Announcer:
The following program
is a production
of WLRN Public Television.
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narrator:
Sailing from Key West in 1870,
Henry Lomb and his son, Charles,
saw coconut palms swaying
on what is now Miami Beach.
They bought land from
the federal government
for 25 cents an acre and built
the beach's first home.
Paul George:
It was a barrier peninsula,
not even an island.
Not until the early 1920's
when the cut was made at
Bakers Haulover.
It had tall mangroves
on the bay side.
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The interior was concave, and
it collected a lot of water.
There were
mangroves in the interior.
It's a swamp.
And the oceanside is
a wind swept beach.
And it made it a lot of work
to make it what it became.
narrator:
The beach itself
was almost deserted,
a place where early Miamians
could enjoy the Atlantic ocean.
Paul:
Their ferry boat service came
off of today's Flagler street
on the bay front.
And it would take
you right over here.
And you would disembark on
this ferry boat on the bay side
southern tip.
And you'd walk across this wood
frame ramp through a jungle
over to the ocean side.
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narrator:
The Lombs tried
to farm coconuts,
but the plantation failed
when wind and rats
destroyed the young trees.
Paul:
So it was kind of a
forlorn God forsaken experiment.
narrator:
A New Jersey pioneer named John
Collins bought the property.
He had a better idea
than coconuts
and planted exotic produce like
mangos, tomatoes and avocados.
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narrator:
Collins set about taming
the swamp,
clearing its mangroves
and its rats.
Paul:
He planted an
avocado orchard
that straddle today's
Arthur Godfrey Road.
He plaed these
Australian pine trees.
They're very fast growing.
They're very shallow
rooted as wind blocks.
Many of those trees, in fact,
are on Pine Tree Drive today.
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narrator:
A canal was cut to move the
crops across the peninsula
to a ferry that connected it to
the mainland port of Miami
across Biscayne Bay.
There, the railroad built by
industrialist Henry Flagler
took the produce north.
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The southbound trains
brought tourists and settlers
looking for a slice of a
new tropical paradise.
Paul:
Miami was already a
going city by this time.
Miami in 1910 had 5,500 people.
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narrator:
This was now the
age of the automobile.
And it would bring with
it another man with a vision
to transform Miami Beach into
the playground of today.
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Carl Fisher was an auto
parts mogul from Indiana.
He made the first practical
automobile headlights
and sold the company
for a fortune.
Paul:
Self-made, dare devil,
a great visionary.
One of the more incredible
stories in the America
of the early 20th century.
By the time he's 23 or 24,
he's got the biggest
car dealership in Indianapolis,
which was an important car
center at that time.
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narrator:
Fisher loved to be
behind the wheel,
and he built a speedway in
Indianapolis to race cars.
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Paul:
He laid a lot of money
on that track.
He put down a wood base,
and that thing just kind
of flew all over the place.
And there were accidents galore.
He was mortified.
In fact, the first race
was unsuccessful,
and he came back within a year
and built this good masonry base
for it, bricks.
narrator:
Race fans dubbed it,
"The Brickyard."
Fisher, a born salesman,
proclaimed it
the most spectacular sports
event in the world.
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narrator:
At the time, most paved roads
petered out the dirt tracks
at the edge of towns.
Fisher persuaded automakers
like Henry Ford
to finance the first major
highway, the Lincoln Highway,
from New York to San Francisco.
Paul:
It went through area
that had never before
seen a road period.
And he understood that the
car was going to transform
transportation and
American industry.
But before it could do that,
you needed roads.
So, let's link this country.
narrator:
Next, he turned his eye south
where paradise beckoned
if only motorists
could get there.
Paul:
It's all about tourism.
The tourist center of Florida
prior to Miami becoming a city
in 1896 was Jacksonville,
St. Augustine.
But by the early 1900's, it's
clearly Miami, South Florida.
narrator:
Within two more years, Fisher
had built the Dixie Highway,
opening the floodgates to
sun seekers and investors
from the industrial north.
Paul:
It was a subscription road.
If a city wanted it,
you had to pay
part of the cost of
constructing that road.
And it's today's northeast,
southeast second avenue,
right in the heart of Miami.
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narrator:
John Collins meanwhile had a
vision of his own to connect
Miami Beach with the mainland
by building a road bridge
across the bay.
But half a mile from completion,
he ran out of money.
Fisher stepped in to bankroll
the final stretch,
and in return he got a 200 acre
slice of Collins' land.
Paul:
The Collins bridge
joined Miami Beach
with the Venetian
causeway as today back behind me
and then the Collins canal
runs all the way
past the Holocaust
Memorial Route
to the eastern part
of today's Miami Beach.
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narrator:
When it opened in 1913,
it was the longest
wooden bridge in the world.
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With the land link in place,
Fisher could see
a golden future.
So could the Collins' clan,
especially the businessman's
son-in-law, Thomas Pankhurst.
Together with a consortium
of Miami bankers,
led by the Loomis brothers, they
began to plan a resort city.
Paul:
These guys combined
their companies,
Collins Miami Beach
Improvement Company,
Fisher, the Alton Beach
Realty, the Loomis brothers,
the Ocean Beach Realty.
These three companies
came together in 1915,
and they incorporated as a town.
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narrator:
The Collins clan,
from New Jersey,
envisioned a southern
Atlantic City.
Fisher, on the other hand, saw
the beach as a winter retreat
for the rich and famous.
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Paul:
His vision early on was a place
where these guilded age princes
like himself could
have big estates.
And many of them are like him.
They came out of a hard
scrabble background.
And now they had money, and
they were throwing it around.
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narrator:
An army of engineers
descended on the beach
with heavy equipment
to clear the land.
Even a couple of elephants
helped with the heavy lifting.
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Dredges deepened channels
and filled in the swamps.
Paul:
Then it pumped in bay bottom
in order to fill in
that concave area
to eliminate the chance
of water collecting again.
And so now you were ready.
You got the stage.
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narrator:
Fisher built an opulent
bayfront hotel, The Flamingo,
where the wealthy could stay
while their mansions were built.
Paul:
And it was the
last word hotel.
I mean, it faced the bay.
It had a big park and
recreation area east of it.
It was just west of West Avenue
at around 14th or 15th Street.
The hotel stood where
today's Flamingo Apartment
buildings are.
The hotel's recreational ground
for today's Flamingo Park.
The tennis complex of today is
over here were the polo grounds.
narrator:
On Ocean Drive and 22nd Street,
he opened his Roman
pool and casino.
Paul:
A bathing casino is a place
where you got a cabana.
You usually have a pool.
You've got the beach,
the waters of the Atlantic
ocean right there.
You can get something to eat,
something to drink.
It's a glorified cabana.
The Nautilus was built
in 1923-24
where Mt. Sinai Medical
Center is today.
I mean, that was even more
spectacular than The Flamingo.
Just east of it was a golf
course and a polo field.
narrator
At one time, there were more
polo fields and golf courses
on the beach than
schools and churches.
Fisher played polo himself.
He was an avid
all around sportsman.
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But his abiding passion
was always speed,
and he loved to race boats
on Biscayne Bay.
When he wasn't racing himself,
he could watch the regattas
from the grounds of his
opulent bayfront mansion.
From its tower, he could view
the new resort city
as it grows all around him.
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narrator:
Fisher was a great showman.
Rosie, one of his elephants,
joined the sales team.
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Paul:
Fisher was a genius at
generating publicity.
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narrator:
Rosie caddied for golfers
including President
Warren G. Harding.
Sometimes she
teed it up herself.
Paul:
When that went out all over the
country in the Sunday papers
and pictures and captions
and all, she was very famous.
narrator:
Fisher advertised Miami
Beach as paradise for sale.
In the winter of 1918, he put
a billboard in Time's Square.
Paul:
That's where you wanted
the people to come from,
the snowy north with money.
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narrator:
Bathing belles added
their own look.
Buyers flocked south.
J.C. Penney bought an estate.
So did tire company
magnet, Harvey Firestone.
Back in 1903, the government had
cut a channel through the beach
to create better access
to the port of Miami.
Paul:
The cut created an island that
Carl Fisher took a liking to
and purchased, and in fact
it still bears his name,
Fisher Island.
Somewhere along the way,
the millionaire,
William K. Vanderbilt,
brought his large
fabulous yacht to the island.
Fisher saw it, fell in love
with it instantly,
approached Vanderbilt and said,
"My island for your boat."
And that's the kind of way
deals were made in those days.
narrator:
Collins Avenue became
the first paved boulevard
running north to south.
Fisher cut a
swab eastward
through the mangroves
to build Lincoln Road.
Paul:
Fishers' realty office
on Lincoln Road
was in this building behind me.
Later, it was the site
of the Van Dyke Café.
Fisher would bring prospective
buyers of real estate
to the penthouse up top,
look at this bare landscape
in front of him and say,
"See that piece of land over
there? That could be yours."
narrator:
A county causeway
eventually connected Miami
to the beach at 5th Street.
In 1942, it was
renamed the McArthur.
Fisher built a trolley car
system to complete the
mainland link.
Paul:
See, he understood that
if you don't have a car,
you're going to have to get
a ride somehow across there
unless you want to swim.
So, he's the guy that instituted
circa, beginning in the 1920's,
a trolley system that
was very extensive.
Fisher owned his own
power plant,
later taken over by
Florida Power and Light.
Because how are you
going to sell real estate
if you don't have power
or bring tourists down?
Everything you needed,
he tried to have in place.
narrator:
The pristine barrier island
that had once attracted
a passing sailboat
had been transformed
into a thriving city.
Paul:
The boom reached its peak
in the summer of '25
and it was phenomenal.
It was the talk of the nation,
at least the eastern part
of the United States.
I mean, land that had
been going for nothing
was suddenly selling
for everything.
And building permits
were crazy.
And then, for a host of reasons,
that boom began to collapse
by the latter part of '25.
Certainly in '26.
By June of '26, it's over.
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narrator:
Around the same time,
nature took its revenge
on all this development.
Paul:
The mighty hurricane
September 17, 18
just smashed right
into Miami Beach
and then it turns west right
through downtown Miami
past the northern edges of Coral
Gables out into the Everglades.
A lot of people got trapped
out on the McArthur causeway.
The causeway was
much more narrow then.
It wasn't bulk-headed.
And that water
surge just took it.
And this destruction
was terrible.
There were thousands
left homeless.
Thousands of buildings
went down or were damaged.
One hundred and thirty people
in Dade County died.
That just ensured that
boom wasn't coming back.
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narrator:
The crash of '29 brought
on the Great Depression,
and an end to the extravagance
of the roaring '20's.
The timing of the crash couldn't
have been worst for Carl Fisher.
He was over-invested
in his latest scheme to create
a northern Miami Beach on
the eastern tip of Long Island.
The stock market crashed,
and that was it.
He lost almost everything.
narrator:
Fisher sold his opulent home.
In typical fashion, he quipped
that it took too long
to get to the front door anyway.
And he ended up living
in a small apartment
somewhere on South Beach.
And that's where
he passed away.
narrator:
Alcohol had destroyed his liver.
When he died in 1939
at the age of 65,
mourners paid tribute to him
as one of the great
visionaries of his time.
They placed a memorial
on Alton Road.
Paul:
There is a little bust of him
in a park on Alton Road,
and it really attributes
to him what it should.
That he carved a great
city out of a jungle.
Sadly, there's little else in
Miami Beach that recognizes
his tremendous
contributions to the city.
He's largely a forgotten man.
narrator:
Fisher, himself,
dismissed the notion
that he was a man of vision.
Paul:
He was more into it for the
achievement, for the challenge.
narrator:
He preferred to say
that he was just a guy
who liked to see the dirt fly.
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