South Florida's first automobiles: who drove what and when?

First car in Miami belonged to C.H. Billings, 1899
a Locomobile
Florida State Archives, Florida Memory

 

By Jane Feehan

 Automobiles soared in popularity across the United States and into the Florida frontier by the late 1800s. I’ll leave the provenance of the automobile up to other historians as it seems to remain in dispute*. Below is a brief overview of the status of motorized vehicles during the first years of  20th-century South Florida. 

First, the national backdrop.

According to History.com, 30 American manufacturers produced 2,500 motorized vehicles by 1899. More than 480 companies entered the production fray a decade later. Henry Ford, though not the first car maker, produced the cheapest one, his Model T selling for $285 in October 1908 (preceded by his Model N for $500**). 

Cars were referred to as “horseless carriages” in the 1890s. By 1900, the word “automobile” entered our lexicon. Automobile enthusiasts had already formed clubs and held races during the late 1800s and first decade of the 20^th century.

Determining who owned the first automobile in Dade, Broward or Palm Beach counties is problematic. Owning first and registering first don’t match up and some records went missing. Some owned vehicles before registration was required.  A registration ordinance, proposed in Miami in 1904 and passed in January 1905, details many of the same obligations as the requirements codified by the state of Florida in 1905.

The umbrella requirement was that every auto had to be registered with the Florida Secretary of State (the overseeing entity transferred to the State Comptroller office in years following).

Some provisions will evoke a chuckle:

The vehicle registration number had to be displayed on a tag “in Arabic numerals of at least 3 inches by 2 inches.”

Every vehicle operating on the road must have a bell, horn or whistle and two lamps.

Motorists must signal when approaching horses or other draft animals and must stop immediately if signaled to do so by one driving or riding these animals.

Vehicles must abide by a reasonable speed and/or the state determined speed limit.

Boards of county commissioners are empowered to set times for speed tests or races on public roadways.

No vehicle can cross a street or turn a corner at more than 5 miles per hour (Miami ordinance).

Vehicle operators must be 16 years old (Miami ordinance).

                                                                      The first registration records were handwritten.

Florida Memory/Discover/historical records:
 https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/346940

So, who owned the first motorized vehicle in Miami?  News accounts indicate it was Mr. C.H. Billings, a construction "engineer," in 1899. He drove a steam-powered “locomobile (at top of this post)."The Miami Evening Record in 1904 described it as "fast" -- relevant to walking no doubt.

1906 Model E Glide - Author unknown (Not Bryan's car) 
Cycle and Automobile Trade Journal Oct.1, 1905

The first car registered with the state (and probably first owned) of Broward County belonged to Fort Lauderdale pioneer Reed A. Bryan in 1906.  He drove a Glide (produced 1902-1925), a four-cylinder, 45-horsepower automobile. It was later given to the city’s fire department for their use. There were far fewer cars in Broward County; paved roads were rare. Only two were available in Fort Lauderdale: Brickell and Andrews avenues. Both offered only single lanes.

George W. Potter, surveyor and illustrator from Boynton Beach in Palm Beach County beat Henry M. Flagler to the state registration records. Potter registered his 4-horsepower Waltham Orient Buckboard in November 1905. Flagler followed the next month with registration of his open-air, quiet, steam-powered touring car manufactured by White Motor Company.

An automobile section appeared in the Miami Herald in 1912 with “items of interest to automobilists everywhere.” After all, “the greatest future lies ahead in the auto industry.” Prescient, indeed.

 *See the fascinating timeline linked below from the Library of Congress about when the automobile was invented.

https://www.loc.gov/everyday-mysteries/motor-vehicles-aeronautics-astronautics/item/who-invented-the-automobile

** See Ford Company history at:

https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/artifact/50201/#:~:text=Most%20runabouts%20featured%20one%2D%20or,the%20bestselling%20car%20in%20America

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Sources:

https://www.boyntonhistory.org

Broward Legacy – Hughes, Kenneth Survey of old cars. Vol. 21, No. 3-4, 1998 https://journals.flvc.org/browardlegacy/issue/view/3742

Miami Evening Record, Jan. 22, 1904

Miami News, Oct. 26, 1904

Miami Herald, Oct. 4, 1911

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, March 31, 2015

Tags: Automobile history, early automobiles in South Florida, early automobiles in Miami, early automobiles in Palm Beach County, Fort Lauderdale history, Miami History, Palm Beach history

Fort Dallas then, today Miami

Fort Dallas, circa 1890
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

 By Jane Feehan

First built as a plantation on the mouth of the Miami River in 1844, Fort Dallas served as an outpost during the Seminole Wars of 1849-1855. It was named after Commodore Alexander James Dallas (1791-1844), then in command of U.S Naval forces sent to chase down pirates in the West Indies.

The area attracted settlers, traders, and ornithologists long before Ohioan Julia Tuttle decided to call it home in 1892. She built a house near Fort Dallas as Henry M. Flagler extended his railroad south from St. Augustine to Palm Beach.

One-time partner of Standard Oil’s John D. Rockefeller, Flagler was enticed, as the tale goes, by Tuttle and her bouquet of orange blossoms to bring the railway to Fort Dallas after a bitter freeze in 1894 decimated orange trees from Palm Beach north.

Fort Dallas 1870s
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

A deal was made and the Florida East Coast Railway (so named in 1898) reached the Fort Dallas platform in 1896. The city of Miami, whose name could have been Flagler had he not suggested its original American Indian name, was incorporated three months later.

 Flagler then built the Royal Palm Hotel on Biscayne Bay, Miami’s center piece, in less than two years. The city captured America’s attention when 7,000 U.S. soldiers were deployed there in 1898 after the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana, the fuse setting off the Spanish American War.

Some of Fort Dallas remains in Lummas Park making it one of the oldest structures in the area.

Sources:

Standiford, Les. Last Train to Paradise. New York: Crown Publishers (2002).

Douglas, Marjory Stoneman. The Everglades, River of Grass. Miami: Banyan Books (1978)

www.wikipedia.org

Tags: Florida history, Miami history, 

Pioneer Julia Tuttle, her bright hopes for Miami ... and Henry Flagler

Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

“Miami is going to be one of the greatest and most important cities, financially, commercially and residentially,” [sic] said Julia Tuttle in 1896. Thanks to this Florida pioneer, Henry M. Flagler was convinced to extend his Florida East Coast Railway from Palm Beach to Biscayne Bay.

A freeze swept Florida during the winter of 1894-95, destroying orange trees and other crops. Tuttle had written Flagler before the freeze, asking him to extend the railway south, but to no avail.

After the cold weather event the story goes, she sent the rail magnate a bouquet of thriving orange blossoms. More likely Flagler’s right hand man, James E. Ingraham, returned with the blossoms Tuttle gave him when he was sent south to survey the area after the freeze.

Whatever the real story, Flagler was convinced by and struck a bargain with Tuttle: for 363 of her acres, he would extend the rail to Biscayne Bay.  The first rail car pulled into the newly incorporated Miami (a name Flagler suggested, spurning the notion it be his own name) in 1896 and a hotel, the Royal Palm, was soon built.

Tuttle first saw Biscayne Bay in 1875 while visiting with her family. She returned to Cleveland,* Ohio where she lived with her husband Frederick Tuttle. Frederick died in 1886, leaving his iron works business to his widow. She returned to Fort Dallas, as Miami was known then, in 1891. Tuttle bought 640 acres on the north bank of the Miami River.  She set up house in the old officers’ quarters at Fort Dallas, which she renovated into the most elegant home of the area.

Tuttle grew orange trees, established a dairy and became known as a business woman among her neighbors. She also fought fires. When a fire struck the settlement Christmas Night 1896, pioneer Tuttle took part in a bucket brigade. Twenty eight buildings were lost in the fledgling town without an established fire company.

Julia DeForest Sturtevant Tuttle died at age 49 in 1898 of meningitis. She is buried in the city of Miami Cemetery. That she is the Mother of Miami was lost on many for years after her death because she died in debt for her land transactions**, mostly with Flagler. But her name resurfaced and became a household one in Miami after the opening of the Julia Tuttle Causeway, the “Little Turnpike” Dec. 12, 1959. The $14 million causeway links the mainland via I-195 to mid-Miami Beach. A statue of Julia Tuttle sits in Bayfront Park. 

Copyright © 2011. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

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*Flagler was also from Cleveland as was John D. Rockefeller. Tuttle and Rockefeller knew and corresponded with each other during the early 1880s.

** Tuttle also donated land to Trinity Church, founded in 1893 at NE 2^nd Avenue and 2^nd Street.

Sources:

Standiford, Les. Last Train to Paradise. New York: Crown Publishers (2002).

Rockefeller-Tuttle correspondence :

http://digitalcollections.fiu.edu/tequesta/files/1982/82_1_03.pdf

Miami News, April 25, 1927

Miami News,  Sept. 20, 1978

Miami News, Dec. 13, 1959

Miami News, Jan. 2, 1963

Miami News, April 29, 1977



Tags: Miami history, Miami pioneer, Mother of Miami, Flagler in Miami, Florida film researcher, film research, pioneer women of Florida,  history of Miami