It’s Time For Certain People To Stop Spouting Out The Fables, Fallacies and Falsehoods Regarding South Florida History As If They Were True—Which They Are Most Definitely And Most Absolutely Not

By Seth H. Bramson

What has been going on in “this town”–as another of the fables, fairy tales, fol-de-rol and bubbemissehs has just appeared in a book titled something like “Historic Trails of Florida” published by the University Press of Florida regarding “the orange blossom myth” which makes it all the more beyond belief (and, yes, even shameful) for them and the author to be repeating the nonsensical bunch of chazerie (pure, unadulterated garbage)–is all-the-more shameful because the facts and the truth have been brought out by this writer for now a good few years (but I will reference that silliness below) regarding stories about “our” history and the way, shape or manner those bunches of made-up hooey have been bandied about as if they were factual (which they are absolutely, positootly, beyond a dadow of a reason shout anything but. They are neither factual or even remotely true and that, given who the perpetrators of those ridiculous and nonsensical claims and statements are, is, at this point in time, beyond shameful.

OK, Seth, enough of the prosletyzing, get to it! And my answer, of course, is “you shredded wheat!” I am on it, as our late, great talk show host, the inimitable Neil Rogers (Neil, god!) would have said, “like stink on shot.”

So let’s start with the oldest and, indeed, the absolutely and completely and most totally false story.

This one, the old “oh, Julia Tuttle sent Mr. Flagler some orange blossoms so he extended the railroad to Biscayne Bay” story is not only a complete crock but it was debunked as early as 1913 in a beautiful descriptive booklet published by the then-incorporated Village of Coconut Grove, a municipality whose independence was stolen—yes, stolen—in a now-long-sunsetted Florida statute which then allowed any municipality which had more registered voters than a neighboring municipality to call an election, the results of which, if favorable to the larger entity, would allow the big bully to have the smaller neighbor’s charter revoked and then to legally take over and incorporate that entity into the larger place, and with that 1925 “election,” Coconut Grove ceased to exist under its own governance.

At any rate, the 1913 booklet includes this: “The story that, following the great and terrible freezes of December, 1894 and January and February of 1895 a woman in the area which would become Miami sent Mr. Flagler some orange blossoms to prove to him that the region around the shores of Biscayne Bay was untouched by the freezes is a wonderful and romantic story, but is completely untrue.” While these may not be the exact exact words, this is essentially what was written and as the great line goes, “is close enough for government work.”

Without going into the devilish details, Julia Tuttle never, ever, sent Mr. Flagler some orange blossom or anything else, except, simultaneously with Mary and William Brickell’s letter re: the same topic in which they promised Mr. Flagler half of their holdings south of the (Miami) River, her letter promising the great man half of her holdings north of the river plus fifty acres for shops and yards if he would extend the railroad to “the shores of Biscayne Bay,” and build one of his great hotels, both of the letters asking the great man to “come down and see for yourself that the region around the shores of Biscayne Bay was, indeed, untouched by the freezes,” which he did not do.

Instead he sent his now famous in Florida history lieutenants, James Ingraham, his land commissioner, for whom the Ingraham Building in downtown Miami is named, and Joseph R. Parrott, his railroad vice president.

They came down by boat and by buckboard (the railroad ended at West Palm Beach) and when they crossed the freeze line (which wasn’t “a line,” but, rather, was a range of approximately four miles, which I have identified, another story for another issue) they were stunned because everything north of the approximately four mile range was dead and dying, the fruit and truck (produce) falling off the trees and bushes, frozen. But once they got south everything was in bloom and they brought back to Mr. Flagler several boxes of produce and two small citrus tree limbs for him to see. After ascertaining that what they were telling him was factual it was then that he agreed to extend the railroad.

Contracts were drawn up and the railroad, on April 15, 1896, reached what would become Miami on July 28th, 1896, the first train a construction engineer’s train. Then, on April 22nd, the first passenger train arrived. However, while the lands given to Mr. Flagler by Mrs. Tuttle and the Brickells were in the region around the shores of Biscayne Bay, the question must be asked, “but what about further north, between Miami and West Palm Beach?”

The answer is two-fold: first, the state of Florida (as was many other states) gave railroad builders alternate sections of land on either side of the tracks and, of course, and very reasonably, you want to know how large a section is, that answer being 640 acres, but there were still areas on which the railroad wanted to build that were privately owned, so Mr. Ingraham, who was the railroad’s “3rd Vice President and Land Commissioner” told Mr. Flagler that there were some privately-owned parcels that they would need for right-of-way and further inquired as to how he should handle those situations, Mr. Flagler told Mr. Ingraham that he should get those people to donate the right-of-way to the railroad.

Mr. Ingraham, knowledgeable in such matters, then asked Mr. Flagler what he was to do if the party in question agreed to donate the necessary tract but only if the railroad would built a station on that person’s former property, to which Mr. Flagler then replied, “Absolutely. Tell them that we will be happy to build them a station,” and then he quietly added, “off the record,” so to speak, “yes, we will build them a station but we won’t stop any trains there!”

That will conclude for the moment, this true tale, but, next time we will tear apart the nonsense spouted by an individual walking around claiming that such-and-such a house was “Al Capone’s hideaway,” pure, total, complete and absolute horse feathers.

See you soon. Be well, all, and stay safe.

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