Les Standiford - Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean

LAST TRAIN

to

PARADISE

Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad That Crossed an Ocean

LES STANDIFORD

Contents

This book is dedicated to the memory of the hundreds of vets who lost their lives during the Labor Day hurricane of 1935, as well as to the hundreds of Keys residentsmen, women, and childrenwho also suffered and died that day.

I would like to express special thanks to Bernard Russell for sharing his memories of the 35 storm so candidly; to Scott Waxman, who envisioned what this book could be; to Robert Mecoy and Emily Loose, who believed in it from the beginning; and to Kimberly, Jeremy, Hannah, and Zander for their boundless support and patience.

Special thanks is also due a number of individuals who lent invaluable support and assistance to this enterprise, most prominent among them: John Blades, director of the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, Dr. Robert Gold, Catherine ONeal, and, especially, Rebecca Callahan.

I am also indebted to Steven Leveen and Dr. Bill Beestig for their close reading and fact-checking of this manuscript.

And the usual inexpressible gratitude goes to James W. Hall and Rhoda Kurzweil, who looked over my shoulder all the way along, correcting, suggesting, and, as always, reminding me of the little blue engine that could.

Praise for

Last Train to Paradise

by Les Standiford

A mesmerizing account of Gilded Age titan Henry Flagler and his extraordinary dream to build a railroad across the sea. Les Standiford has written a detailed and startling history of the man behind the dream, the visionary engineers who insistedagainst all oddsthat it could be done, and the thousands of workers who spilled their blood making the dream into a reality. Henry Flaglers quest to build an overseas railroad from the tip of the Florida mainland to Key West has all the elements of a classic Greek tragedy, and Les Standiford has captured both the man and his times with pitch-perfect grace.

Connie May Fowler, author of Before WomenHad Wings and When Katie Wakes

A brisk, breezy narrative of Flaglers dream... Standiford employs his novelists skills in this rollicking story of robber-barony.

Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

This is a wonderfully told tale, a strange and compelling story about a strange and compelling part of the world. With sharp, evocative reporting, the book captures an era, the Florida landscape, and the very human dream of doing the impossible.

Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief

Absorbing, you-are-there detail... Standiford sticks close to his subjectsFlagler, the railway, the hurricanesand the story goes straight to its destination.

Miami Herald

Engrossing.

Roanoke Times

If Henry Flaglers railroad from Miami to Key West was the eighth wonder of the world, Les Standifords bravura work of nonfiction is a wonder in its own right. The triumph is in the telling of this deeply American story in which a hard-nosed tycoon becomes a hopeless dreamer trapped in a courtship of steel, sky, and water as beautiful as it is doomed. Technology challenges nature to a duel, and the only real winners are the lucky readers of this suspenseful, elegant, breath-taking volume.

Madeleine Blais, author of Uphill Walkers: Portrait of a Family

As mesmerizing and heart-stopping as [Standifords] best fiction... Read as history, biography, or simply high-voltage entertainment, Last Train to Paradise is a flawless marriage of scholarship, historical commentary, and art.

St. Petersburg Times

Last Train to Paradise is an extraordinary achievement. A nonfiction book as exciting and finely written as a first-rate novel, with the narrative drive of a locomotive. Les Standiford has seamlessly interwoven three fascinating stories: the rise and fall of the richest man in America, a chronicle of the most complex engineering project ever, and the story of the most powerful storm ever to blast our coastline. Throw in Ernest Hemingway and some of the most dramatic scenes of the chaos of a hurricane ever written and youve got one hell of a spectacular book.

James Hall, author of Rough Draft and Under Cover of Daylight

Standiford brings to life [a] man and his obsessive project.... Its a story of high drama filled with natures fury, and the resolve of one man to accomplish what others said could not be done.

Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel

Everyone who has ever driven U.S. 1 should read this book, because afterward the ride will never be the same.... Last Train to Paradise is a book full of surprises and insight.

Key West Citizen

A remarkable account of one mans dream that ended in disaster.

Booklist

Beguiling.

Tampa Tribune

The virtues of Standifords book include an ability to make us see both Flagler and his railroad with fresh eyes.... Linking the fearsome power of nature to the power of an American titans wealth and dreams in the age of Manifest Destiny, Standiford forges a tragedy in the classic sense.... We have Standifords narrative gifts, too, in this book to remind us that for great American stories of sweeping vistas, visionary titans, and frontier catastrophe, we dont have to look only to the tales of the West.... Greatness both in achievement and storytelling can be found.

Orlando Sentinel

And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings, Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ah, but a mans reach should exceed his grasp, or whats a heaven for?

Robert Browning

Authors Note

THE GREAT TEXAS WRITER and historian J. Frank Dobie once lamented that most historical research amounts to the carrying of the same old bones from one grave to another. And as I have gone about the research and the writing of this book, I have been mindful of Dobies words every working day. The fact that able explorers have scouted the most promising grave sites in advance can be helpful, of course; but if all the artifacts have been unearthed and duly noted, then it might seem there is little useful work left to do.

Indeed, others have written well and truly of Henry Morrison Flagler and his remarkable life. His part in the creation of Standard Oil has been ably documented, even if many remain unaware that he and John D. Rockefeller were once coequals in that process. And other writers have credited Flaglerthrough the building of the Florida East Coast Railway and the founding of most of the states best-known cities, including Miamiwith the veritable creation of Florida as we know it today.

Even the story told here, of the building of the Key West Extension to Key West, the railroad that crossed the ocean, is not an unknown one, at least in general outline, to Floridians who have lived in the shadows of that great undertaking, known someone who helped in its building, driven by car along the route, or read one or another of the many monographs and newspaper articles and personal accounts connected to it.