William Dudley Chipley
(1840-1897)

Died aged c. 57

William Dudley Chipley was born in Columbus, Georgia, June 6, 1840. He was an ex-Confederate officer who financed the building of the Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad between 1881and 1883. Chipley’s railroad became affiliated with the Louisville and Nashville system, which opened the Pensacola area to trade from the east. He served as Pensacola commissioner, councilman and mayor, state senator (1895; 1897) and narrowly lost election to the U.S. Senate. W. D. Chipley died December 1, 1897.

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William Dudley Chipley (June 6, 1840 – December 1, 1897) was an American railroad executive and politician who was instrumental in the building of the Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad and was a tireless promoter of Pensacola, his adopted city, where he was elected to one term as mayor, and later to a term as Florida state senator. Following the American Civil War, in 1868 Chipley was one of twenty men arrested in his hometown of Columbus, Georgia, in 1868 on suspicion of participation in the murder of Radical Republican judge George W. Ashburn by the Ku Klux Klan. Political maneuvers resulted in the dropping of all charges. In 1877, Chipley helped Texas Rangers and Florida law officers subdue and arrest outlaw John Wesley Hardin aboard a train in Pensacola. Hardin was subsequently returned to Texas, convicted on outstanding murder charges, and imprisoned.

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