Waycross & Southern Railroad In 1910, the Hebard Cypress Company
opened a 10-mile logging line from its new lumber mill at
Hebardville, two miles northeast of Waycross, to Fredel, a point
in the woods near Black River. Within two or three years the
line had been extended another 10 miles to Hopkins, on the edge
of the Okefenokee Swamp, and had become a 20-mile common carrier
line officially named the Waycross and Southern Railroad, with
the nickname The Okefinokee Route. From Hopkins, the rails
continued into the swamp as a tramroad running to (in order)
Cravens Hammock, Mixons Hammock, The Pocket (now Stephen Foster
State Park), Billys Island (at the height of the logging
operations in the swamp some 600 people lived on Billys Island),
and Floyds Island. Additional tram lines branched off this
central spine. The owners of the W&S had ambitious plans for
their railroad, intending to build not only a branch to Fargo,
but also to go on to Jacksonville, Florida, some 75 miles south.
But the Waycross and Southern