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Henry Morrison Flagler

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Engineers and inventors

   Henry Morrison Flagler
   Born January 2, 1830
        Hopewell, New York
   Died May 20, 1913
        Palm Beach, Florida

   Henry Morrison Flagler ( January 2, 1830 – May 20, 1913) was a United
   States tycoon, real estate promoter, railroad developer and Rockefeller
   partner in Standard Oil. He was a key figure in the development of the
   eastern coast of Florida along the Atlantic Ocean and was founder of
   what became the Florida East Coast Railway. He is known as the father
   of Miami, Florida.

Childhood, education

   Henry Flagler was born in Hopewell, New York and was the son of a poor
   minister. He received an eighth grade education before leaving home at
   14 to work in his cousin's store in Ohio.

Business, Standard Oil

   Through the grain and distillery business, he met John D. Rockefeller,
   in Bellevue, Ohio. After Flagler's business of salt manufacturing in
   Saginaw, Michigan collapsed following the end of the Civil War, he
   moved to Cleveland and soon joined Rockefeller and chemist and inventor
   Samuel Andrews in forming Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler in 1867, which
   they were soon to develop into Standard Oil. By 1872, it led the
   American oil refining industry, producing 10,000 barrels per day.

   In 1877, Standard Oil moved its headquarters to New York City, and
   Flagler and his family moved there as well. He was joined by Henry H.
   Rogers, another leader of Standard Oil who also became involved in the
   development of America's railroads, including those on nearby Staten
   Island, the Union Pacific Railroad, and later in West Virginia, where
   he eventually built the remarkable Virginian Railway to transport coal
   to Hampton Roads, Virginia.

Florida: resort hotels and railroads

   Florida East Coast Railway, Key West Extension, express train at sea,
   crossing Long Key Viaduct, Florida. photo from Florida Photographic
   Collection
   Enlarge
   Florida East Coast Railway, Key West Extension, express train at sea,
   crossing Long Key Viaduct, Florida. photo from Florida Photographic
   Collection

   Henry Flagler's non-Standard Oil interests went in a different
   direction than Henry Rogers', however, when in 1878, on the advice of
   his physician, Flagler traveled to Jacksonville, Florida for the winter
   with his first wife, Mary (née Harkness) Flagler, who was quite ill.
   Two years after she died in 1881, he married again. Ida Alice (née
   Shourds) Flagler had been a caregiver for Mary Flagler. After their
   wedding, the couple traveled to St. Augustine, Florida. Flagler found
   the city charming, but the hotel facilities and transportation systems
   inadequate. He recognized Florida's potential to attract out-of-state
   visitors.

   Though Flagler remained on the Board of Directors of Standard Oil, he
   gave up his day-to-day involvement in the corporation in order to
   pursue his interests in Florida. He returned to St. Augustine in 1885
   and began construction on the 540-room Ponce de Leon Hotel. Realizing
   the need for a sound transportation system to support his hotel
   ventures, Flagler purchased the Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Halifax
   Railroad, the first railroad in what would become known as the "Flagler
   System" or the Florida East Coast Railway.

   The Hotel Ponce de Leon, now part of Flagler College, opened on January
   10, 1888 and was an instant success. Two years later, Flagler expanded
   his Florida holdings. He built a railroad bridge across the St. Johns
   River to gain access to the southern half of the state and purchased
   the Hotel Ormond, just north of Daytona. His personal dedication to the
   state of Florida was demonstrated when he began construction on his
   private residence, Kirkside, in St. Augustine.
   Henry Flagler's private railcar "Rambler" is located on the grounds of
   the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, Florida. photo from Florida
   Photographic Collection
   Enlarge
   Henry Flagler's private railcar "Rambler" is located on the grounds of
   the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, Florida. photo from Florida
   Photographic Collection

   Flagler completed the 1,100-room Royal Poinciana Hotel on the shores of
   Lake Worth in Palm Beach and extended his railroad to its service town,
   West Palm Beach, by 1894. The Royal Poinciana Hotel was at the time the
   largest wooden structure in the world. Two years later, Flagler built
   the Palm Beach Inn (renamed The Breakers Hotel in 1901) overlooking the
   Atlantic Ocean in Palm Beach.

   Flagler originally intended for West Palm Beach to be the terminus of
   his railroad system, but during 1894 and 1895, severe freezes hit the
   area, causing Flagler to rethink his original decision. Sixty miles
   south, the town today known as Miami was reportedly unharmed by the
   freeze. To further convince Flagler to continue the railroad to Miami,
   he was offered land in exchange for laying rail tracks from private
   landowners, including Julia Tuttle, who ran a trading post on the Miami
   River, the Florida East Coast Canal and Transportation Company, and the
   Boston and Florida Atlantic Coast Land Company.

   This led to the development of Miami, which was only an unincorporated
   area at the time. Flagler encouraged fruit farming and settlement along
   his railway line and made many gifts to build hospitals, churches and
   schools in Florida.

   Flagler's railroad, renamed the Florida East Coast Railway in 1895,
   reached Biscayne Bay by 1896. Flagler dredged a channel, built streets,
   instituted the first water and power systems, and financed the city's
   first newspaper, The Metropolis. When the city was incorporated in
   1896, its citizens wanted to honor the man responsible for its growth
   by naming it "Flagler". He declined the honour, persuading them to use
   an old Indian name, " Miama". In 1897, Flagler opened the exclusive
   Royal Palm Hotel there. He became known as the Father of Miami,
   Florida.

   Flagler's second wife, the former Ida Alice Shourds, had been
   institutionalized for mental illness since 1895. In 1901, the Florida
   Legislature passed a bill that made incurable insanity grounds for
   divorce, opening the way for Flagler to remarry. Judge Minor S. Jones
   of Florida's 7th Judicial Circuit presided over the divorce. On August
   24 of that year, Flagler married his third wife, Mary Lily Kenan, and
   the couple soon moved into their new Palm Beach estate, Whitehall, a
   55-room Beaux Arts home designed by the New York-based firm of Carrère
   and Hastings, who had designed the New York Public Library and the Pan
   American Exposition, which were built in the same year as Whitehall.
   Built in 1902,as a wedding present to Mary Lily, and Florida's first
   Museum, Whitehall was the 60,000 square foot (5,600 m²), winter retreat
   that established the Palm Beach "Season" for the wealthy of America's
   Gilded Age.

   By 1905, Flagler decided that his Florida East Coast Railway should be
   extended from Biscayne Bay to Key West, a point 128 miles past the end
   of the Florida peninsula. At the time, Key West was Florida's most
   populous city and it was also the United States' closest deep water
   port to the canal that the U.S. government proposed to build in Panama.
   Flagler wanted to take advantage of additional trade with Cuba and
   Latin America as well as the increased trade with the west that the
   Panama Canal would bring. In 1912, the Florida Over-Sea Railroad was
   completed to Key West.

Death, heritage

   Statue of Henry Flagler that stands in front of Flagler College in St.
   Augustine, FL. photo by Mike Horn
   Enlarge
   Statue of Henry Flagler that stands in front of Flagler College in St.
   Augustine, FL. photo by Mike Horn

   In 1913, Flagler fell down a flight of stairs at Whitehall. He never
   recovered from the fall and died in Palm Beach. of his injuries on May
   20 at 83 years of age. He was buried in St. Augustine alongside his
   daughter, Jenny Louise and first wife, Mary Harkness. Only his son
   Harry survived of the three children by his first marriage in 1853 to
   Mary Harkness.

   There is a monument to him on Flagler Monument Island in Biscayne Bay,
   and Flagler College is named after him in St. Augustine. Flagler
   County, Florida and Flagler Beach, Florida are also named for him.
   Whitehall, Palm Beach, is open to the public as the Henry Morrison
   Flagler Museum; his private railcar No. 91 is preserved inside a Beaux
   Arts pavilion built to look like a 19th Century railway palace.

   On February 24, 2006, a statue of Henry Flagler was unveiled in Key
   West near where the Over-Sea Railroad once terminated. Also, on July
   28, 2006, a statue of Henry Flagler was unveiled on the southeast steps
   of Miami's Dade County Courthouse, appropriately located on Miami's
   Flager Street, the thoroughfare that divides South and North Miami.

   The Over-Sea Railroad, also known as the Key West Extension of the
   Florida East Coast Railway, was heavily damaged and partially destroyed
   in the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. The Florida East Coast Railway was
   financially unable to rebuild the destroyed sections, so the roadbed
   and remaining bridges were sold to the State of Florida, who built the
   Overseas Highway to Key West, using much of the remaining railway
   infrastructure.

Trivia

   Henry is distantly related to Nobel Prize winner Sir Frederick Grant
   Banting. They are 3rd cousins 3 times removed.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morrison_Flagler"
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