This week in history: Flagler’s railroad reaches West Palm Beach

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 ceased 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

Private Rail Lines Still Provide Sweet Ride

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

20 Years, 50 Million Riders For Tri-Rail

Readers: While big northern cities have had mass transit for decades, it was a brand new world when the first Tri-Rail train rolled out on Jan. 9, 1989, 20 years ago this month.
Tri-Rail started as a temporary fix. The state authorized $75 million to set up an alternative to Interstate 95 during a five-year construction project.
From the beginning, Tri-Rail had one big drawback.
It rode on the CSX Transportation tracks — the old Seaboard Coast Line railroad — that parallel the interstate, and took people to stations that aren’t close to where folks needed to be.
A more practical route would have been along the Florida East Coast Railway tracks, which follow U.S. 1 and would have brought people to within walking distance of the many government buildings and businesses lining that road.
But the FEC wouldn’t make its track available.
Long-range plans for 2025 and 2030 envision moving to, or adding, the FEC track.
In 1998, the original 67 miles of track were extended in the north from West Palm Beach’s Tamarind Avenue station to Mangonia Park and south from Hialeah to Miami International Airport.
At first, many trains were nearly empty. Riders said transferring to vans or public buses, or walking often ate up whatever time savings Tri-Rail offered.
And the limited spread of Tri-Rail and this region’s car-oriented lifestyle made driving still too convenient.
That appears to be changing, due in no small part to last summer’s skyrocketing gas prices.
On Oct. 29, ridership surpassed 50 million.
(Special thanks to Post alum Chuck McGinness.)
Tri-Rail: (800) TRIRAIL (874-7245). Web page: www.tri-rail.com

Tags: railroads

Celestial Opened With Free Rides

Last week we visited a 1962 Florida Historical Quarterly article by Nathan D. Shappee about the Celestial Railroad.

Here’s more.

On the day the railroad opened, July 4, 1889, residents got free rides by steamship from Titusville to Jupiter, then by train to Lake Worth, and back.

Titusville’s Florida Star called the day “the biggest success of any picnic ever held …”

The train ran two round-trips daily in season, one otherwise. Trips were timed to meet the steamer.

But weather and mechanical issues meant delays of up to four hours. If the locomotive, “Old No. 3,” broke down, everything stopped, or cars were propelled by animals or humans.

As the only game in town, the railroad was a big moneymaker. It charged all of 75 cents each way.

It also increased land prices along its length.

A second passenger coach was added to the three freight cars in 1891.

But Flagler came, and ran his line far to the west, and, near Juno, opened a canal into what’s now the Intracoastal Waterway.

That was the death knell for the Celestial.

The railroad had begun service three months after residents of Dade County — it’s now Miami- Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties — moved the county seat from Miami to Juno.

But as the Celestial went, so went Juno. After the stock was sold off and the railbed torn up, leaving the right-of-way to melt into the jungle, the county seat went back to Miami in 1899 and Juno became a ghost town. It would be a half century before a new Juno Beach was founded nearby.

Read more: A History of Juno Beach and Juno, Florida, by Bessie Wilson Dubois.
Loxahatchee River Historical Society: (561) 747-6639.

Readers: The first of our two-parter on the Celestial Railroad, which ran 7-1/2 miles from an oceanfront dock in Jupiter down to Lake Worth, prompted calls from some confused readers. Of course we mean not Lake Worth the city, but rather the lagoon, now the Intracoastal Waterway.

Tags: railroads

Celestial Railroad just a nickname

One of the more interesting features in the early modern history of Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast is the Celestial Railroad.

The 7 ½-mile, narrow gauge line from Jupiter to Lake Worth ran from July 1889 until 1895, when it fell to Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway.

We visited the Celestial the first year of Post Time, in a Nov. 29, 2000, column. But during some recent housekeeping, we found an April 1962 Florida Historical Quarterly article.

Author Nathan D. Shappee said it was the first comprehensive history of the colorful rail line.

Highlights:

It was officially called the Jupiter and Lake Worth Railway, and residents didn’t start using its unusual name until 1894, “when they learned of its lofty nickname from outside visitors” after an 1893 article of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine used it.

It referred to Jupiter and Juno; a stop named Mars was short-lived and Venus never happened.

Guy Metcalf, editor of the Tropical Sun — the area’s first newspaper — “was annoyed by the fascinating name given to the railroad, feeling that it emphasized the frivolous rather than the solid achievements of the Lake Worth region,” Shappee wrote.

Following a cold snap, Metcalf had fun in print, saying the railroad ran “not far from the late office of THE SUN. Not only this, but Mercury even fell there a few weeks ago.”

America’s southernmost rail line was preceded by a road built for ox-pulled wagons called “bull trains.”

It was built for $20,000, by a larger line chasing Flagler down the coast. Huge land grants lay for whoever arrived first. Work stalled, prompting critics to accuse principals of bluffing competitors.

Next week: All aboard!

A photo circa 1890 shows Milton Messer polishing the headlight on Engine No. 2 of the Jupiter and Lake Worth Railroad, known as the Celestial Railroad. The 7 1/2-mile trip went from Jupiter Inlet to Lake Worth. The train had to go backwards on the return trip north because there was no place to turn around. Celestial
fell to Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway. (Palm Beach Post file photo)

Tags: railroads