Creators of Modern Florida 01

If you’re not a devoted history buff, you might be slightly confused or, heaven forbid, even bored by the seemingly endless march of peoples from widely differing backgrounds across the early Florida landscape. Native Americans of various tribal identities. Spanish. English. French. Blacks from the west coast of Africa as slaves and, far less frequently, as free men and women. And, of course, we can’t forget all those Americans who have been running the show since.

But exactly how did these explorers, soldiers, pioneers, and settlers transform the Florida environments of times long past to what we have before us today? After all, Miami, Palm Beach, Naples, Tampa, Gainesville, Tallahassee, and all the other bustling urban centers throughout the State didn't just spring from the ground fully formed. Perhaps the best demonstration of how and why the State got to the condition it is in today is to examine the actions of three key players who came to Florida and, by Heraclean efforts, changed it forever.

Hamilton Disston

When Florida joined the Union in 1845, it received title to somewhere between 14 million and 22 million acres of “swamp and overflow lands” that were deemed unfit for cultivation by the Federal government. The State, suffering a cash flow bind in its early operations, since its ability to collect taxes was limited, put up much of that land as collateral for bonds offered by the first railroads and canal companies. The State’s intention was to encourage widespread settlement and cultivation. And thereafter to impose and collect taxes that would end the State’s cash flow problems. Ah, sweet dreams.

After the Civil War, the penniless railroads defaulted on their loans and, since the State was unable to pay its obligations in U.S. dollars as required by the Federal government, the bond holders claimed the land. The State fought an increasingly desperate holding action in court for over a decade seeking to be relieved of its obligation to pay the bond holders. No luck.

Then, in 1881, on the verge of legal defeat and the financial disaster of bankruptcy, Governor William Bloxham struck an incredible deal with Hamilton Disston, a wealthy northern industrialist who was the principal heir to the Philadelphia Keystone Saw fortune. Disston and various financial partners agreed to drain 12 million acres of south Florida wetlands in exchange for clear title to half of those acres. That assignment included lowering the level of Lake Okeechobee, deepening and straightening the Kissimmee River, and connecting the St. Lucie River on the Atlantic coast with the Caloosahatchee River on the Gulf through Lake Okeechobee. A truly enormous task that was not to be achieved until the 1970s.

Disston, who holds the unenviable title of “Father” of large-scale Florida development schemes, was an adventurous free-spirited sort. As an impetuous young blade he tried twice to enlist as a soldier in the Civil War. Only to suffer the ignominy of being dragged home by his ear by an irate and not so understanding wealthy father. Who knew how to make the enlistment board turn a blind eye to Ham’s entreaties. The boy had not yet learned that money and political power had definite privileges. Privileges that precluded exposing his tender body on the battlefield to mini-balls, cannon shot or, much worse, dysentery.

Years later, the mature Hamilton was physically introduced to Florida by General Henry S. Sanford, a hunting and fishing buddy cut from the same adventurous cloth. Sanford persuaded Disston to set his sights on building communities centered around farms in fertile south Florida. The farm families would then become consumers of goods and services offered by none other than Disston himself.

In essence, the young industrialist’s intention was to establish a self-perpetuating profit cycle of human agency. Drained land = farms = markets = settlements = profits = more drained land and on and on. You can see how the cycle was supposed to work. It didn't hurt that good old Ham was primed for opportunity, bound and determined to create a financial entity of his own, separate from the Disston family fortune. It was time for him to stand up and be counted. He had his own destiny to create and didn't need to ride Daddy’s coattails. No sir!

By January 1882, with Governor Bloxham’s first offer of Florida land flushed down the toilet by unforeseen legal complications, the by then eager Ham agreed to purchase four million acres, or 6,250 square miles of real estate, from the Florida Internal Improvement Fund for a whopping $1,000,000 (which in today’s dollars was worth from about $30 million in terms of general purchasing power to $145 million in terms of labor value). Making him America’s largest land owner. How sweet it was.

Already assured by his friend and fellow Florida adventurer, General Sanford, that a huge fortune could be made once the land was dry, Disston formed the Okeechobee Land Company to dredge canals, drain the Everglades and reclaim the land for farming. Once drained, Florida would become as fat and fertile as the south of France, only with a more reliable climate. And oh so profitable. The hook was firmly set in Ham’s eager jaw. He was ready to put the dredges to work.

Not one to wait until the ink was dry on his contract with the State, or even for his lands to be surveyed and described so he knew exactly what he bought or where it was located, Disston started digging immediately. Two separate dredging parties began simultaneously. One headed south from the origin of the Kissimmee River and the other moved east from the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River at Ft. Myers. “We’ll meet in the middle of Lake Okeechobee, boys” must have been his rallying cry to the troops.

By late 1882, Disston’s dream seemed to teeter on the edge of reality. He ran a steamboat from Ft. Myers all the way up the Caloosahatchee into Lake Okeechobee and then north up the Kissimmee for 92 more miles. He was going like a house on fire. As an aside, it is an extraordinary but truly depressing reality that in the early 1880s, fully 60 percent of the State of Florida was owned by five railroads, one drainage company, and none other than Hamilton Disston, who held the largest chunk in his eager hands.

Disston’s next bold step was to open Florida land sales offices in every major U.S. city and even in Europe, selling land for farms large and small. As well as building lots for more urbanized settlements. He sponsored experimental farms and agricultural processing plants, like his $1 million sugar refinery in St. Cloud that was surrounded by thousands of acres of sugarcane. A crop he was told (correctly as it turned out) would re-seed itself naturally, a benefit of mild, subtropical winters. And, mistakenly believing Tarpon Springs was a sport fishing paradise, Ham established as a resort there for his rich buddies. Only to learn that tarpon domiciled somewhere far to the south. But it didn't appear to bother him. He had money to burn. Or so it seemed at the time.

Although he was a tremendously energetic pioneer in creative financing schemes, the economic crash of 1893 ruined a badly over-extended Disston. At the age of fifty, faced with bankruptcy and personal humiliation, the proud Disston put a pistol to his head and killed himself in the bathtub of his Philadelphia mansion. Shades of Richard Cory. For those who don’t know it, here’s the poem.

Richard Cory

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,

We people on the pavement looked at him:

He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked;

But still he fluttered pulses when he said,

“Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich — yes, richer than a king —

And admirably schooled in every grace;

In fine we thought that he was everything

To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head.

— Edwin Arlington Robinson —

Don’t you just love poetry? It’s so sweet and genteel.

It is highly likely that, given that the times made merciless exploitation of the land an accepted and approved activity, most if not all of those horrific adverse environmental effects would have occurred with or without Hamilton Disston. However, fair or not, poor Ham stands at the head of a long but infamous line of environmental vandals, thieves, and con artists. His example inspired hundreds of lesser men and certainly a select few more effective ones as well. All of whom were convinced that with a little luck they would avoid Disston’s fate and hit the jackpot big time.

Buying Florida land cheap and selling it to gullible suckers for stupendous profits became a highly desirable and sought after way of life. And would change the Florida landscape far into the future.