A Special Moment In Time: Debunking The Orange Blossom Myth Part II

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By Seth H. Bramson

As was noted in this column last week, the Mother of Miami, Julia Tuttle, had implored Henry Bradley Plant, he the famed developer of central and west coast Florida, to extend his railroad across the then-trackless Everglades almost 160 miles to a tiny settlement on the lower southeast coast of the state. Plant, courteously demurring through Tuttle’s first seven letters, would, upon receipt of her eighth, state with no small amount of brusqueness that he had no intention of extending his railroad to satisfy her ego and further advised her that she was not to communicate with him again.

Julia was not the least bit deterred, for, as also noted last week, she was very well aware that her—and the area’s—salvation lay a scant 65 miles north, for the railroad had reached West Palm Beach several years earlier and Henry Flagler had already built two of his grand resort hotels on the island across Lake Worth from West Palm Beach. She began writing Mr. Flagler and with each missive he would explain that there was nowhere near the commerce that would be required to support the expenditure required to extend the railroad through shrub palmetto and over sand dunes 65 miles to the small settlement that she believed would someday become a great city. In fact, at one point, one of Flagler’s associates inquired as to why he did not terminate the correspondence in finality.

Flagler’s response was enlightening: “My dear friend,” he said, “that woman is the daughter of old friends—the Sturtevant’s—from Cleveland, and I would never be rude to the daughter of old friends.

Fortunately, for Julia, time—and the vagaries of weather—were on her side.

In December of 1894 and January and February of 1895, the worst freezes ever to hit Florida destroyed the crops down to the middle of Dade County. But what our readers must remember is that the Dade County of that era was not the Dade County of today: it was huge, stretching from north of Stuart (today’s Martin County) all the way south to what remains today the Miami—Dade/Monroe County line, no more than a mile or so above land’s end at the bottom of the Florida peninsula.

The freeze line, incredibly, was like an iron curtain: everything north of the line was dead or dying, the citrus and produce turning black while everything south of the line was alive and growing. It was almost as if an iron curtain had dropped to divide the freeze line from the productive region. As Greater Miami’s senior collector of FEC Railway, Florida transportation memorabilia, Miami memorabilia and Floridiana (it is now 52+ years since I walked into the FEC ticket office in downtown Miami and asked for timetables) I have spent an inordinate amount of time studying that phenomenon and it now appears that the freeze line (“in the middle of Dade County”) appears to have been somewhere between Northeast—Northwest 163rd Street and today’s Dade—Broward line. In any case, the region south of the line was untouched by the freezes.

Mrs. Tuttle knew that her moment had come and in early February of ’95 she cabled Mr. Flagler: “Region around shores of Biscayne Bay untouched by freezes. Please come and see.” But, contrary to what you may have been erroneously (by those who give tours, perhaps, and who know so little) told, he did not. Rather, he sent his two now-famous in Florida history lieutenants, James E. Ingraham, his land commissioner, and Joseph R. Parrott, his railroad vice president. Suffice to say, they were stunned by what they saw.

Gathering up fruit and truck (produce) and filling boxes with the harvest, they also cut off two citrus tree limbs (the historical chronicles do not tell us if those limbs were grapefruit, tangerine, orange, lemon or lime), wrapped them in wet cotton, loaded it all back on the buckboard, proceeded to the boat awaiting them at Lemon City, and set off for Palm Beach, where Mr. Flagler greeted them.

Upon their arrival, he was stunned. He looked at them both incredulously, and said, “Are you sure? Are you certain? If she was not telling the truth I will never communicate with her again.” And they responded with these words: “Mr. Flagler, you sent us down there to report. This is our report. It is like nothing we have ever seen. Everything north of the freeze line was dying or dead and everything south of it, in the region around the shores of Biscayne Bay, was verdant and lush and green. She has told us the truth.”

Mr. Flagler immediately wired Mrs. Tuttle, and the famous telegram contained these words: “Madam: What is it that you propose?”

The rest, of course, did lead to the beginnings of the Magic City, and of that, more next time.

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