1672-2 History-City of Miami Beach tiZ
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MIAMI 10_ d MEMOIRS
Chapter XI
Miami Harbor, Government Cut and Miami Beach
When Mr.Flagler arranged to build his railroad to Miami and make a city
here the channel in Biscayne Bay was not safe for a vessel drawing over six feet
of water.He put his dredges to work cutting a channel from twelve to fifteen
feet deep down the bay to Cape Florida,which was used for two years,
making the terminal on the Miami River where the F.E.C.freight depot now
stands.The first prize ship captured from Spain during the Spanish-American
War was brought to this dock.This ship was bought by Mr.Flagler and
named the Cocoa.Also the first Spanish prisoners brought to American soil
were landed here.The whole city went to the dock to see the Spanish general
and his soldiers transferred from boat to train and the Spaniards did quite a
business selling their money,trinkets and even the buttons on their uniforms
to Miami citizens for souvenirs.
In the fall of 1898 Mr.Flagler decided to move the terminal up the bay y'
from the river and located at Sixth Street,where it has remained ever since.
Sixth Street is the only street in Miami that has never changed its name.The
F.E.C.passenger station remained there until Mr.Flagler extended his railroad
to Key West.Then the station moved back on the main line just one block
north of the first passenger station,where it remains.
Later the city took over the port and built the city docks which they still
own.All of these years it was quite an expense to Mr.Flagler to keep the
channel to Cape Florida open.He had boats running to Key West and Nassau.
About 1903 he had the palatial steamship City of Miami built for the Nassau•
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run,which at that time was considered the last word in steamship
construction and the most palatial coastal ship afloat.When the Miami was
due to arrive off Cape Florida,Mr.Flagler invited quite a number of
representative citizens to go with him on the steamboat Biscayne,Capt.S.A.
Bravo in command,to Cape Florida to meet his new steamship.We all went
aboard the Biscayne and Mr.John B.Reilly,the representative of the Flagler
lands in Miami and Miami's first mayor,was master of ceremonies and is
introduced all guests to Mr.Flagler.
Among others he introduced Mayor Sewell and his wife,who were all .t
dressed up in their best bib and tucker. After the reception was over and we ti
-vere an seated around the cabin and Mr.Flagler was looking over his guests,
all a: once he spied me and came rushing across the cabin with his hand
outstretched to shake hands with me,saying,"Law,this is John Sewell,my a
friend." He had not realized when Mayor Sewell was introduced to him it was
John Sewell.This furnished all of us with a good laugh. d
When the Miami arrived the tide was low and she drew too much water
for the channel and we had to leave her at sea until high tide the next day. ;
Thus we all missed the ride back on the beautiful new steamship.Having to
a;,o;:the tide to bring the ship to port put Mr.Flagler to work to get a
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tluch of South Florida is nwn•nuule.Probably more than a million people live on former
wetlands.Henry Flagler started the dredging mania when he dredged a channel from Cape
Florida to his original port on the Miami River(in background). Will Rogers once suggested that
l-7,),-..4.2 make the dredge the state nth!em.(Historical Association of Southern Florida.)
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Miami Beach began as a sand spit or barrier island.In the 1880s,the barrier islands from
Jupiter to Cape Florida were purchased by Henry B.Lum,Ezra Osborn and Elnathan T.
Field.Top:coconut planters on the beach.(Munroe Collection,Historical Association
of Southern Florida.)Bottom:Soon after Miami was founded,Dick Smith built a
bathing casino on the beach.It was popular with both locals and tourists.Ferry boats left
from the"stone dock'located at the foot of Flagler Street.Bathers disembarked on the
ba)aide of Miami Beach and walked across the causeway to the casino.(State Photographic
Archives.)
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deeper channel near the city.Mr.Flagler had retired as President of the F.E.C.
Ry.at that time and his title was Chairman of the Board.Mr.J.R.Parrott was
elected president of all of Mr.Flagler's companies.(Will say that Mr.Parrot
was a great man and one of Florida's great benefactors and a close personal
friend of mine.He served as president of all of the Flagler companies until his
death.He lived two or three years after Mr.Flagler's death,May 20, 1913.As
Mr.Flagler was born January 2, 1830,he was over 83 years old and Florida's
greatest benefactor.Mr.Parrott was always his right-hand man.)
Mr.Parrott went before the Rivers and Harbors Committee of Congress •
at Washington and proposed to make a channel eighteen feet deep across
Biscayne Bay east from Miami provided the U.S.Government would make a
cut across the narrow strip of land north of Norris Cut to connect with the
Flagler channel.Congress accepted this proposal and made the necessary
appropriation for what is known as Government Cut.Honorable Theodore
Burton of Ohio was Chairman of the Rivers and Harbors Committee,and
Honorable Steve Sparkman of Tampa,Fla.,was Florida's representative on the
Rivers and Harbors Committee.Hon.Robert W.Davis was Congressman for
the Second Congressional District of Florida,which comprised all of the East
Coast of Florida and the interior of the State of Gainesville,Fla.Mr.
Sparkman's district covered the West Coast of Florida,the State having only
two Congressmen at that time.Congressman Burton brought his entire
committee to Miami to look over the location of the new cut,bringing Mr.
Davis,representing this district,with them.Mr.Flagler furnished his
steamship Martinique,in command of Captain George Dillon,going out
around Cape Florida and up the coast to inspect the location for the cut.I,as
mayor,accompanied the committee on this trip.The wind was blowing and
we had a rough sea.When we got to the point where the engineers had cut an
opening through the brush for their stakes,Mr.Burton was up in the pilot
house with his field glasses and when we got to where he could see the City of
Miami through this opening across the seven hundred feet of land he said,
"That is fine—and we will make the cut right through according to the
engineers'stakes,and let's go back inside the ship."
More than half of the party had gotten seasick and had to go to
staterooms.I was standing just below the pilot house of the ship on the main
deck,while Mr.Burton was above me in the pilot house,and will say I think
Mr.Burton was getting seasick himself as he went below and I didn't see him
any more until after we got back in the bay.Two other men and myself
weathered the gale and stayed on deck.
The contract was let to the P.Sanford Ross Dredging Company to make
this cut and to build the jetties outside,which were built of Miami boulder
rock,on each side of the proposed cut out to eighteen feet of water.These
jetties were built like a railroad fill with an eighteen-foot surface across the top
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to the water's level,then heavy granite blocks shipped here from Georgetown,
S.C.,for coping,which gave the new cut through the sand protection,all of
this work leading up to the grand opening of the cut in the year 1905.
Captain G.Duncan Brossier,writing of this event in The Miami Herald in
the winter of 1930,describes the event thoroughly as follows:
"I Remember"
"On one summer's day in 1905 the entire population of the City of
Miami was called upon to celebrate the biggest factor in the development of
11; Greater Miami.The occasion was the completing of the cut through the island
from Biscayne Bay to the Atlantic Ocean.On that day the muddy waters o •
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Biscayne Bay were destined to mingle with the turquoise blue of the Atlantic
Ocean.
"For several months the P.Sanford Ross Dredging Company had been 4"
oot engaged digging the channel from Miami side of the bay to the ocean.They
•L� • had proceeded far enough with their dredging operations that the honorable
11 Mayor of Miami,then John Sewell,declared a holiday for the purpose of
witnessing this great event.The entire population of 3,500 people were present •
and it was a gala day.
"There was a great deal of excitement,as with each dip of the dredge the
workers would cut a few feet closer to the ocean.The people were lined up on
both sides of the cut making merry,forecasting,prophesying what the
r completion of this channel would mean to Miami.Then,for some unknown
reason,the dredging operation stopped—the dipper dug its nose in the sand '�
and refused to budge.Something had gone wrong.When the superintendent
of the dredge announced that he had experienced a breakdown,and that the
s joining of these two waters would have to be postponed for another day,you
can imagine the great disappointment to the patriarchs who had come so far,
under such trying conditions,to witness this event.
"However,John Sewell,the man who has never been found wanting in
any crucial moment,came to the rescue.With a spade he began to dig and
soon the sand was flying in every direction.In less than 30 minutes a little
stream from the bay,following the line of the trench made by Mr.Sewell,
joined the waters of the Atlantic Ocean.The current being very rapid and the
44 pressure on the bay side rather strong,it was only a few hours until the cut
widened from a foot to nearly ten feet,and the next day,those of us who
visited the scene,found that the bay had cut the path through the island to a
width over 500 feet.
"And this was the beginning of Miami's harbor development!"(From
Miami Daily Herald,winter of 1930.)
Only Captain Brossier did not quite finish the report of the day's work.
• We put a man in a rowboat and sent him through our ditch from Biscayne Bay
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to the Atlantic Ocean before we left,we all felt well paid for our day's outing •
that the whole city had ever had thus far.
The land which the Government Cut was cut through was owned by Mr.
Nathan Field of Red Bank,N.J.,and had to be condemned as Mr.Field and
the Government officials could not agree on a price,but the jury awarded him
a good price.The tax roll showed this land assessed at one dollar and
twenty-five cents per acre.Mr.Field and his partner,Mr.Osborn,under the -j
firm name of Field and Osborn,had acquired many miles of beach land from
the U.S.Government in the 70's in payment for introducing coconut growing oe �,-
into the United States.I understand the method used was,first they took a
ship and went to South America and got a ship load of coconuts,then started 011644
at Cape Florida and planted the coconuts to Jupiter Inlet.I have been told
they would send the nuts and men ashore in small boats from the ship and ' .
then tie these men with a long rope forty or fifty feet apart,give each man a "a'
spade and a nut and start them inland as far as they wished to plant,then line
the men up in a straight line on a taut rope,when all would plant their nuts at
the same time.They would then go up the beach to where they wished to •
plant another row of nuts and repeat the dose.Their system was a success.The • •.-•
coconuts grew and they got the land.
I was well acquainted with Mr.Field.While I was county commissioner, ._
and after the Government Cut had been put through,he got after me to have a
road built on the beach at county expense.I told him when he paid in taxes
enough to pay for same I would.Taxes on a valuation of from$1.25 to$5.00
per acre counted up very slowly.In 1908 or 1909,after I had retired from the
board of commissioners,Mr.Field began to worry me about helping him to
get the county to build the beach road.He stayed here only during the tourist t•
season and that was his hobby. .'
Captain J.F.Jaudon was tax assessor for Dade County at that time and
the law was for the tax assessor to assess property about what he thought was
one-fourth of actual value where the property had not been turned in by
owner for assessment.Then the county commissioners would go over the
books and equalize the tax or hear any complaints at certain times each year,if
value was too high.
One day,after Mr.Field had been worrying me,Captain Jaudon came
along and I stopped him and told him about Mr.Field worrying me to help
him get a road on the beach,when it would only have boat connections and
nowhere to go.I told him when he went back to his office that morning to
double the assessed value of the beach property,then tomorrow morning to
forget about it and double it again.That afternoon he came back to my office
and told me that he had to go to Ft.Lauderdale tomorrow and that he had
raised all of the beach property to four times the amount it had been valued.
Where the property was$1.25 per acre he raised it to$5.00 per acre valuation.
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Where it was$5.00 per acre it went to$20.00.By this means we could let the boner
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beach property owners pay in taxes enough to build them a road.So far nob'
one could buy a lot on the beach,only lease property.Richard M.(Dick)
Smith had done this and built a casino at the beach,which still goes by that three
name(Smith's Casino).Dick Smith's casino was small,had a dance floor on
second floor and refreshments on the first floor.It had a detached shed with
dressing rooms for bathers.The next spring when Mr.Field and others that mo.
owned beach property went to pay their taxes they found them four times as
much as the year before,and they went up in the air.Mr.R.B.McLendon,tax
collector,showed them his books and told them for any relief they would
have to take up the matter with Captain Jaudon,the tax assessor.They went
across the hall to the tax assessor's office with blood in their eyes,but Cap was
equal to the occasion and told them the valuation was correct as they had not
turned in the property to the tax assessor and,to prove he was correct,if they
would bring down deeds in blank to all of their property the next day,he
would have a man there with the cash to pay them just four times the assessed
value of all of the beach property.They quietly left and went back to the tax
collector's office and paid their taxes as assessed.
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A deep water port became closer to reality in 1927 when President Calvin Coolidge set off
dynamite to deepen Government Cut.(State Photographic Archives.)
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This all happened at the psychological moment and I consider that
Captain Jaudon and myself were responsible for getting things started at the
right time.The land owners offered to sell the land on the south beach.A
company was formed to buy the land north from Smith's Casino for one mile.
I was invited to go into the company,but I wanted a beach lot for a cottage
and not to be a member of the company.Mr.J.A.McDonald,John Gramling, irks is
J.E.Lummus and J.N.Lummus were the main promoters of the company.
They bought the land and started clearing it,also dredging to fill the low land 1de a
on the bay side of the peninsula in a small way. South
Mr.John S.Collins started building a bridge across the bay to his kiami
property on north beach and along Indian Creek,Collins'Bridge making its
owner famous and the first practical thing done to make Miami Beach the orida
most famous playground in the world.
In the tourist season of 1911-1912,Mr.Carl G.Fisher came to Miami and ,and
bought Dr.Bliss's home on Brickell Avenue and named it"The Shadows."
Just south of his home,Mr.Lock T.Highleyman was pumping sand out of181 3
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the bay and filling the low land,making what is now Point View.Mr.Fisher
saw the possibilities and got busy and bought more than half of Mr.Collins'
land in the center of the beach property and put dredges to work filling the :`ted
low land and making hundreds of acres of swamp land into city lots to build fr her
the most beautiful tourist city in the United States. pique
Also I understood that he loaned the Lummus Company a million dollars
to do their dredging on a larger scale and make the Beach more quickly a good
place in which to live.All was rushed through and soon Mr.Fisher began
building his wonderful hotels,and various improvements,golf grounds,
swimming pools,and using the bay where the sand was pumped from to make
a yacht race course.
All of these things made the Beach what it is today.I consider Mr.Fisher She
second to Mr.Flagler as Florida's greatest benefactor. nd
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