This
book is about the construction of Henry Flagler’s railroad from Miami to Key
West and its destruction in the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, which had the highest
wind speeds ever recorded. The best chapters in this book are the first and
last, which describe the storm through the eyes of its victims and survivors in
gruesome detail. I had no idea a hurricane could do what this one did, and the
author quotes that if this hurricane hit Miami like Andrew did in 1992, there
would have been one hundred times the damage. The book is written with a lot of
drama, so I appreciated the author taking what could have been mundane and
spicing it up.
Henry
Flagler earned his money with Standard Oil, where he was second in total shares
only to J.D. Rockefeller. At the end of his life, he was inspired by the
opportunities present in Florida, visiting Saint Augustine and building his
first of many hotels there. Eventually, he dotted the entire East Coast of Florida
with hotels and connected them all with his Florida East Coast Railway company.
He became the most influential man in the state to the extent that when he
wanted to divorce his wife due to her “incurable insanity” (it seems like she
was very mentally ill), the state of Florida changed its divorce laws to help
him out. People joked that postage for Florida with the abbreviation “Fla.” Was
actually short for “Flagler”.
His
railroad was incredibly difficult to build, especially as it reached the Homestead
area near Lake Surprise, where “you could swing a pint can about on the end of
a string and come up with a quart of mosquitos.” It would end up costing him
greatly, and he was reputed to have said that “I would have been a rich man if
it hadn’t been for Florida.” By 1905, Flagler had spent $30 million in Florida,
with $12 million on hotel building and the other 18 on his railroad. The
extension to Key West would end up costing $27 million. The major challenge was
the long stretches (the largest being seven miles long) of ocean to traverse
with heightened rail lines. It would be done as follows: first they would plant
pilings deep into the ocean bed. Then they would build a sort of wooden
structure around the long pilings. With this square in place, they would seal
the bottom and suction the water out. Workers would jump in and start to secure
the rest by filling it with cement and reinforced steel. When finished, there
would be a large, square or rectangular pillar sticking out of the water ready
for the train line to go over it. The deeper the water, the higher the line had
to be above the water for storm surges. Each foot of depth meant another foot
of height above water.
A
hurricane in 1909 taught the bridge-builders many lessons. It swept away many miles
of track because they had blocked off tidal flows. When the hurricane came
through, the water returning back to where it was brought huge structures
crashing down because they had dumped lots of waste in concentrated areas,
creating huge, collapsing, unreinforced dykes. The railroad was largely
destroyed in the 1935 Labor Day hurricane, with a death toll of 400-600 people.
It lasted from January 1912 to September 1935. The descriptions from the ground
of what it was like are terrifying and a strong reminder of the power of
nature. It essentially wiped the middle keys clear of life and property and
everything had to be rebuilt from scratch. If the same storm hit Miami it would
cause the same damage in property a hundred times over.
Something
I didn’t realize was that in the turn of the century, Key West was Florida’s
busiest city. It had the most people in Florida in 1890 and its port was the 13th
busiest in the nation. However, instead of encouraging growth in Key West, it
seems to some that the railroad actually helped reduce the population. It gave
a lot of people access to Miami for just $2.50 and they often didn’t come back,
especially after the Great Depression. Between 1920 and 1930, Key West lost
more than seven thousand residents.
In sum, this is a decent book and a pretty
quick read at just over 200 pages. I enjoyed learning about the history of the
railroad but the best parts were really the history of other places in Florida
and the amazing descriptions of the natural beauty that abounds in the area.
Miscellaneous Facts:
- The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 was the deadliest in history, claiming 8,000 lives with winds of 150-miles-per-hour.
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