In Miami as in other places, Flagler built an electric company, water company, schools, churches, streets and homes for his workers.
In , he purchased three ships to transport people to and from the Bahamas where he owned two more hotels. For his ships to enter the Miami harbor he had to dredge a channel through Biscayne Bay to the docks, but it was not sufficient to be considered a deep water seaport - only nine feet deep. As years passed, the depth of the channel was slowly deepened. During the Spanish - American War, the federal government used the Tampa seaport and the Henry Plant railway, as Tampa had a deep water seaport.
In , the United States signed an agreement to construct the Panama Canal. Flagler envisioned Key West with its natural deep water seaport as the shipping hub for all the ships passing through the canal, connecting South and Central America, the U. His trains would thus provide land deliveries throughout the east coast.
As he had been eyeing Key West for some time, these additional motivations could have been the deciding factor for Flagler to push on to Key West. Strange as it may seem, the editor of the Key West Gazette suggested a railroad linking Key West to the mainland as early as South Florida's first U. Senator, Stephen R. Mallory, also from Key West, while in Washington in the s advocated the advantages of a Key West railroad.
Baily while surveying for the International Ocean Telegraph Company in made a survey route that could be used for a railroad. Numerous proposals were made on paper, but all lacked financing.
The article "Across the Gulf by Rail to Key West" proposed the screw pile supports used for construction of the lighthouses for bridge supports. He was temporarily blocked from going southward by the existing approximate 36 square mile Perrine Grant.
If you lay a scaled 36 mile square piece of paper on a map of south east Dade County, a south bound railroad must traverse within the boundaries of the Perrine Grant.
Flagler kept attorneys assigned to assist the Dr. Henry Perrine heirs for the 36 square mile southeast land claim from Congress. The Flagler attorneys followed to Supreme Court which ruled an appropriate division of lands to the railroad, settlers, and Perrine family members in With this decision, Flagler now had his right-of-way property when and if he decided to make his move further south. It was the summer of when Flagler hired William J.
They were to conduct, as we would say today, "a feasibility study" to extend the railroad to Key West. To our knowledge, he never asked anyone whether or not it would be financially successful.
Krome spent the remainder of until May of surveying across the Everglades to Cape Sable. This route was deemed unadvisable. At Turtle Harbor there was a finger passage of over 20 feet depth of water which would serve as a deep water seaport for Flagler's steamship lines.
It is not certain, and there are various versions, when the following conversation took place, if it did at all, but the aging Flagler 74 years old called in his F. President, Joseph R. Parrott, and reportedly asked him if the railroad extension to Key West could be built. Flagler in turn said, "Very well then, go ahead. Go to Key West. We know and have copies of the plans approved in April The project was announced to the public in the New York Herald on June 28, and the article reprinted in the Tropical Sun.
What is a fact is that Senator E. Crill, of Palatka, pushed through bill number 11, granting certain rights and privileges for a railroad to the F. The act became effective May 3, and afterwards Flagler publicly announced the extension of the railroad to Key West.
As this would be an overseas project, Flagler purchased, leased, or built most of the heavy marine equipment in the east. Land had to be donated, purchased, or leased, as Flagler did not receive land grants in the Keys other than water passages - he did own land preciously granted to other railroad companies that he had bought.
So many of the transport ships in the Atlantic were employed solely to transport supplies and materials for Flagler that it created a minor shortage for transporting other goods. It was a massive operation.
Using Krome's survey, plans were made to send advance teams ahead to start the more time consuming projects and the overland clearing throughout the Keys. Functional seaports and rail terminals had to be built at Knight's Key and Key West. The large bridges could not be started until huge floating concrete mixers could be constructed.
Concrete mixer number 1 was towed out of Miami on June 27, Two years later, Flagler expanded his Florida holdings, building a railroad bridge across the St. Johns River to gain access to the southern half of the state.
Flagler began building a hotel empire by purchasing the Hotel Ormond, just north of Daytona. The Hotel Royal Poinciana soon became the largest resort in the world.
Probably in the late s, Henry Flagler first began to think about ultimately extending his railroad and hotel system all the way to Key West. However, the timing of his plans were accelerated somewhat when the severe freezes of and affected the area around Palm Beach but not the settlement known today as Miami, about sixty miles further south. Flagler dredged a channel, built streets, instituted the first water and power systems, and financed the town's first newspaper, the Metropolis.
When the town incorporated in , its citizens wanted to honor the man responsible for its growth by naming it "Flagler. Flagler lost his second wife, Ida Alice, to mental illness, which she suffered from for many years. Ida Alice finally had to be institutionalized in With more than , square feet and plus rooms, Whitehall was described in by the New York Herald as, " In , when the United States took on the Panama Canal Project, Flagler decided that it was finally time to extend the railroad to Key West, adding miles of track, mostly over water.
At the time, Key West was one of Florida's most populated cities, and would become the United States' closest, deep water port to the Panama Canal. Flagler left school at 14 to seek his fortune in Bellevue, Ohio, where his mother's family resided. Penniless when he arrived, he became a successful businessman working in the family mercantile business with his half-brother, Dan Harkness.
Before long, young Henry advanced from L. He eventually bought out a partner in one of the Harkness operations with money he had saved. He courted and married his half-brother's sister, Mary Harkness. They had two daughters, Jennie Louise and Carrie. Their only son was born in On January 10, , the partnership emerged as a joint-stock corporation named Standard Oil and by , Standard Oil led the American oil refining industry, producing 10, barrels per day.
Five years later Standard Oil was considered the largest and richest industrial company in the world. Both parents had been married twice before and Henry had three half sisters and one half brother. Isaac was an itinerant Presbyterian minister who settled in Toledo, Ohio, in There, he became involved in the temperance movement and advocated racial equality.
At the age of 14, Flagler left school and moved to Bellevue, Ohio, near Cleveland, to live with a half-brother, Dan Harkness. The two boys worked at a general store owned by Harkness's uncle. He proved to be a good salesman and his responsibilities and salary increased. Within six years, Henry was earning enough money to purchase a showy Victorian house in Bellevue.
The couple had two daughters, Jennie Louise, born in , and Carrie, born in Carrie died at the age of 3. Several years later, in , their only son, Henry Harkness Flagler, was born. Flagler and Dan Harkness remained friends and business associates and, in , they opened a distillery. Flagler also worked as a grain merchant. During the Civil War, he earned large profits selling food and other commodities to the Union army.
The business also profited from the sale of seeds and farm implements. Flagler's wheat and wine weres sold in Cleveland through a commission agent named John D. Rockefeller, who became a friend. Flagler became restless with his distillery and grain business and, in , he moved to Saginaw, Michigan, where he invested in the salt industry.
The experience in Saginaw was humiliating for Flagler. He returned to Bellevue and worked as a grain merchant to pay off his debt. In the meantime, his friend Rockefeller had gotten into the oil business. He and his partner, Samuel Andrews operated the largest oil refinery in Cleveland. They needed capital to expand. Flagler's cousin, Stephen Harkness, invested in the company with the understanding that Flagler be made a partner.
The new company, Rockefeller, Andrews and Flagler, refined crude oil into kerosene, which was used as an illuminant. Flagler and Rockefeller worked well together and they became very close friends. They lived near each other and shared an office. They walked to and from work together, discussing business along the way. Flagler and Rockefeller developed some innovative business tactics. They packaged their kerosene in leak proof, five-gallon tin cans, which they made themselves.
Customers often reused the barrels and they were very popular. Flagler and Rockefeller's oil company was one of several in Cleveland and among many scattered throughout the country. They conceived a plan to compete against other refineries. They asked the Lake Shore and Michigan Central Railroad for a rate reduction to ship crude oil to their Cleveland refineries.
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