Awake: 7:10am Temp 60 sleep 5+40 sunny overnight @ Pahokee, FL.
After a quick breakfast, we motor east about (45) miles to Palm Beach, FL & tour the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum. We arrived just in time to join the docent & about (30) others on his tour.
To begin with, ever since Kathy & I drove to Key West in our motorhome in 2003 & witnessed sections of the old railroad & bridges that Flagler had built to bring Key West transportation from Miami, I've been fascinated about his life, his railroads, the Gilded Age hotels & his home, Whitehall, in Palm Beach; Florida's 1st museum.
Focusing more on the Flagler Museum for now in lieu of his life, business, railroads, hotels, etc, we follow the crowd into Whitehall, Flagler's winter retreat. Our docent tells us that the entrance hall for receiving guests (which we all came into), is the largest room at 4500 square feet, of the (55) rooms in Whitehall.
We followed our docent & the crowd into room after room, being amazed & awe struck @ the magnificent décor; using cloth on the walls, gold on the ceilings & aluminum wherever it fits in (which @ that time period, was more expensive than gold); the collection of paintings, statues, & fine furniture from all over the world is like an Art Museum in itself. We were allowed picture taking but no flash shots. We spent a good hr listening to our docent as our crowd moved from different rooms, each with dissimilar décor.
Next, @ no additional charge, we pick up hand held transponders for a narrated audio tour, retracing our walk through the rooms, this time @ our own pace; that gadget gives us even more insight & descriptions of what we've seen while touring with the docent. We also scrutinize the 2nd floor bedrooms which had not been part of the docent led tour. We were given information about: central heating systems, electric lighting, push button call units to ring the servants, telephones, indoor plumbing, hidden stairways, etc. Amenities like the above were not yet available to the common residents of America during this period in time.
Next, just outside of & behind Whitehall, we visit Flagler's private railroad car, #91, on display in a newly designed pavilion in the style of a 19th century Beaux-Arts railway palace. #91 was brought here & reconditioned as it was when Flagler was using it. After spending a little time in the gift shop, we admitted that in (3.5) hrs we had sufficiently perused this fine museum.
Now, a little history of how Henry Morrison Flagler acquired his fortune & some of the things he did with it. Info borrowed from: "The Palm Beach Post."
Henry Flagler received an eighth grade education before leaving home at 14 to work in his cousin's store, L.G. Harkness and Company, in Bellevue, Ohio at a salary of US$5 per month plus room and board. By 1849, Flagler was promoted to sales staff of the company at a salary of $400 per month.
In 1867, Flagler became partners with John D. Rockefeller, an oil refiner in Cleveland, Ohio. The partnership emerged as the Standard Oil Company and, in less than two years, was leading the oil refining industry, producing over 10,000 barrels a day. Rockefeller was once asked if it was he who conceived the idea for Standard Oil, to which he replied, "No, sir. I wish I'd had the brains to think of it. It was Henry M. Flagler." By the time he was 50, Henry Flagler was one of the wealthiest men in the world.
It was Flagler's idea to use the rebate system to strengthen the firm's position against competitors and the transporting enterprises alike. Though the refunds issued amounted to no more than fifteen cents on the dollar, they put Standard Oil in position to out-compete other oil refineries.[4] By 1872, it led the American oil refining industry, producing 10,000 barrels per day. In 1877, Standard Oil moved its headquarters to New York City, and Flagler and his family moved there as well.
In 1878, on the advice of his physician, Flagler traveled to Jacksonville for the winter with his first wife, Mary Flagler, who was quite ill. Two years after she died in 1881, he married again. Ida Alice Shourds had been a caregiver for Mary Flagler. After their wedding, the couple traveled to Saint Augustine. Flagler found the city charming, but the hotel facilities and transportation systems inadequate. He recognized Florida's potential to attract out-of-state visitors
Flagler's second wife, the former Ida Alice Shourds, had been institutionalized for mental illness since 1895. In 1901, the Florida Legislature passed a bill that made incurable insanity grounds for divorce, opening the way for Flagler to remarry.
On August 24 of that year, Flagler married his third wife, Mary Lily Kenan, and the couple soon moved into their new Palm Beach estate, Whitehall, a 55-room Beaux Arts home; built in 1902 as a wedding present to Mary Lily and Florida's first museum, Whitehall was the 60,000 square foot winter retreat that established the Palm Beach "Season" for the wealthy of America's Gilded Age.
Though Flagler remained on the Board of Directors of Standard Oil, he gave up his day-to-day involvement in the corporation in order to pursue his interests in Florida. He returned to St. Augustine in 1885 and began construction on the 540-room Ponce de Leon Hotel. Realizing the need for a sound transportation system to support his hotel ventures, Flagler purchased short line railroads in what would later become known as the Florida East Coast Railway
The Hotel Ponce de Leon, now part of Flagler College, opened on January 10, 1888 and was an instant success. This project sparked Flagler's interest in creating a new "American Riviera." Two years later, Flagler expanded his Florida holdings. He built a railroad bridge across the St. Johns River to gain access to the southern half of the state and purchased the Hotel Ormond, just north of Daytona. His personal dedication to the state of Florida was demonstrated when he began construction on his private residence, Kirkside, in St. Augustine.
Flagler completed the 1,100-room Royal Poinciana Hotel on the shores of Lake Worth in Palm Beach and extended his railroad to its service town, West Palm Beach, by 1894, founding Palm Beach and West Palm Beach.[1] The Royal Poinciana Hotel was at the time the largest wooden structure in the world. Two years later, Flagler built the Palm Beach Inn (renamed Breakers Hotel Complex in 1901) overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Palm Beach.
Flagler originally intended West Palm Beach to be the terminus of his railroad system, but during 1894 and 1895, severe freezes hit the area, causing Flagler to rethink his original decision. Sixty miles south, the town today known as Miami was reportedly unharmed by the freeze. To further convince Flagler to continue the railroad to Miami, he was offered land in exchange for laying rail tracks. This led to the development of Miami, which was only an unincorporated area at the time. Flagler encouraged fruit farming and settlement along his railway line and made many gifts to build hospitals, churches and schools in Florida.
Flagler's railroad, the Florida East Coast Railway, reached Biscayne Bay by 1896. Flagler dredged a channel, built streets, instituted the first water and power systems, and financed the city's first newspaper, The Metropolis.
By 1905, Flagler decided that his Florida East Coast Railway should be extended from Biscayne Bay to Key West, a point 128 miles (206 km) past the end of the Florida peninsula. At the time, Key West was Florida's most populous city and it was also the United States' closest deep water port to the canal that the U.S. government proposed to build in Panama. Flagler wanted to take advantage of additional trade with Cuba and Latin America as well as the increased trade with the west that the Panama Canal would bring. In 1912, the Florida Overseas Railroad was completed to Key West.
Over thirty years, Flagler had invested roughly fifty million dollars between railroad, home, and hotel construction, not to mention the aid he gave suffering farmers after the 1894 freeze. When asked about his philanthropic efforts by the President of Rollins College in Winter Park, Flagler is reported to have replied, "I believe this state is the easiest place for many men to gain a living. I do not believe any one else would develop it if I do not...but I do hope to live long enough to prove I am a good business man by getting a dividend on my investment."
In 1913, Flagler fell down a flight of stairs at Whitehall. He never recovered from the fall and died in Palm Beach of his injuries on May 20 at 83 years of age. He was buried in St. Augustine alongside his daughter, Jenny Louise and first wife, Mary Harkness. Only his son Harry survived of the three children by his first marriage in 1853 to Mary Harkness.
The Overseas Railroad, also known as the Key West Extension of the Florida East Coast Railway, was heavily damaged and partially destroyed in the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. The Florida East Coast Railway was financially unable to rebuild the destroyed sections, so the roadbed and remaining bridges were sold to the State of Florida, who built the Overseas Highway to Key West, using much of the remaining railway infrastructure.
So there you have it folks; Henry Flagler put his money to work by funding libraries, schools, cemeteries, churches, courthouses, parks & hospitals. He built Florida's 1st museum, Whitehall. His fortune has funded more than $1,000,000,000 in endowments & trusts, which fund more than $50,000,000 in educational activities each year; his legacy of philanthropy continues to benefit many thousands of Americans each year. As reported by: "The Palm Beach Post." Newspapers in Education.
After our (3.5) hrs of Whitehall experience, we motor up the street, find a parking spot & walk to one of Flagler's Magnificent Hotels called: "The Breakers." We casually toured the 200-foot long main lobby & first-floor public rooms. We were a little shy in asking to see a regular room but instead, Kathy talked to a clerk behind the check-in counter, "What is the price for a regular room?" she inquired. The clerk told us, "It varies. During the winter months, like now, $650.00 per night; summer season, one has to call to get that price." Gosh, even today this place could be like a "who's who" of the 21st century America--the Gates, Bloombergs, Helus, Buffet, etc, vacationing alongside the United States president, Obama, or the Prime Minister of France, Sarkozy, or the prime Minister of Canada, Harper.
After walking around the beautifully manicured grounds & circling the enormous Breakers Hotel, seeing the Atlantic Ocean & watching a few surfboarders, we return to our Suzuki, join the rush-hour traffic, fuel up @ Costco + buy a few groceries & return to our home by the lake by 7:45pm.
We watch the "O'Reilly Factor while having a dinner of: leftover stuffed peppers; then watch ½ of the movie: "The Loved One."
Lights out: 1:04am
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