The station is one of the oldest railroad buildings in Florida and is one of only three surviving railroad depots in the state built prior to the start of the American Civil War. It was originally built in 1858 by the Pensacola and Georgia Railroad, which provided freight and passenger service east to Lake City, west to Quincy, and north to Georgia via the railroad's Live Oak branch. In 1869, during Reconstruction, the newly formed Jacksonville, Pensacola and Mobile Railroad took over freight and passenger service to the depot and extended service further west to Chattahoochee, where the Louisville and Nashville Railroad eventually provided connecting service to Pensacola. In 1882, Sir Edward Reed purchased the JP&M as well as the Lake City to Jacksonville Florida Central Railroad, both of which he combined into the Florida Central and Western Railroad. Two years later, Reed merged the Florida Central and Western into the Florida Railway and Navigation Company, which added a second story to the depot in 1885. The Florida Railway and Navigation Company reorganized as the Florida Central and Peninsular Railroad in 1888. In 1900, a year after purchasing the majority of FC&P stock, the newly organized Seaboard Air Line Railway leased the FC&P and, in 1903, acquired it outright. In 1905, the Seaboard built a new passenger station across the street and east of the depot. This station remained the site of passenger service to Tallahassee until 1971 when, for the first time in 113 years, passenger service to Tallahassee ceased when Amtrak took over nationwide passenger rail service and discontinued the Gulf Wind, the New Orleans to Jacksonville train that had been serving the station at the time. Passenger service to Tallahassee resumed in 1993 when Amtrak extended its Sunset Limited service east to Jacksonville from its former terminus in New Orleans. The 1905 passenger station had since been converted to use for the freight-related operations of CSX, the successor to Seaboard, and Amtrak began using the old depot as its Tallahassee passenger station. However, passenger service was suspended in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina caused significant damage to tracks west of Mobile, Alabama. Although the tracks were repaired in 2006, since then managerial and political obstacles have thus far precluded restoration of passenger service to the depot. However, in 2016 Amtrak said the "Sunset Limited" has been proposed to return in the near future. It nevertheless remains actively signed as an Amtrak station. On December 30, 1997, the depot was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
