a very SPECIAL MOMENT in TIME, Issue 1, August 2014

A MANGROVE SANDBAR ISLAND FOR $.35 AN ACRE
By Seth H. Bramson, Miami Beach Historian

To celebrate Miami Beach’s centennial (March 26, 2015) the City of Miami Beach will publish a monthly monograph of Miami Beach history through February of 2016. Issues will focus on chronology, events, places and people. Through the complete series, the reader, the historian, and those interested in Miami Beach in general will enjoy a look back at the history of the city that, for its size, has had more words and stories written about it than probably any other city on Earth.


What was it like before the commercial era arrived? The word “paradise” comes readily to mind but the fact and truth is that while there was certainly an element of romance and intrigue to that beautiful and not insubstantial sandbar (technically, Miami Beach is actually one of the furthest north of the islands that parallel the lower east coast of Florida and continue all the way southwest to Cayo Hueso - Key West), it was, at the time of its discovery, covered with inhospitable flora and potentially deadly fauna, well removed from being a paradise.

Source: The Bramson Archive. A rare view of beachgoers on Ocean Beach 

(later Miami Beach) in December, well before the Collins Bridge opened in 1913. 

It was, however, of enough interest to Henry Lum and his son, Charles, sailing northeast from Key West on that fateful day in 1870, to beach the boat after spying an intriguing looking beach on a large mangrove sandbar island along the lower mainland. Because it was twilight and the day was rapidly fading, they decided that it would be a fine spot to come ashore for the night. Interestingly, and for whatever reason, neither the city’s files nor the existing Miami Beach histories state the exact date on which the Lums first stepped onto the sand from their 16-foot sailboat.

While we do know that the Lums originally hailed from Sandusky, Ohio, the records are unanimous in their statements that, following their exploration of the lower east coast of Florida, the men returned to their home in Red Bank, New Jersey, whereupon they purchased a sizable piece of the sandbar/island from the state of Florida (most of which would later become the Ocean Beach development) for -- are you ready? Thirty-five cents an acre.

When the Lums returned, 12 years later, they were accompanied by Ezra Osborn and Elnathan T. Field, of Middletown, New Jersey, who had an interest in operating a coconut plantation on the island. Having formed a joint venture with another Jerseyite, David Baird, Osborn and Field, to protect themselves against possible future competition, purchased a strip of land along the ocean front from Cape Florida to just above Jupiter (in today’s Palm Beach County) for the price of between 75 cents and $1.25 per acre. Eventually, Osborn and Field would buy out the Lum holdings, giving them a sizable profit above their original investment cost, the former paying the latter seventy five cents an acre for the Lum’s land, more than doubling the initial investment by Henry and Charles.

With an immense amount of effort, along with provisions, boats formerly used for lifesaving along the New Jersey shore and twenty-five men brought with them to begin the clearing of land, the partners set to work. Without going into agonizing detail it should be noted that the rabbits, rodents, squirrels, possums, skunks, foxes and other voracious woodland creatures made short work of the 334,000 coconut sprouts, of which approximately 155,000 of them were planted on the island on the east side of Biscayne Bay.

Osborn and Field, though still hopeful, had exhausted their cash on the project and returned to New Jersey to seek out other investors. Fortunately, for them, they would find themselves in Merchantville, a small New Jersey town. It was there that they interested one John S. Collins in their benighted effort. The Lums, meantime, were able to convince New York businessman Henry Robinson that it would be both expeditious and profitable for him to invest.

Although Robinson is mentioned as an investor in both J. N. Lummus’s The Miracle of Miami Beach (several editions) and Charles E. Nash’s The Magic of Miami Beach (1938) no further comment is made regarding either Robinson or Baird in either book or in later histories of the city. The involvement of Robinson and Baird, other than being moneylenders, seems to have simply slipped from the pages of Miami Beach’s history. 

After Collins advanced Field $5,000, Osborn, in 1907, sold Collins his share of the property, Collins becoming Field’s partner. Collins came to the Miami area in 1896, shortly before the Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) brought its first train to the shores of Biscayne Bay. Though Collins noted with some dismay the destruction of the coconut plantation, he still had faith that the island would provide a marvelous setting for the planting of tropical fruits including avocados, mangos and papaya as well as vegetables, among which were corn and potatoes.

Source: The Bramson Archive, Collins and Pancoast Collection. 

Some coconut palms remained after the plantation sold to Collins and Pancoast. 

By 1909, Elnathan Field foresaw a second disaster and Collins, to his great delight, purchased Field’s holdings, making him (Collins) the sole owner of 1670 acres of waterfront land, four and a half miles along the Atlantic shore and one mile fronting Biscayne Bay. Although Collins’ sons, Arthur, Irving and Lester, came south from New Jersey to “look over” the situation, it would be his son-in-law and partner in the Collins and Pancoast Supply Company of Merchantville, New Jersey, Thomas J. Pancoast, who would take the lead in confirming the older man’s belief in the island.

Alarmed at the amount of family money being spent on what Pancoast at first thought was a boondoggle, he, in 1911, came down to visit the Ocean Beach farm (Ocean Beach was the original name of what would become Miami Beach, although one early brochure does show the name “East Miami”) and humor the old man before bringing him home. But it was Pancoast and the Collins’ sons who would see the light, confirming and concurring with Collins’ assessment that the island was a farming paradise and agreeing with his idea that building a canal across Ocean Beach would cut the shipping time and cost of getting the produce to the Miami side for shipment to points north by close to one-third.

By that time, the Biscayne Navigation Company, owned by Avery Smith and his partner, James C. Warr, was, with no minimal sense of humor, operating two 55-foot long ferryboats, “Mauretania” and “Lusitania,” across the shallow, three-mile-wide bay. Passengers and parcels were brought back and forth on the ferries, but it is quite possible that the eighteen carloads of red bliss potatoes which were grown on what by then was called Ocean Beach and shipped from the FEC freight depot in Miami in early 1912 were brought to the Miami side by other, likely larger vessels, than the ferries.

Three bathing casinos had been built facing the ocean, one by the Ocean Beach Company, one by Dan Hardie, who would later be Dade County sheriff, and one, at what would become Fifth Street, which outlasted the other two, known as Cook’s. Avery Smith purchased The Ocean Beach Casino in 1908, and it was he who, in 1913, hired a young fellow by the name of Joe Weiss to be his cook. The rest of that story follows in a future issue.

By 1912, Collins and Pancoast realized that, with the coming of the automobile, they needed to provide road access to Ocean Beach. After overcoming the opposition of the Navigation Company, they set about to build, at a projected cost of $100,000, what would become the longest wooden bridge in the world.

The bridge, which started on the Miami side from what is today’s Northeast 15 Street, was surveyed to cross the open bay, move onto solid land for the short distance across Bull (later Belle Isle) Island, jump across a relatively narrow water gap and reach Ocean Beach at what is today the intersection of Dade Boulevard and West Avenue.

Unfortunately, for Collins and Pancoast, their contracting company ran out of money and was forced to close down, the bridge approximately half completed. Dejectedly, and unsure of where to turn, they returned to New Jersey, praying for some kind of a miracle that would allow them to complete the project. As fate would have it, a yacht broker, along with a marketing genius who was an inventor and a great promoter, would be their salvation.



Reader’s comments are welcome and should be addressed to Professor Seth H. Bramson, Office of the City Manager, City Hall, 1700 Convention Center Drive, Miami Beach, FL 33139.

In addition to serving as the Miami Beach City Commission appointed historian, Seth Bramson is the historian in residence and adjunct professor of history at Barry University and adjunct professor of history at Nova Southeastern University’s Lifelong Learning Institute. He is also the company historian for the Florida East Coast Railway.