History of Archer
Archer's development was linked to railroad expansion an Florida. David Levy Yulee, Florida's first senator after the state's admission to the Union in 1845, was granted a charter in 1855 by the Florida legislature to build a railroad from Fernandina to Cedar Key. In about 1858 the tracks were completed to Darden's Hammock (originally an Indian settlement called Deer Hammock) near present-day Archer. A post office was established in 1859. The town is named after Florida's first Secretary of State, James T. Archer, a friend of Yulee and advocate of internal improvements. Archer prospered after railroads damaged during the Civil War were repaired; and, the town influenced the presidential race of 1876 when local election results were challenged and then declared by Congres-sional committee to be in favor of Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. Railroads transported the citrus crops of Quaker settlers, who came to Archer from Ohio and Indiana in the late 1870s and 1880s, until the freezes of 1885/86, 1894/95 and 1899 devastated the orange groves. The last train passed through Archer in 1968, but pride remains in the town's rich historical past.