A thirteen-mile stretch of track between Abbeville and Bowens Mill was opened in 1890 and in 1891 was extended to Lulaville.
In 1896, entrepreneur John Skelton Williams bought the Abbeville and Waycross Railroad and extended it nine miles from Fitzgerald, Georgia to Ocilla, Georgia.
In January 1899, John Skelton Williams's syndicate offered to purchase a majority of shares in railroads along the east coast of the United States that would become the Seaboard Air Line Railroad.
By 1900, the Georgia and Alabama Railway formally became part of the Seaboard Air Line.
The Abbeville and Waycross Railroad became the Seaboard Air Line's Ocilla Subdivision.