USA > Florida > Florida, 1513-1913, past and future; four hundred years of wars and peace and industrial development > Part 24
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The Pensacola, Alabama & Tennessee Railroad, completed to Mobile, has here a dock 1,250 feet long, and a branch dock 800 feet long, both equipped with railroad tracks, from which loaded cars may transfer their freight direct to deep-draft vessels.
STEAMSHIP LINES -
The steamship lines touching regularly at Pensacola are:
The Gulf Transit Company, operating four lines to Liverpool, Bremen, Havre and Genoa, respectively.
The South Atlantic Steamship Company, to Liverpool.
The Vogeman Line to Holland, France, Spain and Mediterranean points.
The Gans and Leyland lines, to Liverpool.
There are also two coastwise lines to New Orleans, Mobile and other points, and a number of river steamers making regular trips to the smaller places.
The City of Pensacola has voted bonds for municipal docks, ware- houses, storage yards and a marginal or belt railway.
TRANSPORTATION RATES
The ethics of the principle that the cost of transporting freight increases with the distance, must be admitted. Accordingly, for economic advantage, industries should be located so as to require the minimum haul on materials used in manufacturing and on the manu- factured articles to reach the consumer. It may happen, however, that raw material or manufactured product may be transported a longer distance by a certain character of carrier at the same cost than by another. In this respect seaports should have the advantage over interior manufacturing towns, because water furnishes a cheaper means of transportation than rail.
Therefore, Pensacola's first advantage lies in the fact that it is a seaport, and as a port it is one of the best in the United States.
Its second advantage lies in the location with regard to the Panama
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canal. From the center of population in the United States to the Panama canal by Pensacola is a shorter rail and water distance than by any other seaport.
Its third advantage, in rates, is the proximity of certain articles used in manufacturing, which are known as raw materials.
A fourth advantage is that Pensacola has a certain trade terri- tory more tributary to it than to any other manufacturing point. Of course, to be added to this is the foreign market which is reached most economically from and through Pensacola.
AGRICULTURAL POSSIBILITIES
In Escambia county, of which Pensacola is the capital, there is room for an agricultural population of a quarter of a million peo- ple. There are fourteen varieties of soil and each is suitable for some class of agriculture. The county has an area of 680 square miles, or 435,000 acres, only 448 of which are marsh. The county is fifty miles long, north and south, and varies in width from eight to twenty-five miles. The southern part of the county is level and has an elevation of one hundred feet above sea level. Begin- ning thirty miles north from the gulf, the surface is undulating.
Well water is found at a depth of twenty to fifty feet, and artesian wells have been secured in a number of localities at a depth of one thousand feet. Artesian water in this vicinity is soft, analyzes pure and there is no superior water for domestic uses and for stock.
POPULATION AND CLIMATE
The population of the county is about 42 percent colored. Soil, climate and transportation facilities through the county are fully equal to those of any other section along the Gulf coast, where agricultural industries have been proved profitable and successful. Cattle, hogs, vegetables, sugar cane, and sweet potatoes have been the principal products. Peaches, grapes, peas, pecans, cotton, sheep and goats and scuppernong grapes have been grown with success. It has been demonstrated that some crop can be grown on nearly every variety of soil that is found in the county. The opportunity is practically unlimited for the successful growing of early and late truck crops for the northern markets.
The value of wild lands varies from $5 to $10 an acre, and improved
ONE OF PENSACOLA'S BEAUTIFUL RESIDENCES
A BAY SHORE RESIDENCE
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lands are worth from $25 to $100 an acre, according to location and improvements.
According to the latest Biennial Report of the State Depart- ment of Agriculture, Escambia county had under cultivation 11,444 acres, producing forty-two agricultural crops, with a value of $417,- 306, or an average of $36.50 an acre. The valuation of live stock and poultry was $486,392.
The Department of Commerce and Labor, in a recent statement, has the following to say regarding Florida lands: "Every county has some fine lands and every county has some poor lands. It is difficult, however, to tell what is 'poor land.' A short time ago, lands now producing immense crops of Irish potatoes, were considered worthless. A short time ago lands now producing a half-ton of pine- apples to the acre, were considered worthless sand dunes. Florida lands which were considered worthless by one set of people and would sell for 50 cents an acre, became in the hands of others worth from $50 to $75 an acre."
Vol. I-32
CHAPTER XXIV MIAMI
I T IS difficult to write of a city or a section of which a description today does a woful injustice to its tomor- row,-a town whose development from the wilderness period of its existence to that of an incorporated city, skipping entirely the village stage, occupied less than four months-a place that calls itself "The Magic City" without exciting the envious comments of its rivals. That such a city can and does exist in the tropical portion of Florida will give the world a new conception of the energy that is building up the most southern of all the states. It will emphasize the fact that higher tem- peratures do not dull the edge of thrift nor reduce physical and mental activities.
Miami, four hundred miles from the northern boundary of Florida, lies among the palms and sub-tropical surroundings that border Bis- cayne Bay, where the Miami river-the Indian name for "Sweetwater" -joins it. It is the southernmost county seat on the mainland of the United States. No other city of its size or commercial importance is nearer than a day's ride by rail, for Jacksonville, three hundred and sixty-six miles to the north, is reached by a journey of more than twelve hours, and Key West, one hundred and fifty-six miles to the south, is reached over the bridges and islands of the East Coast Railway Extension, where fast time is not expected. Across the waters of the Gulf Stream, Nassau is one hundred and forty-five miles away, and Havana lies ninety miles beyond Key West. Hence, this city is the natural base of supplies and a shipping depot for a vast extent of territory whose resources are being developed with marvellous rapidity.
THE BUILDING OF MIAMI
The city of Miami never fails to surprise the visitor. Great cities have been built in the west during the last half century, which have been marvels and models of municipal structure; but even the men of the west who have had part in building these centers of population,
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compliment Miami by placing it in the same class. From the begin- ning its residences and public buildings have been erected with a view to permanency. The Florida East Coast Railway reached the point where Miami stands today in April, 1896, and that date is the begin- ning of the modern city. At that time the settlement consisted of two stores, one on each side of the Miami river at its mouth. That on the north side of the stream was kept by J. W. Ewan, who was also the postmaster, and who is an honored citizen of Miami today. The store on the south side of the river was kept by William B. Brickell.
When the railroad reached Miami it was regarded as the terminus of the road, and it was not until Mr. Flagler's conception of a road across the sea to Key West became a reality, that the territory to the south was made tributary to this center. Mr. Flagler himself realiz- ing the beauty and the advantages of this place erected here the Royal Palm, one of the palatial hotels of the East Coast system.
FORT DALLAS
In Fort Dallas Park, adjoining the Royal Palm Hotel, are the two oldest buildings in Miami, known as the "Seminole Club" and "Old Fort Dallas." Built in 1834 as a manor house and slave quar- ters, respectively, these quaint stone structures were abandoned by their owner on account of Indian hostilities, and the soldiers who came to hold the passage of the river appropriated the place for defensive purposes. Several skirmishes took place with the Indians, including the massacre of Capt. S. T. Russell's company. The occupation of the post served to prevent the filibustering Cubans from supplying the Indians with ammunition, and later, on account of the remarkable healthfulness of the site, Fort Dallas was used as a gen- eral hospital for the fever-wracked soldiers from the north Florida posts. The oldest of the cocoanut palms along the river front were planted by the soldiers and are at least eighty years old. Gen. Wil- liam T. Sherman, upon his graduation from West Point, served his first commission as commandant of Fort Dallas, having his head- quarters in the "Seminole Club" building.
In the early days of Miami the old barracks served as courthouse, jail, postoffice, trading post, church and school, the events of those pioneer days adding much to its historical import. Both buildings have been improved and repaired until only the walls themselves have any antiquity.
LOOKING INTO THE EVERGLADES FROM MIAMI
GRAPEFRUIT GROVE NEAR MIAMI
A SUNRISE ON BISCAYNE BAY
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BRICKELL'S POINT AT MIAMI
A MIAMI RESIDENCE
A RESIDENCE STREET, MIAMI
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BOARD OF TRADE, MIAMI
HATT
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CENTRAL SCHOOL BUILDING, MIAMI
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COMMERCIAL IMPORTANCE
The climate and location of this city on Biscayne Bay immediately commended it as an ideal winter resort, and this was the beginning of Miami's commercial importance. But as tourists and visitors arrived and looked about them, they realized the importance of its industrial possibilities. They bought lands and built homes. They began the cultivation of crops which have made the section famous. Miami is below the line of killing frosts, yet the heat of summer is tempered by the ocean breezes that sweep across Biscayne Bay.
To create a city from the tropical wilderness in fifteen or sixteen years may well be counted a remarkable performance. The census of 1910 gave it a population of 5,500, and although only three and a half years have passed since that enumeration, Miami has now at least fourteen thousand bona fide residents. Its winter population is increased by twenty-five thousand or more visitors who remain from three to six months.
It is a city that owns beautiful administration buildings and public parks. It has a well equipped fire department. It is provided with electric lighting, gas, splendid water and telephone services. A few figures emphasize its commercial importance.
The first bank was opened in 1896, the birth year of this city. Now there are six banks with aggregate deposits exceeding three million dollars. Another bank will be in operation by the beginning of the year 1914. The receipts of the postoffice were six thousand, one hundred dollars in 1901. They were forty thousand dollars ten years later. The Federal Government, seeing the necessity, has erected a Postoffice and Custom-House building at an expense of one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars.
MIAMI'S HARBOR
When the city was young, the ocean was reached from its wharves through a channel of about twelve feet in depth. Its tonnage was eight thousand four hundred tons in 1902. Eight years later this tonnage had increased to half a million, valued at thirteen million dollars.
The tonnage statistics for 1912, as compiled by the Miami Board of Trade, were as follows: Rail tons, 482,598; valuation, $10,618,730. Water tons, 148,862; valuation, $3,850,523. Total tons, 631,460; valuation, $14,469,253. Owing to the shoaling of the harbor, traffic
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was greatly impeded during this year, and the merchants deferred shipments until late in the season when deepened water would facili- tate transportation, thus throwing much of the data into the statistics of the following year.
Government appropriation is dredging a deeper waterway to the Atlantic, and when this shall have been completed Miami will be the most important port of entrance and clearance on the mainland of Florida, south of Jacksonville. Miami looks forward to great impor- tance as a deep water port. Harbor improvements involving the expenditure of a million and a half dollars, will give a channel of eighteen feet to the ocean. Following that, twenty-five feet of depth is already planned for. With a harbor of this capacity there seems to be no reason why, with its excellent rail shipping facilities, the opening of the Panama canal will not add immensely to its importance.
EVERGLADES DEVELOPMENT
In the development of the Everglades, Miami has been and is to be benefited enormously. For this city is the headquarters for mar- keting immense tracts of land that have been redeemed and are still to be redeemed from the great wilderness of sawgrass. One of the principal canals which will drain Lake Okeechobee reaches sea level at this place. This canal already provides transportation for large sections of rich land already under cultivation, which lie between the east coast and the Everglades proper. In the years to come, when this vast area shall have been turned over to the farmer and the truck grower, Miami's importance as a shipping point will be vastly increased.
Miami is located on the line of the great Inland Waterway, which reaches from Norfolk to Key West and for whose extension to the New England states large interests are working. This waterway, already in use for transportation of freight, will be made vastly more useful with the increasing importance and development of the terri- tory tributary to it. It is already a practicable route for light draft launches and yachts which navigate these waters in large numbers each season.
TROPICAL VEGETATION
It became apparent even to the pioneer settlers, that the section surrounding this town was almost ideally tropical in its climatic condi- tions and in the character of its soils. Tropical fruits grew wild in
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great abundance and, foreseeing the advantages of an experiment station here, the Department of Agriculture established propagating gardens and a laboratory. Under the direction of experts, the grow- ing and development of a large variety of tropical fruits were under- taken, and soon Miami became a center which has enriched the farms and groves of southern Florida and largely increased the business of the city.
The pineapple crop shipped from this vicinity exceeds half a million crates annually. Some of the largest grapefruit groves in the world are located near this city. Fruits and vegetables mature here in early winter and are the first in the northern markets.
To list the products which reach their greatest perfection here would be tiresome. It is enough to say that it includes nearly one hundred varieties of fruits and vegetables. It includes nearly all of the products that are grown in the northern half of the United States, and there is nothing that grows on the islands of the southern seas that is not produced here.
It is but fair to Miami and to the country which surrounds it, to call attention to the fact that, so far as is known, Dade county, of which Miami is the county seat, is the only section of equal area in the United States in which all these tropical fruits may be grown on a commercial scale, and it seems at present impossible to secure an overproduction. Among these tropical fruits, two of the most prom- ising are the avocado and the mango. The recent and rather sudden growth in the popularity of the avocado and the high prices which it brings in local and northern markets, promise to make it more profit- able even than grapefruit.
The mango, which is less known, has wonderful possibilities. Its cultivation has been undertaken on a scale which will soon make pos- sible its introduction in large quantities in outside markets. Grape- fruit groves are being increased rapidly in number and acreage, and a corresponding increase in the business of the city is noticed.
It would be impossible to name and describe in the limits available, the resources of the soil which, when developed, will add to the com- mercial, industrial and agricultural importance of this center.
MIAMI'S WATER SUPERB
Lying on an elongated peninsula parallel and directly opposite the "Magic City," fronting on the Atlantic, with the beautiful tropical Vol. 1-33
BAR
ENHUGHES
VARIE
STORE
SOLD
ARCADE
* BAKERY IND
ECTIONER
MIAMI UPON THE OCCASION OF THE 15TH ANNIVERSARY, JULY, 1911 This parade was two miles long; estimated population at the time, 10,000
HARVESTING IRISH POTATOES ON A MIAMI FARM
BUSINESS STREET, MIAMI
A PRIVATE CANAL INTO THE EVERGLADES, NEAR MIAMI
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Bay of Biscayne stretching along its western shore, Miami Beach possesses unrivalled charm as a year-around residence place.
The warm waters of the Gulf Stream tempering the winds of winter, and the cool ocean breezes moderating the heat of summer, give Miami Beach one of the most equable climates in the United States. Cocoanut palms of immense growth, tropical trees and ver- dure beautify and shade the entire tract, which is traversed by Indian Creek from Indian Lake, an inland body of water, to the bay shore. It is in the heart of this property that the Miami Beach Avocado Orchard covering two hundred acres has been located.
Thousands of dollars are being expended in improvement work on Miami's ocean front properties. The famous Collins bridge, two and a half miles long and spanning Biscayne Bay at a picturesque point, furnishes easy access from the city. Electricity, a water system, sewerage, paved streets, cement sidewalks, dancing and bathing pavil- ions, a swimming pool, a hardrock road for automobiling, canoeing on Indian Lake, fishing and boating on the bay, afford attractions unpossessed by the recreation parks of many a larger city north and south.
It is but natural that such a wealth of scenic beauty, of enticing climate and bracing air should attract not only the transient visitor but the permanent resident. Scattered through the groves of palm that extend north, south and west of Miami, are the homes of men of wealth and refinement who have built here where they may enjoy the rich gifts that Nature has provided. Beautiful bungalows and more pretentious mansions are set in gardens and groves of from five to fifty acres, and the highest skill of the landscape architect has been employed to enhance their loveliness.
However brilliant her past, the future of this city on Biscayne Bay has much of brilliant promise.
CHAPTER XXV PALATKA AND PUTNAM COUNTY BY H. A. B. M'KENZIE
P UTNAM COUNTY, FLORIDA, lies between the parallels of twenty-nine and thirty degrees, north latitude. It is bounded on the west by the eighty- second degree of longitude west from Greenwich, which places it in the center of the northern portion of the state. It contains seven hundred and seventy- two square miles of territory. It is divided by the St. Johns river which gives it more than one hundred miles of river frontage. The county is traversed by several hundred miles of other navigable streams tributary to the St. Johns, and one of these is the picturesque and romantic Ocklawaha river, over which a number of freight and passenger boats are operated. The Ocklawaha has been made famous in prose and song by writers and tourists who have had the pleasure of the rather remarkable journey over its placid waters overhung with great trees that are draped with the somber Spanish moss.
Putnam county contains a large portion of that part of Florida formerly known as Fruitland, in which was originally discovered more than a half of the entire wild orange acreage of the state. Its soil is admirably adapted to the fruits of a semi-tropical climate, to Irish potatoes, table vegetables, and small fruits which are grown in large quantities. This county produced in 1912 more than half a million boxes of oranges and grapefruit, or quite one-sixteenth of the entire crop of the state.
The county was organized as one of the units of the state govern- ment in the year 1847. It was named for one of the leading citizens of that day and time, Israel Putnam, who afterward became judge of the circuit court.
FOREST WEALTH
The interior of the county is largely covered with yellow pine forests, but it produces also great quantities of hard woods, oak, ash, maple, hickory, gum and magnolia. The last named timber grows
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profusely and reaches an enormous size. It is a vison of loveliness when in bloom and mingles its perfumes with that of the jasmine and orange, lading the air with an almost overpowering fragrance.
The largest camphor grove in the United States is located in Putnam county. More than four hundred acres of these beautiful trees are under a hight state of cultivation, some of them full grown and ready for harvest, and others in every stage from the sprout just showing through the earth in the nursery to the full grown tree. The camphor industry is most promising in this location and it has already been established as a commercial success.
A navigable stream which traverses the county, Dunns creek, leads to Crescent City, also within the limits of the county, and this is an important shipping point. It is located in the original Fruit- land district, the home of Florida citrus fruits. The fruits shipped from this point in the 1911-12 fruit year, yielded their owners more than two million dollars.
PALATKA, THE GEM CITY
The city of Palatka, the county seat of Putnam county, has been called the Gem City of Florida. It lies fifty-five miles south of Jacksonville by rail connection, it is twenty miles from the Atlantic coast of the state and by hard-surfaced road it is about thirty miles from historic St. Augustine. It is on the west bank of the St. Johns river, which with its mile width separates it from East Palatka. The two towns are connected by a railroad bridge and by the only highway bridge that spans this mighty stream. It affords a broad passage way for vehicles and pedestrians and is cut by a stecl draw, admitting the passage of river steamboats and ocean vessels, plying their way between Jacksonville and points on the river "up south," as the inhabitants describe it, for it must be recalled that the St. Johns river flows north from its source, the only navigable stream under the jurisdiction of the United States Government that takes this course.
EARLIEST HISTORY
The earliest published history of Palatka is found in Bertram's Travels, the notes of an English writer, who navigated the St. Johns in 1756. He declares that in those early days, when the Indians held sway, this beautiful expanse of water was known as the "Welaka," or "chain of lakes," a most appropriate name, for this stream has
MAGNOLIA BUD
MAGNOLIA BLOOM
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but a slight and hardly appreciable current, and its width is divided by headlands into a series of lakes from two or three to a dozen miles across.
In those early days the settlement was called Pilatka, meaning in the Seminole tongue, the "crossing over," or as some authorities assert, the "cow crossing," for it is well known that in those days the river could be forded or cattle could be made to swim across it. It is also a matter of record that the swamps bordering the river were at this point divided by high ground on both sides of the stream, making the approach to it easy and safe. The name changed to Palatka in the seventies, on petition of citizens to the postoffice depart- ment, because of confusion caused by the spelling and pronunciation of the word, and here was lost its association with the musical tongue of the Seminoles.
The earliest white settler in the town of Pilatka was James Mar- ver, who with his companions, Hines and Woodruff, came in 1820, a year after Florida was deeded to the United States by Spain. They purchased certain Spanish grants and established a trading post on the river front, where they transacted a large business with the In- dians who came here in large numbers for supplies and to barter their hunting spoils, and to hold periodically their canoe races on the river at this point.
This trading post was located where now stands the station of the Florida East Coast Railway. Later these lands and the post passed to the possession of Belton C. Copp, a young army officer, and from him to Dr. Nehemiah Brush, who with his two nephews, Thomas and William Brush, conducted the business and maintained the trade with the Indians until the breaking out of hostilities which became the Seminole war. Pilatka was attacked by a band of red men late in 1835, and the store and post were burned. The Federal Government recognizing the serious situation, established about 1837, a military station here, under command of General Worth, and for several years the place was entirely military in its appearance and under military control. A large hospital and military stable with quarters for more than four hundred horses, occupied prominent locations in the town where now are handsome residences and the famous resort hotel, the Putnam House. During the years of mili- tary occupation, the post was commanded at different times by General Winfield Scott, General Gaines, General Taylor and by William T. Sherman, then a lieutenant.
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