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.