Commendencia Street Wharf

Commendencia Street Wharf at left. Tarragona Street Wharf visible at right.

The Commendencia Street Wharf was a major shipping depot located at the southern terminus of Commendencia Street, south of Main Street and just west of the Tarragona Street Wharf.

The length of the wharf, from the north end of the slip to the extreme south end of the structure, was 2,065 feet.

The Commendencia wharf was the site of a massive warehouse owned by the L&N Railroad. The largest of its kind in the South, it was 50 feet wide by 1202 feet long and two stories high, with a capacity of 500 freight carloads. Three sets of railroad tracks ran into the first floor, and another two with inclined trestles ran to the second floor.

Pensacola Harbor and Its Advantages, published by the L&N Railroad in 1901, details the warehouse and its railroad tracks:

Five tracks run alongside of this warehouse, three on the lower floor and two on the upper floor. The tracks are so located that goods can be unloaded from cars direct into vessels alongside the wharf or into the warehouses. Likewise, cargoes can be unloaded from vessels direct into cars or into the storage warehouse. The two tracks of the upper story are reached by incline approaches 408 feet long. The north end of the wharf is taken up by nine tracks aggregating 10,000 feet in length, including approaches to the warehouse. The total length of railroad track on this structure is 18,490 feet. Both floors of the warehouse are designed to carry 600 pounds of freight per square foot of floor. There are 400 doors in this warehouse, each eight feet in width, all of which are hung on special metal ribbons running over pulleys, so as to be easily opened and shut.

The roof of the L&N warehouse was ripped away in the 1916 hurricane season.

Other images

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  Commendencia Street Wharf at left

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  Commendencia Street Wharf at right

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  Interior of Commendencia Street Wharf

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  L&N plan of Commendencia Street and Tarragona Street Wharves