When Scott Black tools around the community of Trilby in his white pickup truck, the place becomes alive for him with the people and businesses from its past.
As he drives along the community’s roads, he’ll point out where the old railroad depot stood, the bank, the store, the hotel and other local landmarks.
(B.C. Manion/Staff Photo)
He also notes the community’s segregated cemeteries — a vestige of the past, and he talks fondly about people who once lived in Trilby and made their final resting place there.
The Dade City commissioner understands that, for those unfamiliar with Trilby or its history, it takes a bit of an imagination to see the place the way he does.
But for him, preserving Trilby’s story, is important.
Black is a native of the community, and his father was born there, too.
He knows the pivotal role that the railroad played in shaping the community’s history.
The people who made their way to this settlement, north of Dade City, and who chose to make their life there, fascinate him.
He finds romance in the sounds of trains rumbling by.
“I did grow up in Trilby, so trains were very much a part of our life. I can remember lying in bed at night and watching the strobe light of the engine, from across the pasture, on the ceiling and listening to the trains,” Black told members of the Pasco County Historical Society in March.
He recalls a time when he was riding with his dad, and his dad had to stop for a train. His dad wasn’t perturbed. “He rolled down the window and said, ‘Isn’t that a wonderful sound?’”
Black said his interest in Trilby’s history dates back to when he was in middle school, and he won an essay contest sponsored by the West Pasco Historical Society.
As he gathered information for his essay, he went around the community, recording interviews with some of its oldest residents.
Black recalls how his mother stayed up with him until midnight, as he made the final touches on his entry.
The interest in community history that was piqued in his youth, lives on.
(Courtesy of Scott Black)
He also recalls being inspired by an article he read about a reunion of descendants of family members who had lived in New Salem, Illinois, where Abraham Lincoln had owned a store.
He thought it would be fun to do the same thing in Trilby.
So, he began looking for old families with ties to Trilby, and he found quite a few. Then, 11 years ago, the community began having its annual Trilby homecoming that’s held on the third Saturday of March every year.
There was a time when the community was a bustling place, at the crossroads of railroad lines. It had depot buildings, hotels, restaurants, boarding houses, a bank, stores and other businesses.
“As you come into Trilby, there’s not much left anymore, and not too many that remember, either,” Black said.
But, he’s taken on the task of being the memory keeper of the place that was, and the people who once lived there.
Named after a novel?
Railroads played an enormous role in shaping the community’s life, he said.
Peter Demens, who built the Orange Belt Railroad, didn’t initially intend to build his railroad all of the way to St. Petersburg, but he did.
“So, along the path of his railroad was the community of Macon, and that forever more changed what we now know as Trilby,” he said.
“Someone else who came along and changed Trilby was Henry B. Plant. His north-south railroad that came through intersected with Peter Demens’ Orange Belt Railroad. That made Trilby very important as an intersection, in fact, any train that went to St. Petersburg, it went through Trilby. People would make that connection there.
“It helped the commerce at Trilby — restaurants and everything else, of the rail passengers going south.
“Henry B. Plant was a key part of Trilby’s success,” Black added.
It is said that Trilby’s name was suggested by Plant’s wife, Margaret, who asked him to name the next town he platted after a popular novel of the day, “Trilby,” written by George du Maurier.
When Plant platted Trilby, in June 1896, he named the streets after characters in the novel. The depot was built around Svengali Square.
Black said he’s not aware of any those streets ever being built.
Over the years, Black has tracked the history of Trilby and its inhabitants through newspaper accounts, public records, grave stones, census records, photographs, post cards, interviews and artifacts.
“When I was a child growing up, my pastor out in Trilby, we’d plant a garden out there, and we’d plow things. There’s a pond that’s there, and it would recede and things would surface from the old town site,” Black said.
He estimates that Trilby’s population today is around 600 and was probably around the same as its peak.
Black acknowledges that his fascination for Trilby borders on obsession.
“Sometimes my wife wonders a little bit,” he admitted.
But, he feels a sense of urgency to collect as much information as he can, so that the history is not lost to the ages.
“I let so many people slip past me,” Black said.
Published August 31, 2016
