Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway, 1885 to 1935

Henry Flagler began building up a railroad system on Florida's Atlantic coast in 1885, and by 1912 he had extended it across the Florida Keys to Key West (State Archives of Florida).

The State Archives summarizes the arc in three dates: Flagler bought existing lines and built new track from 1885, reached as far south as Miami by 1896, and extended the road across the Florida Keys by 1912 (State Archives). He founded what became the Florida East Coast Railway, running its lines through Jacksonville and down the east coast during the 1880s and 1890s (Florida Memory teacher guide).

State policy set the stage. The Department of State traces Florida's transportation growth to the Internal Improvement Act of 1855, which offered investors cheap or free public land, and says the act had its greatest effect between the Civil War and World War I, when companies owned by Flagler and Henry B. Plant built many railroads and lavish hotels beside them (Department of State). Last verified: October 18, 2026, against five State Archives railroad pages, the Department of State development chapter, and three Florida State Parks pages on the Keys line, including the current trail closures.

In his own words, by chance: in a March 20, 1902 letter held at the State Archives, Flagler wrote that his first investment in Florida was simply the outcome of a casual visit (State Archives, Flagler letter).

The letter, written from Palm Beach on Hotel Royal Poinciana letterhead to Ellen Call Long, daughter of territorial governor Richard Keith Call, says his attention was first drawn to the upper east coast and that he later saw the possibilities of the section in its soil and climate. He closed by saying he had unbounded faith in the resources of the state and its citizens (State Archives). The Bahia Honda State Park history page says the dream of the Bahia Honda Bridge began with Flagler's first trip to Florida in 1878 (Florida State Parks).

The timing fit a statewide rail expansion. The State Archives photo exhibit says that after Plant built lines to Tampa and the west coast and Flagler built down the east coast in the 1880s, railway mileage in the state increased four-fold that decade, and that the State Railroad Commission, established ten years earlier, grew stronger in 1897 to regulate passenger and freight rates (Florida Memory exhibit).

Two Flagler landmarks remain in use: the Hotel Ponce de Leon in St. Augustine, now Flagler College, and Whitehall in Palm Beach, now the Flagler Museum (State Archives; Flagler Museum).

A State Archives photograph record says Flagler built the Hotel Ponce de Leon in St. Augustine, Florida, and opened it in 1888; it closed in 1967 and was sold to Flagler College, joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 and became a National Historic Landmark on February 21, 2006 (State Archives photo record).

Whitehall, Flagler's Palm Beach estate, is open to the public as the Flagler Museum, which offers self-guided tours, changing exhibitions and special programs. The museum is at One Whitehall Way, Palm Beach, phone (561) 655-2833 (Flagler Museum). The Department of State notes that both Flagler and Plant built lavish hotels near their railroad lines (Department of State).

The Overseas Extension carried the Florida East Coast Railway from Miami across the Keys to Key West, where the first train arrived with Flagler aboard on Jan. 22, 1912 (Florida State Parks).

Florida State Parks says Flagler decided to extend the line after construction of the Panama Canal began, that many engineers told him it could not be done, and that project engineer James Meredith shared his vision. The work took 7 years, over $50 million and 17 million cubic yards of material placed on the right-of-way; more than 4,000 men were working at any given time, and three hurricanes crossed the Keys during construction (Florida State Parks).

The state sources disagree on the start year, as the table shows, and give no single date. Engineering varied along the route: at Bahia Honda, the park says, extreme water depth led engineers to use steel trusses instead of the concrete arches seen elsewhere on the line, and the work was dangerous, with many laborers losing their lives to heat, hurricanes and disease (Florida State Parks).

The Labor Day hurricane of 1935 ended rail service to Key West; the railroad sold the line to the State of Florida and Monroe County for $640,000, and the Overseas Highway opened on it in 1938 (Florida State Parks).

Two Florida State Parks pages describe the damage differently. The Flagler Railroad page says the storm, with winds estimated at 200 mph, left some damage but the railroad remained mostly intact, and that high building and upkeep costs drove the sale (Florida State Parks). The Bahia Honda history page says parts of the line were significantly damaged for the first time since completion and that repairs took several years, and that rather than abandon the Bahia Honda bridge the state bought it to include in the conversion of the railway into a highway (Bahia Honda history).

The old bridges gained protection in stages. Florida State Parks says that in 1979 the Long Key Channel, Knight's Key (7 Mile) and Bahia Honda Channel historic railroad bridges were listed on the National Register of Historic Places; a task force formed in 1997 to preserve the bridges for pedestrian and recreational use; and in August 2004 the remaining 20 historic railroad bridges and the Overseas Highway were listed too (Florida State Parks).

Rail lines like Flagler's brought tourists to Florida, carried citrus north to market in less than a week, and helped found new towns along the tracks (State Archives; Department of State).

The State Archives says trains such as the Florida Special and the Orange Blossom Special brought tourists to Miami and beyond in the early 20th century, and that railroads helped establish new towns and served the lumber, phosphate, tourist, manufacturing and agricultural industries (Florida Memory). The Department of State points to citrus: rail made it possible to pick oranges in south Florida and eat them in Baltimore, Philadelphia or New York in less than a week (Department of State).

The State Archives says that by 1912 the Florida East Coast Railway Company had completed the first railroad connecting Key West with the mainland (Florida Memory).

In the Keys, the Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail incorporates 23 of the historic Flagler Railroad bridges (Florida State Parks).

The trail has more than 90 linear miles paved in segments along a planned 106-mile corridor from Key Largo to Key West, beside U.S. Highway 1. It is open 8 a.m. to sunset with no fee; the administrative office is at 3 La Croix Court, Key Largo, phone 305-853-3571. Anglers should know that the park lists the Ohio-Missouri, Ohio-Bahia Honda, Missouri-Little Duck, Lower Sugarloaf and Niles fishing bridges as closed for safety (Florida State Parks).

At Bahia Honda State Park, the old Bahia Honda bridge now serves as an overlook (Florida State Parks). On the mainland, the former Hotel Ponce de Leon belongs to Flagler College in St. Augustine (State Archives), and Whitehall in Palm Beach is open as the Flagler Museum (Flagler Museum). The State Archives railroad photo exhibit includes a 1912 photograph of Flagler getting off the train at Key West for the official opening of the extension (Florida Memory exhibit).