“In these enterprises it was the purpose of Mr. Plant and his associates to extend and add to the various properties, and they believed this could best be accomplished under a single organization with ample powers. With this object in view, several of his associates being residents of Connecticut, the birth-place of Mr. Plant, a charter was obtained in 1882 from the legislature of that State, and the Plant Investment Company organized. Mr. Plant became president, and remained such to the present time. Among his associates were W. T. Walters and B. F. Newcomer, of Baltimore; E. B. Haskell, of Boston; Henry M. Flagler and Morris K. Jessup, of New York, and Lorenzo Blackstone, Henry Sanford, Lynde Harrison, H. P. Hoadley, and G. H. Tilley, of Connecticut. Since the formation of the Plant Investment Company, several properties have been acquired by purchase. In 1885, they bought the South Florida Railroad, at the time running only between Sanford and Kissimmee, which was changed from narrow to broad gauge, with an extension of the line to Port Tampa, Florida, which is the port of entry for the West India fast mail steamers (Plant Steamship Line) between Port Tampa and Havana, Cuba. Subsequently the line was extended north from Lakeland to a connection with the Savannah, Florida, and Western Railway (Gainsville division) at High Springs, thus completing the line from Charleston, South Carolina, to Port Tampa, Florida. Thereafter the company acquired, in 1887, the Brunswick and Western Railroad, between Brunswick and Albany, Georgia, via. Waycross, which road was rebuilt; in 1889, the Alabama Midland Railway, from Montgomery, Alabama, to Bainbridge, Georgia; and in 1892, the Silver Springs, Ocala, and Gulf Railroad, extending from Ocala to Homosassa and Inverness, Florida. In 1893, the Tampa and Thonotosassa Railroad was constructed, from Tampa to Thonotosassa, and the Winston and Bone Valley Railroad was purchased to accommodate the people of the phosphate mining districts. In 1894, the Abbeville Southern Railway, from Abbeville, Alabama, to a junction of the line of the Alabama Midland Railway, was built. The system has been extended in 1895 by the purchase of the Florida Southern Railway and the Sanford and St. Petersburg Railroad, both narrow gauge roads, and preparations are now being made to change them to standard gauge.