a very SPECIAL MOMENT in TIME Issue Five, December 2014

IT ALL BEGAN WITH “CHEESECAKE” — SERIOUSLY!
By Seth 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.

Our town, Miami Beach, is one of the world’s greatest resorts. The story is so incredible, so fascinating, so intriguing and so replete with so many different and true and real characters that fascinating is one of the minor adjectives that can be used to describe that history.

"Cheesecake"

Perhaps most interesting is the fact that Miami Beach came to prominence not just because of the names of its great, original founders, builders and developers but because one man – Steve Hannagan. At the time, he was recognized as one of the greatest public relations (PR) persons in America. He conjured up a word that he not only believed would describe the beautiful swimsuit models of his vision but that the use of that word would make everybody in America—at least all of those east of Denver—aware of Miami Beach. This word foretold would be the salvation of the failing land enterprise on an island formerly known as Ocean Beach, across Biscayne Bay from where it was already being called “the Magic City.”

During this time, the newly minted city was still mostly undeveloped and Carl Fisher and his partner, Jim Allison, spent an enormous amount of money clearing land and preparing the oceanfront island for sale. With the assistance of John H. Levi and C. W. “Pete” Chase, Fisher and Allison worked day and night to sell land on the island. Levi was a former yacht broker who had handled the sale of a luxurious vessel to Fisher and then had become his right hand man in the building of Miami Beach. Chase would become their head salesman after Dr. E. E. “Doc” Dammers went to Coral Gables to work for George Merrick.

Unhappily for them, and even after offering the land free to anyone who would build a house and live on the property, there were few takers.

The four men were nearly out of ideas when Levi, following his return from a trip to New York, casually announced to Fisher and Allison that he had the solution to the selling problem but that they would have to spend some money to bring in (according to Levi), the best PR and promotions guy in the world. “And who might that be?” Fisher asked. Whereupon Levi replied, “Steve Hannagan.”

It is from the Miami Archives website that we learn that “in 1924, during a Christmas visit to Florida, Hannagan met Fisher through Levi, who he had once worked for as a press agent in Indianapolis. Fisher’s problem was solved. He wasted no time in hiring the 24 year-old Hannagan to publicize Miami Beach.

Within days, Hannagan had his first story when a millionaire died while playing polo on Fisher’s field on Miami Beach. He sent the story to United Press:

MIAMI BEACH FLA — FLASH — JULIUS FLEISCHMANN DROPPED DEAD ON POLO FIELD HERE STOP DONT FORGET MIAMI BEACH DATELINE!

Hannagan’s credo was simple: Print anything you want about Miami Beach; just make sure you get our name right.

In 1925, Hannagan opened the Miami Beach News Bureau and hired a staff of writers and photographers. During the winter months the bureau supplied newspapers with a steady stream of stories and pictures from Carl Fisher’s island paradise -- all with the Miami Beach dateline.  

Steve Hannagan’s name, sadly and unhappily, has almost faded from the public consciousness except when memorialized—as it should be—in Miami Beach history. Hannagan’s untimely (and to some, unseemly) termination as Miami Beach’s publicity director occurred in the late 1940s or very early 1950s. In the years that passed, he was replaced by Hank Meyer, and, later, Harold Gardner as the city’s publicity and public relations directors (the title preceding today’s director of tourism or protocol or whatever term the powers that be want to use). In books, such as this writer’s Sunshine, Stone Crabs and Cheesecake:  The Story of Miami Beach, Hannagan receives the long overdue accolades to which he is absolutely entitled.

So what, exactly, did Hannagan do that makes him such an important figure in Miami Beach’s history?  Well, even if he had done nothing else, it was Steve Hannagan who came up with the idea of using beautiful young women wearing skimpy (for the time) bathing suits in glamorous and seductive poses: Running down the beach, leaning against palm trees, lolling on sea walls and park benches, petting Fisher’s fabled elephant, “Rosie,” and generally doing what beautiful young women did in ads such as those. They looked enticing as they participated in the promotions that were the predecessors of Jim Dooley’s famous Northeast Airlines Cuh monnnn down! commercials. And what did Mr. Hannagan call those beautiful young women in their strikingly attractive poses?  Why “cheesecake,” of course! 

In fact, Jane Fisher, wife of Carl, the founder of our fair city, actually posed on one occasion in a scanty—for the time—bathing suit.

In her wonderful book, Fabulous Hoosier, Jane recounted how she wore this very sexy-looking bathing suit and was even photographed in it, complete with arms and knees showing! Afterwards, she wrote, she was almost afraid to face Carl, but when he saw the picture, wherever it appeared, he smiled broadly and told her how terrific she looked but suggested that she probably shouldn’t do it again. And, she didn’t. 

However, and as we know, a bevy of long-legged hotties (again, for the time) posed alluringly for Steve Hannagan and then for other photographers in pictures taken on Miami Beach which were sent by wire service to every newspaper in America east of Denver.

Hannagan had come up with a winner, and, indeed, it was his genius that put Miami Beach on the map. It was he who was responsible not only for the name “cheesecake” which glorified the delightful young women whose beauty and appeal helped to make Miami Beach a household name throughout the country, but also for the huge sign on the massive pylon that stood next to the Florida exhibit facing the Grand Central Expressway during the 1939-40 New York World’s Fair, and which, every day during the late fall, winter and early spring, was lit up to read “The temperature in Miami Beach today is….”  And boy, did that make an impression on New Yorkers!

There was, however, another “cheesecake,” and that delicacy. In many cases as beautiful as the young women pictured in Hannagan’s photos and on postcards being sent by tourists all over the country, it also had a flavor and taste that today is probably not available anywhere outside New York City or Los Angeles except for Epicure Market on Alton Road and in Sunny Isles Beach. The Miami Beach cheesecake was the real and true king of the cheesecakes, not that “nothing” supermarket or Sara Lee stuff (OK, OK, Sara Lee isn’t bad but that’s like saying Thomas’s bagels, which aren’t bagels but are bread dough baked in a circle with a hole in the middle aren’t bad, but the problem is that those ersatz bagels aren’t bad for bread but they sure aren’t bagels!) but, rather, an incredible almost-confection like delicacy made with real—as in Philadelphia brand—cream cheese, not ricotta cheese!

It is possible that the first of the great Miami Beach (and, to a lesser extent, Miami) cheesecakes was available at the Rosedale, which first opened on Miami Beach and then moved to Northwest Fifth Street in Miami. It would be followed on the beach by Joe’s Broadway and then a series of great “Jewish-style” cafeterias and restaurants, the food tastes of which remain, sadly, only in the memories of those who were fortunate enough to have had the experience of enjoying breakfast, lunch or dinner at one or more of them.

The names roll off the tongue and the keyboard and what happy thoughts envelop the mind when we mention the Ambassador, Governor, Dubrow’s, Hoffman’s and Concord Cafeterias and then add restaurants such as Wolfie’s, Junior’s, the Famous and Pumpernik’s as well as several shorter-lived dining emporiums of the Jewish style deli/restaurant ilk.    

Whether it was plain, chocolate, strawberry or blueberry cheesecake the memory of that wonderful dessert—and of the beautiful girls who were the descendants of the Steve Hannagan variety of cheesecake—will remain in our hearts and minds for as long as there is a Miami Beach.

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.

Text and captions were provided by Miami Beach’s City Historian, Professor Seth H. Bramson. In his capacity as City historian, Professor Bramson gives talks on the history of Miami Beach to service clubs, fraternal organizations, churches, temples and other interested groups at no charge. He can be reached via email at sbramson@bellsouth.net.

All images are from and courtesy of The Bramson Archive. Comments or questions regarding the images should be addressed to: Professor Seth H. Bramson/Office of the City Manager/1700 Convention Center Drive/Miami Beach, FL 33139.

a very SPECIAL MOMENT in TIME, Issue 4, November 2014

Brown’s May Not Have Been the First Inn on the Beach

by Seth 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.

Biscayne House of Refuge in 1890s.

The conventional wisdom dealing with Miami Beach’s history has, for almost the entire history of the city, held that the first hotel on Miami Beach was Brown’s Hotel, south Ocean Drive. The only problem with that wisdom may be that the U.S. Lifesaving Service’s Biscayne House of Refuge may have been the first Miami Beach building to serve as an inn or hospitality venue with the arrival of Captain William Fulford as its keeper in 1890. Located between 72 and 73 streets on the ocean and what is now Collins Avenue, it first opened in 1876 as one of several entities placed approximately 20 to 25 miles apart along the lower Florida east coast for the purpose of rescuing shipwrecked sailors. 

Fulford, who had captained vessels operating along Florida’s east coast beginning in the late 1880s, was intrigued with the area that would someday become Miami. As he traveled the sea-lanes he eventually picked a site where he would establish his homestead, a place that would be known first as Fulford and, later, as North Miami Beach. The captain with his wife took over a ramshackle, run down building (the aforementioned Biscayne House of Refuge) in 1890. Lttle by little he began rehabbing it, buying new furniture, replacing rotting wood, repairing stairs and fixtures and generally making it a comfortable spot for visitors. The story told in its entirety in “From Farms and Fields to the Future: The Incredible History of North Miami Beach” and in “Sunshine, Stone Crabs and Cheesecake: The Story of Miami Beach.”

While the Biscayne House of Refuge was first established in 1876 to help shipwrecked sailors and castaways, it became progressively less important in fulfilling that function as ships and navigational devices improved. According to one account, the Fulfords -- gracious and genial as they were -- always warmly welcomed visitors. Eventually they had so many patrons at the House that it must be concluded that at least some of them paid for the privilege of being the Fulford’s guests.

That same account goes on to state that, with three rooms and a kitchen on the main floor and a huge dormitory-type room under the upstairs sloping ceiling, there were a surprisingly large number of applications for room and board for short-term visitors, some of whom were turned away due to lack of space.

Utilizing fresh fruits and vegetables, which were gathered from their farm located on the mainland side, was part of the requisite for property improvement necessary to verify the homestead claim that the captain had made on the tract that he planned to purchase from the government in what is today’s North Miami Beach. The dining table the House of Refuge developed a reputation for fine and high quality board to go with its sometimes-available rooms.

With the revelation of these facts, it might be reasonable and justifiably argued that, in addition to being the Lifesaving Service’s outpost on the lower east coast of Florida, the Biscayne House of Refuge was, even before the now-famous in Miami Beach history Brown’s Hotel was built, that hotel’s predecessor as the first hostelry on what would eventually become the world’s most renowned winter resort.

Aerial view of the original site of
Biscayne House of Refuge between
72 and 73 streets in North Beach.

Today, the site of the House of Refuge is memorialized with a large bronze historical marker that is located between 72 and 73 streets on the east side of Collins Avenue. The Lifesaving Service eventually became part of the U.S. Coast Guard. The Coast Guard to the City of Miami Beach traded the former Life Saving Service’s property, now known as North Shore Park that extends from the ocean to the canal just west of today’s Dickens Avenue between 72 and 73 streets. The city gave the Coast Guard the then-underwater property that was developed by that branch of the service to become today’s Miami Beach Coast Guard station, located on the southeast side of the MacArthur Causeway.

As with so much of Miami Beach, today’s Coast Guard base and the adjoining Terminal Island was once completely under water while the former Life Saving Service property is now one of the jewels of the Miami Beach park system. North Shore Park, from oceanfront to Dickens Avenue from 72 to 73 streets, hold warm memories for thousands of Miami Beach children and adults who danced at the band shell, roller skated on Friday nights on the basketball courts, were taught tennis by the late, great “Py” Pyfrom and were coached in various sports by the likes of the late and beloved Jack Lasry, Margaret Swett, Sonny Neham and others who remain in the hearts and minds of so many Beachites.

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.

a very SPECIAL MOMENT in TIME, Issue 3, October 2014

THE REAL & TRUE STORY OF THE SOUTH POINTE PIER
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.

Looking south from Fourth Street, 

Fisher Island, Government Cut, 

dog track and oceanfront hotels.

In late August of 2014, Miami Beach opened its South Pointe Park Pier. Taking almost a year and a half to construct, the pier, which cost $4.8 million, is the third to grace that same site. The pier was originally a concrete walkway flanked by a band shell and dance pavilion jutting across the man-made beach where Ocean Drive and Biscayne Street come together. The pier opened in the early 1920s and was built by George R. K. Carter, a well-known casino operator of the period. Attempting to emulate the grandeur of Atlantic City’s fabled Steel Pier, the Miami Beach version was named “Carter’s Million Dollar Pier.”

According to a November 22, 1984 article in The Miami Herald, Carter put a two-story building on the pier's tip to house what became the city's most popular strip joint, Minsky's Burlesque. The Miami Beach Minsky’s, of course, was one of several of the famed adult entertainment venues under that name then popular in various American cities.

Although Minsky's was severely damaged by a runaway barge during the terrible September 17 and 18, 1926 hurricane, the pier was repaired and continued to operate with the two large buildings on it apparently into the very early 1950s. Then, aging and in increasingly poor condition, it was shortened, then becoming  a major Miami Beach gathering spot for fishing and outdoor evening dances.

Aerial view north from pier at South Pointe, 1950s.

When the city took over the pier in the 1950s, razing the honky-tonk bars at its entrance and proclaiming it Pier Park, the dances often drew, according to Miami Herald writer Paul Shannon, more than 1,000 revelers a night.

Indeed, the pier was touted as "demonstrating the city's eternal pledge to give tourists of all ages and inclinations a happy holiday on Miami Beach.”

As it does, life, time and the literally tides took their toll on the pier. In 1973, the city stopped maintaining the pier due to the fact that it was to be demolished under a not very popular redevelopment plan which condemned almost everything south of Sixth Street, basically leaving only Joe’s Stone Crab, Piccolo’s Restaurant and Temple Beth Jacob intact. That plan, to the joy of almost everybody on Miami Beach, was officially dropped in 1983 and by that time, the pier had become a hangout for drug dealers.

A new pier was constructed in 1979, but with numerous hurricanes battering it from then until 2004, the 25-year-old structure showed significant deterioration and was condemned.

Happily, city administration heeded the pleas from a citizenry wishing to have the opportunity to again enjoy fishing and sunbathing, as well as sightseeing on a South Beach pier and in 2013 construction on a new, 450-foot long pier, was begun, paying particular attention to the relocation of endangered coral which had grown under the old pier.

A very exciting structure, with a bold new look, the pier features an entrance designed by famed artist Tobias Rehberger, which was commissioned by the Miami Beach Art in Public Places Project.

 

The new South Pointe Pier was completed in summer 2014.

The new pier may not have a Minsky’s Burlesque or a bathhouse on it but it certainly reflects the desire of a city administration to provide, wherever possible, opportunities for the city’s visitors and residents to enjoy all that Miami Beach offers.

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.

a very SPECIAL MOMENT in TIME, Issue 2, September 2014

HOW AND WHY DID CARL FISHER WIND UP IN MIAMI BEACH?

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.

Carl Fisher, "Mr. Miami Beach"

There is no question that Carl Graham Fisher was, is and will always be known as “Mr. Miami Beach.” It was Fisher who, along with his partner, Jim Allison, would, after giving Messrs. John S. Collins and his son-in-law Thomas Pancoast the $50,000 they needed to finish the first bridge connecting Ocean Beach to the mainland, received title to the latter’s 222 acres of land. Purchasing an additional 56 acres Fisher and Allison then owned 278 acres of what, in the not-too-distant future, would become Miami Beach.

All well and good, but how did Carl come to Miami Beach? The story is an incredible and serendipitous mix of confluence and coincidence, and without each element falling into place, none of it would have happened.

Carl Fisher and Jim Allison had built “the Brickyard,” also known as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Along with their inventions and marketing skills, they patented a switch to be placed on the new-fangled horseless carriage’s dashboard by which headlights could be turned on. A breakthrough at the level of automobile air conditioning and cruise control, the switch replaced the headlamps that had to be manually lit each time the vehicle’s owner wished to go out at night, there being, at that time, no streetlights! Union Carbide saw the potential for the invention and in 1911 handed Carl and Jim checks for $5,633,000 each!

Shortly before, Collins and Pancoast’s bridge construction company had run out of money, and they returned to New Jersey (most of Miami Beach’s earliest founders were Jerseyites) casting about for an investor. Running into an old friend, John H. Levi, a yacht broker and marine engineer from New Jersey who represented Seabury Shipyards in New York City and who oversaw the building of Fisher’s yacht, which Levi accepted delivery of in Cairo, Illinois, they explained their plight to him and asked him to let them know if he ever ran into anybody willing to invest in the bridge venture.

There have been several stories relating to Carl Fisher’s (January 12, 1874 —July 15, 1939) involvement with Collins and Pancoast. With slight variations, however, each of them, whether in  Jerry Fisher’s “The Pacesetter,” (Jerry is a distant relative), Jane Fisher’s “Fabulous Hoosier” (Jane was Carl’s ex-wife), J. N. Lummus’s “The Miracle of Miami Beach” or Charles Edgar Nash’s “The Magic of Miami Beach” seems to coincide with the brokering of a yacht for Fisher by Levi.

Fisher planned to take the boat for a leisurely cruise down the Mississippi, into the Gulf of Mexico, around the Florida Keys and up the east coast of Florida.  After several difficulties during the shakedown voyage, Fisher elected to debark from the cruise at Mobile, leaving the yacht with Levi for shipment by rail to Jacksonville. Railroad bridge clearance problems precluded the large ship from being sent that way so Fisher, en route back to Indianapolis, instructed Levi to complete the trip by water, taking the boat to Jacksonville. As fate would have it, that would not happen!

Levi, upon reaching Miami, was so enthralled with the then-small town that he elected to stay, wiring Fisher to join him in what was already being called “The Magic City” rather than in Jacksonville.

Stories have been told to the effect that Fisher met Collins and Pancoast through Levi in New Jersey, but those stories have been shown to be incorrect: Fisher met Collins either in Miami or on Ocean Beach early in 1912 and learned about the stalled bridge project at that time. He told his wife, Jane, “that little Quaker (Collins) is the bravest man I have ever met. Imagine, Jane! He is starting a gigantic project like that bridge at the age of 75-- when most men are ready to sit down and die!” As she recounts in her book, Jane knew then that Carl, the brains behind Prest-o-Lite and the builder, with Mr. Allison of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, had found a new challenge.

This was Carl Fisher’s second Miami Beach home, or Shadows II as he referred to it, 

located between 50^th and 51^st streets  on the west side of North Bay Road. Although the interior 

was substantially re-done the exterior remains. This house replaced his first 

Miami Beach home, the Shadows, located at the foot of 

Lincoln Road, east of Collins Avenue, directly overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

Once again, there are slight variations in the story of how Fisher obtained the land that would, in 1915, become Miami Beach, but, essentially, the facts are that Carl agreed to loan Collins $50,000 to complete the bridge and in return Collins gave Fisher 222 acres of beach land one mile long and 1,800 feet wide from the ocean to the bay. Fisher then purchased an additional 56 acres on Ocean Beach. The incredible story of Carl Fisher has been told in three books dedicated to him, in each of the Miami Beach histories (accurate or otherwise) written through the years, and in numerous articles, hence it is not necessary to provide yet another lengthy discussion of his life here. 

Fisher would, as the world knows and as his memorial at 51^st Street and Alton Road on Miami Beach states, “… create a great city from a jungle” before he lost interest in the city he envisioned and built. Retaining a home in Miami Beach, he moved on to his fateful and destined to fail project of building a northern clone of Miami Beach at Montauk Point on the eastern end of Long Island. Falling victim to alcoholism and becoming ever more reclusive, Fisher died of a gastric hemorrhage in St. Francis Hospital on Allison Island late in the afternoon of July 15, 1939. 

Near bankruptcy, having sold and mortgaged almost all he owned in Miami Beach to build Montauk, he was only 65 ½, ten years younger than John Stiles Collins was when Fisher first met him. Without going into paroxysms of glorification, it is safe to say, when talking about Carl Graham Fisher, that not only is the city of Miami Beach his monument but that he was and always will be the greatest single name in the history of the city. Carl Fisher was and is and will always and forever be the one and only (no matter what anybody else, living or dead wants to claim or call themselves) “Mr. Miami Beach.”

Reader’s comments are always 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.

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.