL RIVER — John Siefert wishes he never heard of a trans-sea lifter.

Siefert, executive director of the Citrus County Economic Development Council, thinks Port Citrus is a great idea with huge potential.

But the port has been a hard sell with the public because the county [Read more...]

“It may seem new but it’s not.

The year was 1965, and work had begun to connect the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of the state to the Gulf of Mexico on the west coast via a barge canal. [Read more...]

“Citrus County was a different place when the first port feasibility study was issued in 1969.

For one thing, the population was only 17,000. But if the first study brought forth a plan that had been followed, what would Citrus County look like today? [Read more...]

“The St. Johns River, the longest river in Florida at 310 miles, never got connected to the Gulf of Mexico.

Had the Cross Florida Barge Canal project been completed rather than abandoned in 1971, St. Johns River traffic possibly would be floating out through Inglis today. [Read more...]