APALACHICOLA

city, seat (1832) of Franklin county, northwestern Florida, U.S., on the Apalachicola Bay (bridged) at the mouth of Apalachicola River, on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, 65 mi (105 km) southwest of Tallahassee. Founded about 1820 as West Point (renamed Apalachicola, Hitchiti Indian for people on the other side, in 1831), it was an important cotton shipping port from 1830 until the U.S. Civil War blockade ended this activity. In the 1840s John W. Gorrie of Apalachicola invented a refrigerant apparatus to cool the rooms of yellow-fever patients (commemorated by a state historic memorial). An important fishing (oysters, shrimp) centre, the city also exports lumber and naval stores and has fish canneries. Old Trinity Church (1839), a notable landmark with Ionic columns, was shipped in wooden sections from New York. Nearby are St. George Island (bridged) and Apalachicola National Forest. Inc. town, 1827; city, 1838. Pop. (1990) 2,602.