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Author: Christopher Knowlton
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 1982128380
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432
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Book Description
Christopher Knowlton, author of Cattle Kingdom and former Fortune writer, takes an in-depth look at the spectacular Florida land boom of the 1920s and shows how it led directly to the Great Depression. The 1920s in Florida was a time of incredible excess, immense wealth, and precipitous collapse. The decade there produced the largest human migration in American history, far exceeding the settlement of the West, as millions flocked to the grand hotels and the new cities that rose rapidly from the teeming wetlands. The boom spawned a new subdivision civilization—and the most egregious large-scale assault on the environment in the name of “progress.” Nowhere was the glitz and froth of the Roaring Twenties more excessive than in Florida. Here was Vegas before there was a Vegas: gambling was condoned and so was drinking, since prohibition was not enforced. Tycoons, crooks, and celebrities arrived en masse to promote or exploit this new and dazzling American frontier in the sunshine. Yet, the import and deep impact of these historical events have never been explored thoroughly until now. In Bubble in the Sun Christopher Knowlton examines the grand artistic and entrepreneurial visions behind Coral Gables, Boca Raton, Miami Beach, and other storied sites, as well as the darker side of the frenzy. For while giant fortunes were being made and lost and the nightlife raged more raucously than anywhere else, the pure beauty of the Everglades suffered wanton ruination and the workers, mostly black, who built and maintained the boom, endured grievous abuses. Knowlton breathes dynamic life into the forces that made and wrecked Florida during the decade: the real estate moguls Carl Fisher, George Merrick, and Addison Mizner, and the once-in-a-century hurricane whose aftermath triggered the stock market crash. This essential account is a revelatory—and riveting—history of an era that still affects our country today.
Author: Christopher Knowlton
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 1982128380
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432
Get Book Here
Book Description
Christopher Knowlton, author of Cattle Kingdom and former Fortune writer, takes an in-depth look at the spectacular Florida land boom of the 1920s and shows how it led directly to the Great Depression. The 1920s in Florida was a time of incredible excess, immense wealth, and precipitous collapse. The decade there produced the largest human migration in American history, far exceeding the settlement of the West, as millions flocked to the grand hotels and the new cities that rose rapidly from the teeming wetlands. The boom spawned a new subdivision civilization—and the most egregious large-scale assault on the environment in the name of “progress.” Nowhere was the glitz and froth of the Roaring Twenties more excessive than in Florida. Here was Vegas before there was a Vegas: gambling was condoned and so was drinking, since prohibition was not enforced. Tycoons, crooks, and celebrities arrived en masse to promote or exploit this new and dazzling American frontier in the sunshine. Yet, the import and deep impact of these historical events have never been explored thoroughly until now. In Bubble in the Sun Christopher Knowlton examines the grand artistic and entrepreneurial visions behind Coral Gables, Boca Raton, Miami Beach, and other storied sites, as well as the darker side of the frenzy. For while giant fortunes were being made and lost and the nightlife raged more raucously than anywhere else, the pure beauty of the Everglades suffered wanton ruination and the workers, mostly black, who built and maintained the boom, endured grievous abuses. Knowlton breathes dynamic life into the forces that made and wrecked Florida during the decade: the real estate moguls Carl Fisher, George Merrick, and Addison Mizner, and the once-in-a-century hurricane whose aftermath triggered the stock market crash. This essential account is a revelatory—and riveting—history of an era that still affects our country today.
Author: Gregg Turner
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 9780738542324
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 142
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Book Description
Florida's railroads emerged in the 1830s amid Native American upheaval and territorial colonization. Many periods of development marked this fascinating heritage, but one era towers above the rest: the 1920s. It was then that Florida experienced a colossal land boom, one of the greatest migration and building stories in American history. People poured into the state as never before, real estate traded hands at breakneck speed, and the landscape added countless new homes, hotels, apartments, and commercial buildings. Florida's biggest railroads--the Atlantic Coast Line, Seaboard Air Line, and Florida East Coast--were unprepared for the tidal wave of traffic. Thus, the "Big Three" had to rapidly expand and increase capacity. Dozens of projects unfolded at great cost, by one estimate over $100 million. When the building frenzy ended, the railway map of the state stood at its greatest extent--some 5,700 miles. Further, the frequency of railway service within and to the Sunshine State reached an unprecedented level, never again to be repeated.
Author: Susan Gillis
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1439617767
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 134
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Book Description
From farming community to prominent neighborhood, this book gives a unique look at the past of Boca Raton, Florida using vintage images. Boca Raton, Florida, was a tiny farming community on the southeastern coast of Florida when the state's 1920s real estate boom grew into a national phenomenon. Investors and new residents were drawn to the state from all over the country, a time Floridians referred to as "the Boom." In April 1925, well-known Palm Beach society architect Addison Mizner revealed his plans for an ambitious new development in Boca Raton. The plans included a gigantic oceanfront hotel, elegant mansions, golf and polo grounds, and palm-lined boulevards. The popularity of Mizner's projects stimulated many similar developments within the region, increasing the population of the town from 100 to several hundred residents. By the fall of 1926, however, the Florida land boom came to an end. Boca Raton returned, for the most part, to its small-town agricultural heritage by 1930. By the end of the 20th century, boomtime dreams were fully realized and Boca Raton became one of Florida's most prestigious addresses.
Author: Gregg M. Turner
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 9780738505671
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 132
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Book Description
In the 1920s, a tremendous land boom gripped Florida, and waves of people descended upon the Sunshine State. Between just 1923and 1925 an estimated 300,000 people came to permanently settle in the state, and over a dozen new counties were created in this single decade. Fueled by postwar prosperity, tourists and new residents poured money into the state's economy and dramatically increased the demand for land, homes, hotels, industry, recreation, commerce, and services. At the height of the boom, when many believed that the bubble had to burst, there came news that a new resort city was under development on the Gulf Coast below Sarasota, and all eyes turned to Venice. Over the decades since its creation, Venice, with its balmy climate, unlimited boating and fishing, and pristine mainland beach, has grown to be a Mecca for thousands of tourists, snowbirds, and retirees. Carved out of a tropical wilderness by America's oldest and wealthiest union, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, Venice was made into a Gulf Coast oasis with Spanish-style architecture, beautiful landscaping, and a friendly network of tree-lined streets and boulevards. Visual documentation of this early era has captured a city in its infancy and a valuable piece of Venice's heritage.
Author: Patrick D Smith
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1561645826
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 286
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Book Description
A Land Remembered has become Florida's favorite novel. Now this Student Edition in two volumes makes this rich, rugged story of the American pioneer spirit more accessible to young readers. Patrick Smith tells of three generations of the MacIveys, a Florida family battling the hardships of the frontier. The story opens in 1858, when Tobias and Emma MacIvey arrive in the Florida wilderness with their son, Zech, to start a new life, and ends in 1968 with Solomon MacIvey, who realizes that his wealth has not been worth the cost to the land. Between is a sweeping story rich in Florida history with a cast of memorable characters who battle wild animals, rustlers, Confederate deserters, mosquitoes, starvation, hurricanes, and freezes to carve a kingdom out of the Florida swamp. In this volume, meet young Zech MacIvey, who learns to ride like the wind through the Florida scrub on Ishmael, his marshtackie horse, his dogs, Nip and Tuck, at this side. His parents, Tobias and Emma, scratch a living from the land, gathering wild cows from the swamp and herding them across the state to market. Zech learns the ways of the land from the Seminoles, with whom his life becomes entwined as he grows into manhood. Next in series > > See all of the books in this series
Author: Gregg M. Turner
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476620628
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 192
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Book Description
During the Roaring Twenties, millions of Americans moved to the Sunshine State seeking quick riches in real estate. Many made fortunes; others returned home penniless. Within a few years thousands of residential subdivisions, palatial estates, inviting apartment buildings and impressive commercial complexes were built. Opulent theaters and imposing churches opened, along with hundreds of municipal projects. A unique architectural theme emerged, today known as Mediterranean Revival. Railways and highways saw a renaissance. New cities--Boca Raton, Hollywood-by-the-Sea, Venice--were built from scratch and dozens of existing communities like St. Petersburg, Fort Lauderdale and Orlando were forever transformed by the speculative fever. Florida has experienced numerous land booms but none more sweeping than that of the 1920s. This illuminating account details how one of the greatest migration and development episodes in American history began, reached dizzying heights, then rapidly collapsed.
Author: Jason Vuic
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469663163
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 269
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Book Description
Florida has long been a beacon for retirees, but for many, the American dream of owning a home there was a fantasy. That changed in the 1950s, when the so-called "installment land sales industry" hawked billions of dollars of Florida residential property, sight unseen, to retiring northerners. For only $10 down and $10 a month, working-class pensioners could buy a piece of the Florida dream: a graded home site that would be waiting for them in a planned community when they were ready to build. The result was Cape Coral, Port St. Lucie, Deltona, Port Charlotte, Palm Coast, and Spring Hill, among many others—sprawling communities with no downtowns, little industry, and millions of residential lots. In The Swamp Peddlers, Jason Vuic tells the raucous tale of the sale of residential lots in postwar Florida. Initially selling cheap homes to retirees with disposable income, by the mid-1950s developers realized that they could make more money selling parcels of land on installment to their customers. These "swamp peddlers" completely transformed the landscape and demographics of Florida, devastating the state environmentally by felling forests, draining wetlands, digging canals, and chopping up at least one million acres into grid-like subdivisions crisscrossed by thousands of miles of roads. Generations of northerners moved to Florida cheaply, but at a huge price: high-pressure sales tactics begat fraud; poor urban planning begat sprawl; poorly-regulated development begat environmental destruction, culminating in the perfect storm of the 21st-century subprime mortgage crisis.
Author: Raymond B. Vickers
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 9780817307233
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 350
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Book Description
Even when lawsuits disclosed the chicanery, state and federal regulators misled the public. Despite the official denials, the public panicked. The ensuing runs caused the banking crash.
Author: Bruce D. Epperson
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476625026
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 285
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Book Description
In 1915, the road system in south Florida had changed little since before the Civil War. Travelling from Miami to Ft. Myers meant going through Orlando, 250 miles north of Miami. Within 15 years, three highways were dredged and blasted through the Everglades: Ingraham Highway from Homestead, 25 miles south of Miami, to Flamingo on the tip of the peninsula; Tamiami Trail from Miami to Tampa; and Conners Highway from West Palm Beach to Okeechobee City. In 1916, Florida's road commission spent $967. In 1928 it spent $6.8 million. Tamiami Trail, originally projected to cost $500,000, eventually required $11 million. These roads were made possible by the 1920s Florida land boom, the advent of gasoline and diesel-powered equipment to replace animal and steam-powered implements, and the creation of a highway funding system based on fuel taxes. This book tells the story of the finance and technology of the first modern highways in the South.
Author: Christopher Knowlton
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0544369971
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 469
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Book Description
“The best all-around study of the American cowboy ever written. Every page crackles with keen analysis and vivid prose about the Old West. A must-read!” —Douglas Brinkley, The New York Times–bestselling author of The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America The open-range cattle era lasted barely a quarter century, but it left America irrevocably changed. Cattle Kingdom reveals how the West rose and fell, and how its legacy defines us today. The tale takes us from dust-choked cattle drives to the unlikely splendors of boomtowns like Abilene, Kansas, and Cheyenne, Wyoming. We meet a diverse cast, from cowboy Teddy Blue to failed rancher and future president Teddy Roosevelt. This is a revolutionary new appraisal of the Old West and the America it made. “Cattle Kingdom is the smartly told account of rampant capitalism making its home—however destructive and decidedly unromantic—on the range. . . . [A] fresh and winning perspective.” —The Dallas Morning News “Knowlton writes well about all the fun stuff: trail drives, rambunctious cow towns, gunfights and range wars . . . [He] enlists all of these tropes in support of an intriguing thesis: that the romance of the Old West arose upon the swelling surface of a giant economic bubble . . . Cattle Kingdom is The Great Plains by way of The Big Short.” —Wall Street Journal “Knowlton deftly balances close-ups and bird’s-eye views. We learn countless details . . . More important, we learn why the story played out as it did.” —The New York Times Book Review “The best one-volume history of the legendary era of the cowboy and cattle empires in thirty years.” —True West “Vastly informative.” —Library Journal “Absorbing.” —Publishers Weekly
