Henry Flagler and Miami's Royal Palm Hotel ...1897

Salt water pool at Royal Palm
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

By Jane Feehan

Henry M. Flagler planned for Palm Beach to be the terminus of his Florida East Coast Railway line in 1896. The plan changed when a severe freeze hit the state dipping temperatures to fourteen degrees in Jacksonville and 30 in West Palm Beach; there was snow in Fort Meyers. He sent his front man, James Ingraham, to Miami where he met with resident and land owner of considerable holdings, Julia Tuttle. When he reported back to his boss that there was no freeze and plenty of land there, Flagler was convinced to extend his railway.

The official date given for the arrival of the train was April 15, 1896, though the city celebrates its birthday in July. As with other significant stops along the way from Jacksonville, the Miami destination was to have a grand hotel. The rail extension sparked immediate construction and spawned new business in the area.  The five-story Royal Palm Hotel opened its doors in 1897.  It brought the backward settlement its first hotel, first electricity, first pool and introduced the first golf course to Florida (for more on Florida  golf see index or search).

The Royal Palm, which took up 600 feet along the Miami River and sat atop an Indian burial ground, was the center of social life in Miami. The move to Miami marked the beginning of Flagler’s most aggressive expansion phase, which eventually included building the rail over the ocean to Key West.  Soon after building the hotel, he began steamship service to Cuba and the Bahamas from Miami and dredged a portion of Biscayne Bay for a port.

Stories abound about Flagler’s activities in Miami. He donated land to the U.S. Weather Bureau for a weather station to advertise Miami’s good weather across the nation. One lesser known, darker tale, however, concerns a smallpox outbreak among some of the hotel’s African-American employees. Flagler’s staff moved them to a secret hospital where they recovered. Afterward, the employees were spirited out of the state.

The Great Hurricane of 1926* severely damaged the Royal Palm Hotel. It reopened briefly in 1928 and but closed within months, never to open again. The hotel was razed in 1930. Bricks unearthed from the hotel site near the Dupont Building downtown (once home of the Miami Herald) were placed on sale for $100 each in 2004 with proceeds marked for archaeological research on Indian artifacts. Bricks were also placed on sale shortly after the hotel was demolished but the going price at that time was $14 for 1,000. Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

* For more on the 1926 hurricane, see index.

For more on the Miami Circle, see:
http://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2013/12/miami-in-1904-nothing-that-savored-of.html


Sources:

Bramson, Seth H. Miami, the Magic City. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2007.

Grunwald, Michael. The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida and the Politics of Paradise. New York: Simon & Shuster, 2006.

Miami News,  May, 14, 1971

Miami Herald, Apr. 21, 2004


Tags: Miami history. first hotel in Miami, Henry M. Flagler, first golf course in Florida, FEC Railway history, film industry researcher, historical researcher

Marvelous Miami of 1897: brick buildings, secret societies and ...

Early Miami
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

Miamians were excited about their new town in 1897. Henry Flagler’s East Coast Railroad was extended from Palm Beach to the Biscayne Bay area in April the prior year. In July 1896 Miami (named for a nearby river) was incorporated. The new Flagler hotel, the “mammoth” Royal Palm, was open for business. Miami’s population ballooned from 300 before the railroad to more than 1,600 residents in 1897. The fledgling city was poised for continued growth.

Its newspaper, the Miami Metropolis, publicized reasons to move to the area in its June 4, 1897 edition. Among them were:

• A “good back country which is being settled up very rapidly. The local trade from this territory and that which comes from the Florida Keys will support a good town at this point.”

• The Royal Palm Hotel, plus “three other good hotels.”

• The large holdings of Flagler and the amount of money he has already expended in the development of Miami will ensure the growth of manufacturing in the area.

• Miami is warm enough to warrant the planting of citrus trees.

• “Our transportation facilities are excellent.” (In addition to the rail terminus, Flagler also established boat service to the Bahamas.)

• Three secret societies

• A sound bank

• An ice factory

• “Ten brick buildings, one, the Hotel Biscayne with four stores underneath.”

• "Several miles of paved streets"

• “Waterworks and a sewerage system”

As it turned out, "Marvelous Miami" did not need a grand public relations plan to launch its growth. South Florida with its prospects for a new life—and perhaps riches—quickly attracted pioneers from around the country looking for a new frontier. By 1910 there were nearly 5,500 in Miami, by 1920, more than 29,000.

Sources:
Miami Metropolis, June 4, 1897
www.historymiami.org

Tags: Miami history, Miami before 1900, Henry Flagler, Royal Palm, film researcher, historical researcher, Fort Lauderdale historian, Miami historian