In an announcement made yesterday it was revealed that former "Six Gun Territory" amusement parks Crown built 4-4-0 "Robert E. Lee" will be moving from the Jefferson Historic Railroad in Jefferson, TX to Kirby Family Farm in Williston, FL.

The Lee will be rejoining its sister Six Gun locomotive "General Huston" which was saved by the Kirby's from the Atlanta Underground shopping complex when that engine became excess to their needs. Due to the Huston's condition it will become a display piece next to the original Six Gun depot building which was also saved by the Kirby's and currently finishing up its restoration.

The Lee however, will become the Kirby Farm Railroads first operating steam engine and is expected to begin operating their late this year.

Wow, that's great news!
I'd love to get down there to see what they have going on there.
I was lucky enough to spend a weekend at Six Gun a couple of seasons before they went under for good. They had a civil war re-enactment weekend (I grew up crewing a 6-pounder field gun Dad made) and it was the second cheesiest event we ever took part in (I was about 12 or so at the time I think). But it was fun, and I rode the train back and forth a few times from the station. The park itself was pretty well-done, which surprised us all. The rural nature of the place and the competition from the other bigger parks, I guess, is what killed it.
But even as a little kid, I could tell these were modern-ish locomotives. They had two real small steam engines on display as well, one at the depot and one by the station building at the western town. I have a couple of 110 photos of the Crown engines but didn't think to take any of the display locomotives.

So is the Jefferson Railroad in danger of closing? Or will it remain solely diesel powered? I know they have had financial issues in recent years.

There's a laundry list of "wild west" theme parks that all died off in the 1980's. I think their demise stems more from the fading popularity of film and tv westerns with the genre being all but dead. Though Six Gun itself probably could have hung on longer than the others but is only one casualty of literal hundreds of smaller tourist operations in Florida that have died under the feet of the mouse.

The Baldwin 2-4-2 which was under the parks sign in the parking lot is currently under restoration in Savannah, GA. The small 2-6-0 inside the park was actually a rare Glover Works engine and is now in private hands in Ohio.



The Jefferson Railroad will continue operation with their diesel.

If you ever drive down 27 into the center of the state, you'll see what I referred to even as a kid as a "Highway of broken dreams," a tourist axis of advance that went into decay and a slow death by the building of I-10 and I-75 to carry people into the heart of Florida much faster. So many 60s tourist traps were nothing but cracked and weed-covered pavement even into the 80s. It was so sad to see and I think seeing all that made me appreciate all that has come and gone even more.
I wondered what happened to them. I only saw the 2-4-2 as we drove into and out of the place the one time we were there (in our van, pulling the trailer with Dad's 6-pounder field gun). My brother and a friend of ours our age came with us riding the train down to the entrance just once. The train sat and sat at the entrance of the park so long, my brother gave up and walked all the way back. I don't recall the train went all that fast, and I didn't want to leave the train to check out the stuffed and mounted engine for fear of being left behind.
I did climb around the Glover that weekend, but I didn't take any photos, darn it.
I don't think we have many photos of that weekend to speak of. I think I have a shot of one of the Crowns at the depot building, but I don't know where I'd look for them.
I did find some shots on the FL state archives page, though:







More overall shots of this place can be found here:
https://www.floridamemory.com/solr-search/results/?q=%28%22Six%20Gun%20Territory%20%5C%28Ocala%2C%20Fla.%5C%29%22%20OR%20tt%3A%22Six%20Gun%20Territory%20%5C%28Ocala%2C%20Fla.%5C%29%22%5E10%29%20AND%20collection%3A%22Florida%20Photographic%20Collection%22&searchbox=1&query=%22Six%20Gun%20Territory%20%28Ocala%2C%20Fla.%29%22&year=&gallery=0&search-type=