| Railroad Travel |
| Year | Month | Day | Event | Related
Resource |
| 1885 | | | Henry Flagler purchases his first Florida railroad, initiating rail service between St. Augustine and New York. | |
| 1894 | | | Crops are destroyed as far south as Palm Beach when a severe freeze hits the east coast. Henry Flagler becomes convinced that the future of America's winter crops lay further south. He soon makes the decision to extend his railway to Biscayne Bay. | |
February | 11 | Henry Flagler's Royal Poinciana Hotel opened in Palm Beach. | display | April | 02 | Henry Flagler's railroad reached Palm Beach. | | | 1895 | | | John N. Lummus arrived in Miami. He saw immediate promise for the area's development, and returned a year later to work as a train dispatcher for the Florida East Coast Railway. | |
| | Julia Tuttle offered Henry Flagler land if he would agree to extend his railroad to Miami. He accepted her proposal and a contract was signed that allowed for his Florida East Coast Railroad to reach Miami the following year. | | | 1896 | April | 15 | The Florida East Coast Railway, owned by Henry Flagler, reached Miami and the first train arrived on this day. Prior to this date, most of the people in the area were homesteaders and the only "towns" were Coconut Grove and Lemon City. | display |
| 1897 | | | Captain William H. Fulford acquired a 160-acre land patent from President Grover Cleveland through utilization of the Homestead Act. The land surrounded a railroad depot just north of Miami that had been established by the Florida East Coast Railroad a year earlier. Though only a mile from Ojus, the two communities remained separated due to the poor roads and difficult travel conditions. Later, however, all of these lands would be incorporated into North Miami Beach. | |
| | In the 1890s, settlers established farms along the east side of the Oleta River. In this year, the area was named Ojus by Albert Fitch, a farmer who wanted to grow pineapples in the rich soil. The word Ojus is a Seminole word for "plenty" or "lots of", and at that time, farmers in Ojus grew peas, beans, sugar cane, and tomatoes. | | January | 16 | The Hotel Royal Palm opened for business fifteen days behind schedule. Henry Flagler built the hotel at a cost of $750,000 to draw passengers onto his new railroad line extending to Miami. The hotel stood until 1931. | display | | 1905 | | | Henry Flagler decided to extend his Florida East Coast Railway further south, from Biscayne Bay in Miami to Key West. | |
| 1906 | October | 18 | A major hurricane hit Miami and the Keys killing hundreds of people, many of who were workers on the Florida East Coast Railway. | display |
| 1908 | | | T.V. Moore, also known in Miami as "The Pineapple King," took a leading role in defending farmers' rights. He helped to form the East Coast Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association in an effort to combat the heavy freight charges imposed by Flagler's FEC Railroad. | |
| 1912 | January | 22 | The Florida East Coast Railway reached Key West, crossing 91 miles of road and 38 bridges. | display |
| 1919 | | | Carl Fisher and other investors formed the Miami Beach Electric Company and the Miami Beach Railway Company. | |
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