Information from Wikipedia
In 1528 the first Spanish expedition of Panfilo de Narvaez passed through the area on its way from Tampa Bay to the Rio Grande. From the late 17th century through early 18th century a few passages referring to the area are mentioned. George Island served as points to stage raids on local ports as well as San Marcos de Apalache in 1677 and 1682. In 1876 explorer Nathani
el Holmes Bishop of Medford, Massachusetts navigated the Crooked River through the lowlands to the Ochlockonee River. In 1877 Oliver Hudson Kelly, from Massachusetts founded the town and named it Rio Carrabelle. The following year the first U.S. Post office was established with its address as Rio Carrabelle. By 1881 the population was between 500 and 600 people. In 1891 The Carrabelle, Tallahassee and Georgia Railroad was established to connect Carrabelle northward through Tallahassee to the Florida-Georgia line.[5]
On August 1, 1899, the 2nd hurricane of the season struck the area almost destroying the town leaving just nine homes.[6]
On August 23, 2008, Tropical Storm Fay made its record fourth landfall in the state of Florida at Carrabelle. Carrabelle is the home of the "World's Smallest Police Station".[7]
The "World's Smallest Police Station" came into being on March 10, 1963. The city had been having problems with tourists making unauthorized long distance phone calls on its police phone. The phone was located in a call box that was bolted to a building at the corner of U.S. 98 and Tallahassee Street. Joe Telephone's lone Carrabelle employee at the time, first tried moving the call box to another building, but the illegal calls continued. Mirabella noticed that the policeman would get drenched while answering phone calls when it was raining. So when the telephone company decided to replace its worn out phone booth in front of Burda's Pharmacy with a new one, he decided to solve both problems at once by putting the police phone in the old booth. With the help of Curly Messer, who was a deputy sheriff at the time, Mirabella moved the phone booth to its current site on U.S. 98. The booth did protect the officers from the elements, but some people still snuck into it to make long distance calls. Eventually the dial was removed from the phone, making it impossible for tourists to make calls. It has been featured on television shows "Real People", "Ripley's Believe It or Not", "The Today Show", "Johnny Carson". It was featured in the movie "Tate's Hell" which was produced at Florida State University. Along with police station T-shirts - the design is copyrighted - there are police station hats, visors, postcards, and calendars. But life has not always been easy for the retired St. Joseph Telephone and Telegraph Company phone booth. Vandals have ripped phones out of the booth and shot holes through the glass. It has been knocked over by a pickup truck, a tourist once asked a gas station attendant to help him load it into his vehicle to take it back to Tennessee and it was knocked over and damaged by Hurricane Kate.[8]
Carrabelle has a local history museum which is located in the Marvin Justiss building also known as "Old City Hall" and is open on Friday and Saturday from 10 am to 4 pm for visitors interested in learning about the local history of Carrabelle.
