-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.historical-museum.org/history/found1.htm <A HREF="http://www.historical-museum.org/history/found1.htm">The Birth of Miami </A>----- The Birth of the City of Miami by Larry Wiggins ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Contents 1.Biscayne Bay Country 2.The Railroad to Miami 3.Incorporation 4.Endnotes ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Just over one hundred years ago, in 1895, three stubborn visionaries came together to create Miami and, in doing so, open all of then-pristine South Florida to development. The Tuttle and Brickell families possessed land. Henry M. Flagler owned a railroad and possessed the capital to transform the land from a wilderness into a city. The partnership between them was at times adversarial, the consequences sometimes disappointing, but the resulting Magic City would, over the next century, grow into something greater than they could have ever imagined. The Brickell family, consisting of William, his wife Mary, and eight adult children ranging in age from 18 to 38, lived on the south bank of the mouth of the Miami River where they operated a trading post and post office. They arrived in 1871 from Cleveland and purchased a vast stretch of land that extended from the banks of the river south to near today's Coconut Grove. They also owned property on the north side of the New River in today's Fort Lauderdale. (1) Julia Tuttle Julia Tuttle and her children, Harry and Fanny, lived across the river from the Brickells. Tuttle, who came to Miami in 1891 after purchasing a tract of 640 acres of land on the north bank of the Miami River, was also from Cleveland. Tuttle's husband, Frederick, died in 1886, and she decided to move to South Florida due to what was described as the "delicate health" of her children. Tuttle had seen the area in 1875, at the age of twenty-six, when she visited her father, Ephraim Sturtevant, who homesteaded in the area of today's Miami Shores. Sturtevant had been a friend of Brickell in Cleveland until a disagreement brought the friendship to a halt. (2) The Miami area, in the years leading up to the railroad's arrival, was better known as "Biscayne Bay Country." The only overland transportation to the area was by a hack (or stagecoach) line that ran from Lantana on the southern end of Lake Worth to Lemon City on Biscayne Bay. The few published accounts from that period describe the area as a wilderness that held much promise. (3) Lying five miles north of the Miami River, Lemon City could boast of only fifteen buildings in 1893. However, many homesteaders had settled on land up to five miles away from the core of the settlements. One of these buildings was a new hotel that could accommodate twenty-five to thirty guests. Two miles south were several people living in Buena Vista. "Cocoanut Grove" (as it was spelled then) sat ... south of the Miami River; it contained twenty-eight buildings "of a very neat and tasteful character," two large stores doing an "immense business," and a hotel run by Charles and Isabella Peacock. Cutler, eight miles south of Cocoanut Grove, also contained a few settlers. (4) But the jewel on Biscayne Bay was Miami. The site where the Miami River emptied into the bay was described as the cream of the property in the area. There was rich, heavy hammock growth, and to the south, on the Brickell lands, a high, rocky bluff, which was characterized as "one of the finest building sites in Florida." (5) The Tuttles lived in a large home that had been in use when Fort Dallas occupied the spot at the time of the Indian wars of the mid-nineteenth century. Julia Tuttle repaired and converted the home into one of the show places in the area. (6) It possessed a wide porch on the second story that provided a sweeping view of the river and the bay. The bay itself was a favorite resort for wealthy yachtsmen who came to the area in the winter for fishing and cruising. (7) Henry Flagler and His Railroad Flagler's biographers debate just when he first planned to extend his railroad south to Miami and eventually on to Key West. Perhaps no one but Flagler ever will know, although correspondence related to this matter dates to the early 1890s. However, the point in time when the decision actually was made to begin extending the railroad south from West Palm Beach can be ascertained as February 1895. (8) Flagler, who earlier had achieved great wealth in partnership with John D. Rockefeller in Standard Oil, had been developing the east coast of Florida, beginning in St. Augustine in 1885, either through new construction or through the purchase of existing hotels and railroads, which were then upgraded. Every few years, Flagler extended his railroad farther south. Flagler became associated with the Florida Coast Line Canal & Transportation Company (FCLCTC) in 1893 because of the advantages it held for his railroad. (9) The canal company, chartered in 1881, had as its objective the construction of a series of canals connecting existing lakes and rivers in order to provide a navigable inland waterway between St. Augustine and Lake Worth. This would allow for safe transportation as many ships were being lost off the Florida coast to dangerous underwater coral reefs and sudden violent squalls. (10) FCLCTC's charter was amended in 1882 to extend the waterway from Lake Worth to Biscayne Bay and from St. Augustine to the St. Johns River. The company would dig the canals fifty feet wide and to a depth of five feet and dredge the existing rivers and lakes to that depth in order to accommodate steam-powered vessels. In return for opening the area to agriculture and development, the company received from the state of Florida a grant of 3,840 acres of land for each mile of the waterway. The FCLCTC sold this land to settlers and farmers who, in turn, provided commerce for the canal which was to operate on a toll system. Thus began the first major commercial enterprise to link the Miami area with the outside world. (11) The company was never well capitalized. Sales of the lands awarded it by the state of Florida for work completed was disappointing. This led to serious financial problems in 1892, at which time the FCLCTC prevailed upon its competitor, Henry Flagler, for help. Flagler's railroad then reached only as far south as Daytona Beach, but he was planning to extend it to Rockledge, eighty miles to the south. The railroad also operated on a system of receiving state grants of land for each mile of railway constructed. The canal's charter had effectively tied up the state land along its proposed route to Biscayne Bay. The state pledged the canal company all of its land designated as land to be granted. This state land amounted to every other section, on a township and range basis, within a six-mile-wide stretch along the canal's route. Flagler realized that the state was left with no land to grant to his railroad when it pushed farther south, so he used his bargaining skills learned during his Standard Oil days to negotiate a most favorable partnership with the canal company: he would provide capital in exchange for assuming the company's presidency and his railroad would receive a grant of 1,500 acres of the canal company's land for each mile of new track. The extension of the railroad would, in turn, increase the probability that the canal company could successfully market its remaining lands to potential settlers. The canal company and railroad also agreed on a plan to settle and develop some of the lands jointly. (12) Thus, with the assured land available, Flagler pushed his railroad farther south, reaching Rockledge in February 1893 and Fort Pierce in January 1894. In February 1894, Flagler opened the jewel of his resort hotels, the Royal Poinciana, at Palm Beach. (13) It was the largest wooden structure in the world, containing 1,150 rooms. The following month Flagler completed the extension of his railroad southward from Fort Pierce to West Palm Beach. In return for this extension the canal company issued the railroad 102,917 acres in January 1895. These deeds contained land in the Miami area as there were not sufficient lands owned by the canal company along the railroad extension between Fort Pierce and West Palm Beach. (14) Within weeks of receiving this land Flagler would decide to begin his extension to Miami. The Freeze Florida experienced its worst freeze since 1835 on the night of December 29, 1894. The cold wave, which originated in the Midwest, moved down the country so fast that it did not have a chance to warm up as it headed southward. Nor did it give forecasters adequate time to notify farmers in Florida of the coming danger. Temperatures sunk to 14 degrees at Jacksonville, and 18 at Tampa. West Palm Beach recorded 30 degrees; ice formed one-eighth of an inch thick in a fountain in front of Palm Beach's Royal Poinciana. At Titusville, the temperature dipped to 18 degrees, rising only to 34 the next day and back below freezing the following night. A temperature of 26 degrees for three hours or more would freeze the juice of an orange, making it unfit for eating. Florida 's famous citrus crop was lost, as well as the winter vegetable crop in the ground throughout the state. (15) The word from the most southerly region of Florida, a land that could only be reached by an exhausting two-day trip by stagecoach over rough roads or by boat over the sometimes dangerous open water route, was surprisingly different. One farmer in a letter to a Titusville newspaper said: "Biscayne Bay [area] is not frozen out as yet, as will be shown by the shipments of tomatoes made this month. Between 200 and 300 crates will be shipped from here tomorrow, the 14th [of January]. The cold did little damage here. Pineapples are not hurt as far as can be seen. The leaves on the banana trees are burnt some, but the fruit is not injured. Irish potatoes, beans and beets did not suffer from the cold, and we will have a full crop of tomatoes." (16) All over Florida, farmers, developers and homeseekers looked upon their barren trees and fields and took note of this "freeze proof" section of Florida. As farmers were struggling from the devastating freeze of December 1895, Florida was hit by an even worse freeze. On the night of February 7, 1895, the temperature dropped to 18 at Orlando and Titusville, 22 at Tampa, 20 at Daytona, and 14 at Jacksonville. The following day the temperature failed to rise above freezing throughout most of the state. In Jacksonville, the St. Johns River froze a distance of eight feet from the southern bank and was thick enough to support the weight of a man two feet out. Snow fell on Tampa and Fort Myers. (17) This second cold wave, coming just when citrus trees were putting out new growth and vegetable growers were preparing to harvest their replanted crops, finished off any of the remaining season's yield. Where citrus crops had been lost in December, the trees themselves were lost in the latter freeze. Farmers were demoralized and numbed; what they thought could not happen again in ten years had occurred only six weeks after the first freeze. Homesteaders who had looked upon Florida as the promised land and had invested years in their farms were wiped out in two days. (18) Again, the reports coming from the areas of New River (Fort Lauderdale) and Biscayne Bay were difficult to comprehend. The freeze had not reached the far south end of Florida and again it was reported "many crates of tomatoes are being shipped to Key West daily." (19) Two days after the second freeze, Flagler dispatched James E. Ingraham to investigate the reports from South Florida. Ingraham headed the railroad's land department, which had the responsibility for securing land for the railroad, surveying and laying out the new towns that sprang up on the newly granted railroad lands, and attracting settlers and farmers to these lands. He was among Flagler's most trusted employees. Ingraham initially came to Florida in 1874, and worked for Henry Sanford and Henry Plant, two major entrepeneurs, before joining the Flagler organization. (20) Sanford had purchased a large tract of land in central Florida and Ingraham had laid out and handled the development of the town of Sanford for him. Ingraham also talked Sanford into building a railroad to connect Sanford with Kissimmee. Ingraham became president of this railroad in 1879. When Plant, a wealthy Tampa investor, bought Sanford's railroad, Ingraham moved over to become president of this new line. Ingraham was president of the South Florida Railroad when Plant extended the train to Orlando and later to Tampa. Ingraham was hired away from Plant by Flagler in 1892. (21) Two years earlier, in 1890, Ingraham met Julia Tuttle at a dinner party at her home in Cleveland. Tuttle was preparing to move to her property at Fort Dallas and remarked to him, "Some day somebody will build a railroad to Miami. I hope you will be interested in it, and when they do I will be willing to divide my properties there and give one-half to the company for a town site." Ingraham responded, "Well, Mrs. Tuttle, it is a long way off, but stranger things have happened, and possibly I some day may hold you to that promise." (22) Two years later, while still president of the South Florida Railroad, Ingraham took an expedition across the Everglades from Fort Myers to Miami to investigate the possibilities of extending the Plant line to Miami. After the Ingraham expedition reached Julia Tuttle's home in April 1892, exhausted and half starved, James Ingraham became impressed with the Biscayne area, spending several days exploring it with his hostess. Soon after, however, the Plant System decided not to extend its railroad to Miami from Tampa, and six months after the expedition, Ingraham was hired away by Flagler. In his capacity with the railroad's land department, Ingraham would become one of Miami's most important early supporters. (23) Speaking before a meeting of the Miami Women's Club in November 1920, on the occassion of a plaque dedication ceremony in honor of Henry Flagler, Ingraham recalled his return to Miami following the freeze of February 1895: "I found at Lauderdale, at Lemon City, Buena Vista, Miami, Coconut Grove and at Cutler orange trees, lemon trees and lime trees blooming or about to bloom without a leaf hurt, vegetables growing in a small way untouched. There had been no frost there. I gathered up a lot of blooms from these various trees, put them in damp cotton, and after an interview with Mrs. Tuttle and Mr. and Mrs. Brickell of Miami, I hurried to St. Augustine, where I called on Mr. Flagler and showed him the orange blossoms, telling him that I believed that these orange blossoms were from the only part of Florida, except possibly a small area on the extreme southerly part of the western coast, which had escaped the freeze; that here was a body of land more than 40 miles long, between the Everglades and the Atlantic Ocean, perhaps very much longer than that, absolutely untouched, and that I believed that it would be the home of the citrus industry in the future, because it was absolutely immune from devastating freezes. I said: 'I have also here written proposals from Mrs. Tuttle and Mr. and Mrs. Brickell, inviting you to extend your railroad from Palm Beach to Miami and offering to share with you their holdings at Miami for a town site.' "Mr. Flagler looked at me for some minutes in perfect silence, then he said: 'How soon can you arrange for me to go to Miami?'" (24) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The author would like to gratefully acknowledge the help given by Howard Kleinberg, who provided encouragement and editorial assistance. >From Tequesta, vol. LV (1995), pp. 5-38. DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
