Henry VIII, king of England (1509-47) who presided over the start of the English Renaissance and the English Reformation. In turn, businesses cannot make enough money. She was a collector, her son Lloyd Smith said, and she lived to be 101. Despite (or perhaps because of) the tragic death of the mother of his children, Henry Flagler poured himself into the business of Standard Oil. Enamoured by what Henry Flagler had been up to down south, droves of rich tourists made that harrowing journey to St. Augustine. In 1904, Henry Flagler announced he would build a railroad from Miami to Key West. Last (and perhaps most importantly), the truth is a hard thing to garner when it comes to what happened in the past even harder than it is today. (2022) "Historical Person Profile: Henry Flagler." July, 1975. pg. [citation needed]. Flagler renamed it the Hotel Cordova, after the street that it was on. William R. Kenan Jr. and her sisters Jessie Kenan Wise and Sarah Graham Kenan and niece Louise Wise, were all recipients of her wills largess. Henry Flagler | American Experience | Official Site | PBS Pictures of him show a large man with a long, flowing mustache. From 1885 to 1913, Standard Oil founder Henry Flagler built an empire in Florida of railroads, hotels, steamship . Those first two seasons during which Flagler hosted an innumerable amount of parties, electric light displays, and opulent dinners (all of which were accompanied by music from the best musicians of the time) were met with eager approval by guests and the press. ", Flagler quickly made his first $50,000. he said. Flagler died in May 20th, 1913 after a brief illness. On the condition that Anderson get the city's streets paved, Henry Flagler agreed to buy a portion of that land. Chicago: VisitStAugustine.com. He persuaded them to keep the old Indian name, "Miami." In 1905, he began constructing what would be called, "Flagler's Folly," a railroad that would . Death Date: May 20, 1913 Place of Birth: Hopewell, New York, United States Nationality: American Gender: Male Occupations: grain merchant, industrialist, land developer Henry Flagler (1830-1913) was a self-made millionaire and industrialist who co-founded the Standard Oil Company. Chandler, David Leon. Keys, L. (2015) Hotel Ponce de Leon: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Flagler's Gilded Age Palace. In 1929 the Mediterranean fruit fly invaded Florida. So was the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Though Henry Flagler didn't join in on the war, it certainly affected his career choices. Wealthy Americans and those who wanted to be near them flocked to Miami Beach during the 1920's and 30's. Flagler's second trip to Florida, with second wife Ida Alice Shourds, convinced him to pour his oil fortune into the state's development. However, many other officials were wary of Henry Flagler. On September 16, 1928, a great storm struck Palm Beach County, equal to a Category 4 hurricane. It was discovered in 1513 by a Spanish explorer named Henry Flagler . His half-sisters Mary Esther (16 y/o in 1830), Jane Augusta (14), and Caroline (3.5) were the daughters of his father's first two wives. He was an American financier. It was a time when a persons wealth and success were measured by what he or she owned, and the economy was prospering. Buyers would put a binder on the contract to buy the land. Bostonian Franklin W. Smith had recently built his winter home, the Villa Zorayda, which caught Flagler's eye almost immediately. She was his third wife. Housing costs went up in Florida. Henry M. Flagler | Railroad Tycoon, Oil Baron, Philanthropist this was an . Price: 5 cents. After that, Flagler's fortune skyrocketed, and he went on a spending spree. They had to wear hose under their bathing suits. It seems that if too many limits had been placed on Henry Flagler's projects, St. Augustine would not be the city we know today. So much land was being bought in the 1920s that this period was called the Florida Land Boom. Her husband, Henry Morrison Flagler, was fifty-one years old. Bingham went on to be an ambassador to England in the 1930s, and parlayed Mary Lilys money into a newspaper empire. The 1920s were called the Roaring 20s. The Alcazar Hotel and Casa Monica Hotel have their own fascinating histories. According to the article, who was Old Jumbo. Henry Morrison Flagler. Despite her frail health, though, she was the only one of Henry Flagler's three wives to bear him any children. Citrus production was cut by about sixty percent. [1] Mary Lilys legacy of giving to UNC was enhanced by the actions of her brother William and her sister Sarah, who both donated generously to UNC after they inherited millions from their sister. Henry Flagler - Biography - SwiftPapers This was the beginning of the Standard Oil company, which would catapult both men into unimaginable levels of wealth. Harry Harkness Flagler - Wikipedia When his elder brother, Arthur, died in 1502, Henry became the heir to the throne. He was connected with government officials and industry elites. Born in Hopewell, New York, on January 2, 1830, Flagler left school at 14 to seek his fortune in Bellevue, Ohio. Whatever the case may be, Flagler focused on his family and his fortune during the years of 1861 to 1865. By building hotels in St. Augustine, Palm Beach and Miami, he made it fashionable for rich northerners to bask in the warmth of Florida during the winter. "Henry M. Flagler Has Passed," the headline reads, and "Deep sorrow was caused in St. Augustine as well as throughout Florida and the United States by the news.". According to Florida historian Thomas Graham in his book The Awakening of St. Augustine, an acquaintance of the businessman once inquired about whether his judgment was sound when he decided to invest in Florida (one can imagine that they may not have been acquaintances for very long afterward). However, a great cloud of bad luck was soon to fall over the Flagler family. Harkness employee when he gave up grain for oil. VisitStAugustine.com. [13] The shock of Mary Lilys death seems to have quickly turned to suspicion about how she died. He graduated from Columbia University in 1897. The His, Congratulations and sincere thanks to the Young Fr, Celebrating Juneteenth: Honoring Freedom and Resil, The Historical Society of Palm Beach County ends i, HSPBC Meets The Pink Retreat Even when a draft was issued in 1862, requiring American men 18 to 45 to join the service, Henry Flagler did not join the military. Because Henry Flagler had not yet claimed Florida as his own, Savannah, Georgia was considered to be the last bastion of civilization on the East Coast. Many people were curious about Henry Flagler's decision to launch a new business venture during his twilight years. She and her family were given expensive gifts by Henry Flagler in celebration. Flagler designed a city across Lake Worth to be the commercial and residential area to support the resort. Just as Flagler had built fancy hotels, so did Plant. According to a 1903 newspaper account, Alligator Joe had hundreds of alligators and crocodiles, and the farm was only about a mile from Royal Poinciana grounds on [the] cycle path. Anyone desiring to walk or take a wheelchair ride could break up their trip with a stop at Joes to visit the reptiles and the occasional manatee. Flagler now planned a railroad that would reach from Miami to Key West, spanning seven miles of open water. Articles about Flagler appeared on the front page of The St. Augustine Evening Record from the day he died until his funeral at . He was born in Cleveland, Ohio on December 2, 1870, to Henry Morrison Flagler, a founder of Standard Oil and Mary Harkness Flagler. This conflict created a breach between father and son that lasted until Henry Flagler was on his deathbed. Historical Society of Central Florida's honors Judge Belvin Perry Jr. One of Flagler's other St. Augustine Hotels, the Casa Monica, was originally built by Franklin W. Smith, who built the Villa Zorayda. In October 1929, the United States went into the Great Depression when the stock market crashed. When son Harry Harkness Flagler was born in December of 1870, Mary's frail health was greatly weakened by giving birth. In fact, Henry Flagler was so pleased with his Florida projects that he began the construction of a second hotel, just across the street from the Ponce de Leon. Just five years later, it reached 1,263,540. Here is a list of Flagler's hotels (that he either purchased or built) along Florida's east coast: To learn more about Henry Flagler's East Coast Railway, consult the 'Works Referenced' section at the end of this Historical Person profile. if ( 'querySelector' in document && 'addEventListener' in window ) { The project was started in 1905 and completed in early 1912. It is now the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum, visited by almost 100,000 people a year. Flagler followed the success of the Ponce de Leon, which opened in 1888, with the 1,150-room Royal Poinciana Hotel in Palm Beach, establishing Palm Beach as a vacation spot for wealthy Northerners. The land prices stopped going up, so many of the speculators could not sell their property. . Its construction was one of the greatest engineering feats of the present age, as it is built almost entirely over water," according to the article. Little more than a year later, Flagler fell down a flight of stairs at the Whitehall and never recovered from his injuries, dying on May 20, 1913 at age 83. In 1885 he began work on the Ponce de Leon Hotel in St. Augustine. In 1852 Flagler and his half-brother, Dan Harkness, established D.M. Craze became frenzy when Mary Lily Kenan and Henry Flagler married on August 24th, 1901. Mary Lily Kenan Flagler Bingham - Wikipedia Volume 86, Number 514, 1893. Finally, Dan Harkness (7 perhaps Henry's favorite sibling), was Henry's mother's son from her first husband. (To get a first-hand account of the journey from New York to St. Augustine, visit our page on Constance Fenimore Woolson's article "The Ancient City In Two Parts," which was published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine in 1874.). ", It wasn't long until Flagler gained a reputation as "one of the best salesmen in the country." "I said, 'Well, that's Mr. He masterminded the plan that transformed Standard Oil into the most successful monopoly of the nineteenth century. The Hist, The Historical Society of Palm Beach County cordia, Judge James R. Knott Historical Contribution Award. Unfortunately, his alligator wrestling did not prove to be a good way to keep in shape. Then, just a few months before the end of the Ponce de Leon Hotel's second season, Jennie Louise Flagler Benedict died from complications of childbirth. What are some events that led to the 1920s Florida Land Bust? Important Figures in Florida's History | Study.com Henry Flagler died at age 83, on May 20, 1913, as a result of injuries he sustained in a fall at Palm Beach's Whitehall, the 55-room mansion he built as a wedding gift for his third wife. St. Augustine, FL: The St. Augustine Historical Society. } The swamplands south of Savannah were thought of as a dangerous land of rugged enchantment where alligators lurked in the shadows and strange miasme was thought to carry diseases like yellow fever through the damp air. She was 34, but it wasn't only the age gap that scandalized the nation. asylum a place for people who are mentally ill, like Flagler's second wife narrow-gauge railroad type of railroad that ran from Jacksonville to St. Augustine that was not up to Flagler's standards estate the money and property that Flagler owned when he died Ocean Railroad This is somewhat my case. With $50,000 capital, Flagler made an unsuccessful attempt to manufacture salt in Michigan. That same year, Miami was incorporated, and residents rallied to rename the city Flagler. His attention was consumed by the business of his hotel chains and expanding railroad empire. Here he went to work in a county store at the salary of five dollars a month. In addition to these problems, several natural disasters hurt Floridas economy, and the state went into a depression. Early visitors to Palm Beach had many activities to choose from while enjoying Floridas mild winters. Mary Lily outlived her first husband, Henry Flagler, inherited his huge fortune, married again three years later, and died under suspicious circumstances at age fifty. After his visit, he decided to buy land in Palm Beach and construct a winter resort for wealthy tourists on the island. By the mid-1860s, Cleveland, Ohio, had become the center of America's oil-refining industry. Henry Morrison Flagler first came to Florida from New York in 1878. Graham, Thomas. Indeed, Flagler's second sojourn to St. Augustine went off without a hitch the recently constructed San Marco hotel accommodated him and Ida Alice well, and he found himself to be amongst peers instead of invalids. In 1913, Henry Flagler passed away after breaking his hip falling down a staircase at Whitehall. A binder was a non-refundable down payment for the land.