On Jan. 25, 1925, the Orange Blossom Special arrived in West Palm Beach for the grand opening of the Seaboard Air Line station, the flagship of the Seaboard line. The Mediterranean Revival station building, on Tamarind Avenue at Datura Street, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. The Seaboard line was the second railroad to come to the area, after Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway.
Postcard from around 1939 with the caption “The Orange Blossom Special Going Througg Orange Groves in Florida.” (Courtesy of the Historical Museum of Southern Florida)
Postcard from the 1920s of the Seaboard station in West Palm Beach. (Palm Beach Post file photo)
The Seaboard station in 1969 (Palm Beach Post staff file photo)
Tags: railroads, This Week in History, West Palm Beach
This week marks the 100th anniversary of Henry Flagler’s railroad to Key West. While it operated far from Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast, its builder is part of the fabric of this region.
The Flagler Museum recently wrapped up its exhibition, “First Train to Paradise: The Railroad That Went to Sea.”
Here’s something we wrote in 1994, on the centennial of the opening of his first Palm Beach hotel, the Royal Poinciana:
Henry Flagler had one last accomplishment in mind: the monumental task of building a 128-mile-long oversea railroad to link the mainland with Key West.
The railroad cost Flagler $20 million, two-fifths of his total Florida investment. Detractors called it “Flagler’s Folly.’’
But in 1912, after seven years of work by 3,000 to 4,000 men, the railroad had come to Key West.
While The Miami Herald would call it the eighth wonder of the world, critics who said it never would pay for itself were proven right. The wonder would last less than a quarter century before it was demolished by the 1935 “Labor Day” storm and replaced by the Overseas Highway.
But on that glorious day in January 1912, a stooped and weak Flagler made a triumphant entrance to a frenzied Key West, where he was overcome by the import of the moment.
A dapper, though weakened, Henry Flagler walks triumphantly off his train when it arrives for the first time in Key West in 1912. (Photo courtesy of the Florida Photographic Collection)
While his friend John Rockefeller was trying to make it to age 100 up in Ormond Beach — he failed by three years in 1937 — Flagler also was falling victim to age. He could barely see or hear. He had become introspective and lonely and would be seen sitting silently.
A year later, in January 1913, while entering a bathroom around the side from Whitehall’s lobby stairway, he fell down three steps to the landing below, breaking his hip. He later would slip into a coma. His son Harry, estranged from his father since 1894, rushed to his side, but it was too late: Flagler did not recognize him.
Flagler died May 20, 1913, at 83 in a cottage next to The Breakers.
Artists from the Art Guild of the Purple Isles and Island Christian School put the finishing touches on a 60-foot-wide outdoor mural last month in Key Largo. The mural, at mile marker 95, depicts Henry Flagler’s Florida Keys Over-Sea Railroad. The artwork was created for the Jan. 22 centennial anniversary of the completion of the ‘railroad that went to sea.’ Though The Miami Herald called it the eighth wonder of the world, it remained in operation only until September 1935, less than a quarter of a century. (AP/Andy Newman/Florida Keys News Bureau)
Tags: Henry Flagler, railroads
On July 4, 1889, a 7-1/2 mile railway from Jupiter to Juno opened. It was officially known as the Jupiter and Lake Worth Railway, but after an 1893 Harper’s Magazine article whimsically called it the Celestial Railway — because it started at Jupiter and passed through stations called Juno and Mars — the Celestial name stuck.
The 1887 construction of the Jupiter Inlet railway dock made it possible for steamships to reach the Celestial Railroad. Note the Jupiter Lighthouse in the background at left. (Photo courtesy of the Historical Society of Palm Beach County)
Dora Doster stands on the cow catcher of Celestial Railroad’s No. 1 locomotive. The railroad opened on July 4, 1889, and was the only game in town until Henry Flagler started Florida East Coast Railway, spurring the demise of the Celestial. (Photo courtesy of the Historical Society of Palm Beach County)
Tags: railroads, This Week in History
By Michelle Quigley
On March 22, 1894, Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway came south to West Palm Beach. The railroad lured businesses to the new downtown and established Palm Beach as a winter resort.
In the 1890s and early 1900s, Flagler Memorial Bridge was a one-lane wooden railroad trestle with a footpath that provided access to Palm Beach via the Florida East Coast Railway. Guests with private railroad cars used the bridge to get to Palm Beach hotels. The bridge soon became a toll bridge, with pedestrians paying a nickel and horseback riders a dime to cross. Tolls cased in 1928, and in 1938, the wood bridge was replaced by a four-lane concrete and steel structure. Read more about the Flagler Memorial Bridge. (Photo courtesy of Historical Society of Palm Beach County)
Tags: Henry Flagler, railroads, This Week in History
Question: I’ve been hearing about the railroad on the property of U.S. Sugar but have no idea of its origin, range, purpose, appearance, etc. — Roy Edward Lush, Lantana
Answer: From U.S. Sugar’s Judy Sanchez: When U.S. Sugar formed in 1931, it inherited 21 miles of track. Now its two lines comprise the largest operating private agricultural/industrial railroad in the United States, possibly the world.
In the past harvest, the lines hauled more than 5.65 million tons of sugar cane to the mills, delivering 166,069 carloads to the Clewiston mill.
The internal line, which operates only during harvest, hauls cane from field to mill.
It covers about 120 miles of track in Palm Beach, Hendry and Glades counties and has 14 locomotives and 950 boxcars. In 2008, it delivered 63,197 carloads of cane to the Bryant and Clewiston mills’ railyards.
Two early steam locomotives are in Florida railroad museums; diesel engines came in in 1955. The trains go up to 35 mph. Some of the engineers are snowbirds who come to Florida only during the harvest.
The cars, each with a capacity of 40 tons, have three hinged-bays or doors that open to dump cane directly into the back of the Clewiston mill.
Three cane cars dating from 1928 are still in service. The rest were built between 1929 and 1976. Many of the cane cars were derailed, or smashed, or both, by Hurricane Wilma in 2005.
The system arms each car with an electronic identification tag, similar to SunPass, which passes under a reader and lets the company track its progress toward the mill.
The second rail line, the South Central Florida Express, operates year-round. It carries agricultural products, including cane and refined sugar products as well as lumber, paper, and citrus products. With 156 miles of track, 14 locomotives and its own fleet of railcars, it connects to mainline railroads in Fort Pierce and Sebring.
The Florida East Coast Railway delivers its sugar to Hershey’s own rail spur at its factory in Pennsylvania.
U.S. Sugar: (863) 983-8121. Web page: www.ussugar.com
Tags: railroads
