The Greatest Railroad Story Ever Told: Henry Flagler & the Florida East Coast Railway's Key West Extension

by Seth H. Bramson

Overview

All aboard for the history of one of the most audacious and innovative railroad engineering feats in history from the celebrated Floridian author.
 
Although several people had considered constructing a railroad to Key West beginning in the early 1800s, it took a bold industrialist with unparalleled vision to make it happen. In 1902, Henry Flagler made the decision to extend the Florida East Coast Railway to “the nearest deepwater American port.” In this book, renowned Florida historian Seth H. Bramson reveals how the Key West Extension of the Flagler-owned FEC became the greatest railroad engineering and construction feat in United States, and possibly world, history, an accomplishment that would cement Flagler’s fame and legend for all time. Join Bramson as he recounts the years of operation of this great railroad, what it did for the Florida Keys and what it meant to the resident conchs.
 
Includes photos

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781625844538
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	01/23/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	163
Sales rank:	181,607
File size:	10 MB

About the Author

Seth Bramson is Miami's foremost local historian. He is America's single most-published Florida history book author, with sixteen of his twenty-two books dealing directly with the villages, towns, cities, counties, people and businesses of the South Florida Gold Coast. Bob Jensen retired in Homestead as a Navy Commander after serving 28 years. He served in Germany, the Philippines, the US Embassy in Cyprus, Iceland, and twice at the National Security Agency and at Naval Security Group Headquarters in Washington D.C.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

In The Beginning

While this book is not meant to be a biography of Henry Morrison Flagler, an overview for the purpose of gaining an understanding of who he was and why he did what he did is certainly in order. Hence, a brief retrospective of a man whose legacy is that of the single greatest person in the history of the Sunshine State is, at this juncture, quite apropos.

In effect, the story is similar to a biblical parable, for Henry Flagler looked at Florida shortly after his arrival and said, "This is good." And then he said, "Let there be hotels," and lo, there were hotels. And then he said, "Let there be railroads," and lo, there were railroads. And then he said, "Let there be land companies, and cities, and newspapers, and water and gas and electric companies, and paved streets and bridges," and lo, there were all of those things. Henry Flagler looked at what he had done in Florida and said, "This is good," and if one were to encapsulate the work of Mr. Flagler, that is it. But without fleshing out the story, there might be a lack of understanding as to the "why" and the "how," and that is the purpose of this chapter, for, simply put, Henry Flagler never "rested." Instead, he simply moved from great project to great project and, in the course of that work and those projects, became nothing less than a true legend in Florida's history.

Regretfully, no small amount of what has been written on and about Flagler is either completely wrong, riddled with errors or sadly and woefully inadequate or misstated. The single best source for information on his life remains the first biography of him ever written, by Sidney Walter Martin, originally published in 1952 by the University of Georgia Press and titled Florida's Flagler. Subsequent biographies offered little new information, likely, to no small extent, because the authors were either unaware of or chose not to avail themselves of the railway company's archives, located in Miami. Those archives contain an immense amount of unpublished material on and about Mr. Flagler and his and the Flagler System's great works. For the first time, in this book, those archives will be fully taken advantage of. That being stated, Dr. Martin's book remains the preeminent source for previously published biographical material on Flagler.

Henry Flagler was born on January 2, 1830, in the little village of Hopewell, in upstate New York, to Elizabeth and Isaac Flagler. Both Elizabeth and Isaac had been married twice before, and Henry had a half- sister (his father's daughter from a previous marriage) named Ann-Caroline, or "Carrie," and a half-brother, Dan Harkness (his mother's son from her second marriage, to David Harkness, who died in 1825).

The Harkness family was from Ohio, and although Dan lived with his mother and stepfather, he, being eight years older than Henry, left New York in 1837 to return to Ohio to work in the retail businesses his late father had founded. Fortunately, even with the age difference, Dan and Henry developed a great fondness for each other.

Henry's father was an itinerant Presbyterian minister and moved frequently from one impoverished congregation to another, but once Dan had left New York to return to Ohio, Henry, anxious to remove himself from what, to him, was a burdensome and always penurious existence, made up his mind that, at some point, he would follow in Dan's footsteps.

According to several Internet sources, Flagler's parents separated in 1838, but there is no mention of that occurrence in Martin's book, and indeed, upon Henry's departure from the family home in New York in 1844 to join Dan in Ohio, Martin notes that "he gave his parents a fond farewell then turned slowly and started down the little path leading from the house." This seems to indicate that, if his parents had, at some point, separated, they were, by the time of Henry's setting out in the world for himself, back together.

After an arduous journey by foot, buckboard, canal boat and lake steamer, Henry arrived in Republic, Ohio, where he was met by Dan and put to work at a general store owned by Dan's uncle. As difficult as it is to believe today, the young Flagler was paid $5 a month, plus room and board. Dan managed the store for his uncle, and Henry worked exceedingly hard for his half-brother. Sparing the reader the excruciating details, Henry would eventually be moved to the Harkness family–owned store in Bellevue, Ohio, making, at that point, close to $400 a year, a sizeable increase from his starting wage of $5 per month!

In 1853, at the age of twenty-three, Henry married Mary Harkness, with whom he had fallen in love while working for the Harkness family. They had three children, but both of their daughters died — Carrie at the age of three in 1861 (she was the younger daughter), and Jenny Louise at age thirty-four in 1889 following the death of her newborn daughter. In his great sorrow, Henry would build what is known today as the Flagler Memorial Church in St. Augustine, and both he and Jenny Louise are entombed there. In 1870, Mary and Henry's son, Harry Harkness Flagler, was born, and although he was close to his father, the elder Flagler's marriage to Mary Lily Kenan on August 24, 1901, created a schism between father and son that would never fully heal.

There is, of course, so much more to the early Flagler story, but, as noted, this is not intended to be another biography. However, the meeting of Flagler and one John Davison Rockefeller, occasioned by their working together in the grain and salt businesses, must be noted, for they, along with Samuel Andrews, would, in 1867, form the partnership firm of Rockefeller, Andrews and Flagler. Rockefeller, in his Random Reminiscences, would later write that his "relationship with Henry Flagler was a business founded on friendship, not a friendship founded on business." In 1869, the decision was made to incorporate, and with that decision, the name of the firm was changed to Standard Oil Company.

In February 1910, Edwin LeFevre interviewed Mr. Rockefeller for Everybody's Magazine, and one of the most revealing questions in the interview came when LeFevre asked Rockefeller if Standard Oil was his idea. In his usual straightforward manner, Rockefeller replied, "No sir, I wish I had the brains to think of it. It [Standard Oil] came about because of Henry M. Flagler." Many times throughout his life, Rockefeller would state, honestly and candidly, that "the key to our success was Henry Flagler." He also noted, according to William H. Allen's Rockefeller: Giant, Dwarf, Symbol, that it was Flagler's imagination and ingenuity that were responsible for the continued growth of the business.

Contrary to what has appeared on computer websites, Mr. Flagler's first visit to Florida was during the winter of 1878, not later. The trip to Jacksonville, which formerly had been known as Cow Ford, was an attempt to alleviate the ill health of his wife. While she improved in the warm Florida climate, the return to Cleveland and her discomfort and suffering throughout the following winter did nothing to help. In very early 1881, with Mary frailer then ever, Henry returned to Florida, this time to Orange Park. Although experiencing a slight improvement, Mary's body, without proper care or antibiotics, could not fight the ravages of "consumption" (which, at the time, was how any illness of the chest or lungs was known), and she died, much to Henry's sorrow, on May 18, 1881.

Mary's nurse, for much of the duration of her illness, was Ida Alice Shourds. Shourds had been a kind and loving companion for Mary, and at the time of Mary's death, Ida Alice was only thirty-five. Her caring and attention to Mary had greatly impressed the bereaved Henry. Following an appropriate period of mourning, he began to see Alice socially, and he found her captivating to the point that he asked for her hand in marriage. With Ida Alice's assent, the couple was married on June 5, 1883, in New York City, and in December they left for a belated honeymoon in Florida. Staying for a short time in Jacksonville, they boarded a St. Johns River steamer, which took them to Tocoi Landing, where they disembarked and took the St. Johns Railway from that point into St. Augustine. It was that trip that irrevocably altered the future of Florida.

Fortunately for Florida — and for America — it was Flagler's imagination and ingenuity that caused him to make the decision to move to St. Augustine with Ida Alice following the 1883 visit, and it was that decision that changed the future and fate of the Sunshine State forever.

The remainder of the early years of the story — the building and buying of hotels in St. Augustine; the purchase of Flagler's first railroad (the rickety little narrow-gauge Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Halifax River Railway, purchased originally for the purpose of upgrading it so that goods and materiel destined for the then under construction hotels could and would reach St. Augustine in a timely manner); the extension to Ormond and the purchase of the Ormond Hotel; the building and buying of more railroads; the extensions to Daytona, West Palm Beach, Palm Beach and Miami; the building and buying of additional hotels; the founding of now great and world-renowned cities; the divorce from Ida Alice and the marriage to Mary Lily — are and have been the subjects of numerous books, booklets and articles. Hence, and again, it is not necessary to further detail those well- known facts.

Flagler's greatest single challenge, however, the one feat that would set his name apart from and above all others in Florida history and would enshrine the name of the Florida East Coast Railway in the great halls of American history, still lay several years in the future. When the time came, though, the only person in America capable of facing the task, fully cognizant of the obstacles and hardships that would have to be overcome in order to bring the Eighth Wonder of the World into existence, was none other than Henry Morrison Flagler.

CHAPTER 2

"We Must Have a Railroad"

Key West achieved its early fame and fortune due to several fortuitous happenstances, and just as the previous chapter was not a biography of Mr. Flagler but rather an overview of his pre-1903 life, this chapter, in regard to Key West, will serve a similar purpose. This is not a history of Key West, but in order to understand how and why the Florida East Coast Railway was extended to the island city one must recognize the unusual circumstances that brought about that herculean feat.

In 1822, following the confirmation of the treaty by which Spain formally turned over Florida to the United States in 1821, Lieutenant Matthew C. Perry (later gaining fame as Commodore Perry) planted the U.S. flag on Key West, claiming the island and the entire chain of keys for the United States. Whether or not that symbolic gesture was needed or necessary is a matter of conjecture.

Two years later, at the request of Lieutenant Perry, Commodore David Porter, with approval by Congress, established and commanded a squadron of fast sailing ships charged with ridding the West Indies of pirates. Following this, he established a naval depot at Key West and made it his base of operations, thereby instituting the first permanent U.S. military facility in the Keys. In 1831, the army built a post on the island, which became home to two companies of infantry.

First incorporated in 1828 as a city and then reincorporated as a town, the island would see its first newspaper published in 1829: the Register, the first newspaper south of St. Augustine. Several newspapers would come and go, but by 1831, the closure of the Inquirer left the town without a newspaper until 1845, the year of Florida's acceptance into the union. During that year, the army began the construction of Fort Taylor, but hurricanes destroyed the completed post. Rebuilding began almost immediately, and in 1861, the not-yet-completed fort was occupied by the army.

One of the town's earliest occupations was that of wrecking and salvaging — the saving of passengers, crew and goods from ships that had wrecked on the reefs close to the various islands. Also important to Key West in terms of revenue-producing industries were sponging, turtling, salt production and, later on, cigar manufacturing.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, the United States moved quickly to secure Key West so that it would not fall into Confederate hands, and while a series of military commanders maintained order in the Keys, the major event of the war (as far as Key West was concerned) was the appointment of Judge William Marvin as federal provost marshal of the Keys. Judge Marvin, who was virulently antislavery, would brook no interference with his demands on the population of the Keys in general and Key West in particular.

In 1863, shortly after assuming his post, Judge Marvin ordered all signs of Confederate sympathy destroyed, and the army moved from house to house to take down any flags or bunting that appeared to favor the South. At each business or dwelling that was found to have the offending paraphernalia, the military commanders ordered each of the males to sign an oath of loyalty to the union; failure to do so would result in confiscation of the property as a result of what, to Judge Marvin and the military, was clearly treason. There were no refusals.

But Marvin went a step further and ensured his place in Florida history by issuing a pre-Emancipation Proclamation edict: even though slavery in Key West was completely different from anywhere else in the South (there were, obviously, no plantations); even though many of the slaves did not live in their masters' homes; even though some of the slaves worked for other people (although tithing some of the remuneration to their masters); and even though several slaves actually owned their own businesses, Judge Marvin issued a non-appealable order dictating the end of slavery on the island. The military was ordered to carry out the edict in the most forceful manner necessary. On that day, Key West became the first Southern venue to end slavery.

Following the war, the constant unrest and turmoil (translated to "revolution") in Cuba caused many of the cigar manufacturers to build large factories for the production of their product and move their equipment and employees to Key West. By 1880, Key West, with almost ten thousand residents, was the largest city in Florida, a distinction the city would hold for almost forty years.

But what about the railroad? How and when did it enter the picture?

The first railroad in the United States, or at least the first to offer steam-powered passenger train service, was the Baltimore & Ohio, for which ground was broken in 1828. Two years later, in 1830, the first passenger service began. Incredibly, in 1831, only a year after the first railroad ran in America, and with Florida almost a totally and completely undeveloped wilderness (other than the small settlements in St. Augustine, Cow Ford, Tallahassee, Pensacola and Key West), the first article propounding a railroad to the island city appeared in a newspaper. Obviously, that article was not taken seriously.

But what was taken seriously was the charter of the Great Southern Railway, incorporated in 1870 by the famed Confederate general John B. Gordon, for whom (after his death and of which he likely would not have approved) the Ku Klux Klan klavern (chapter) in Miami was named.

In 1878, with one R.P. Minear shown as president of the company, a hard-bound 268-page book complete with a fold-out map of the proposed system tipped into the back cover and titled Great Southern Railway was published in New York by William P. Hickok, a stationer and printer at 93 Nassau Street. Without going into great detail, two items must be exhibited. In the frontispiece are the following words (we have not delineated lineage): "Great Southern Railway, A Trunk Line, Between the North and the Tropics, to within Ninety Miles of Havana, Connecting at the Nearest Possible Point with the West Indies, Central and South America."

But if that were not enough, the following words are on pages v and vi of the preface: "This railroad is designed to connect the entire railway system of the United States with Cuba, the other West Indies…and South America by the most direct and close railway and steamship connections that can possibly be opened. It begins at Millen (in Georgia) ... and runs thence due south to Key West."

Numerous chapters, particularly the third, which is titled "Location of the Road," clearly state that the southernmost destination in Florida was to be Key West.

Likely due primarily to the Panic of 1873 and for various other reasons, only a few miles of the Great Southern were ever built, none of those anywhere near the central or southern portions of the state, and at that point the Great Southern simply disappeared from the annals of Florida history.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "The Greatest Railroad Story Ever Told"
by .
Copyright © 2011 Seth H. Bramson.
Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Dedication,
Acknowledgements,
Introduction,
1. In the Beginning,
2. "We Must Have a Railroad",
3. "Gentlemen: The Railroad Will Go to Sea",
4. A Task Like No Other,
5. "I Can Not See the Children but I Can Hear Them Singing!",
6. The Magnificence of the Bridges,
7. Right of Way and Stations,
8. Long Key Fishing Camp,
9. Trumbo Island Terminal,
10. Daily Operations,
11. The Casa Marina,
12. September 2, 1935,
Epilogue. "I Can Still Hear the Whistle of Train Number 75 Blowing for the Matecumbe Crossing!",
About the Author,