Augustine & Halifax Railroad, he converted the line to standard gauge. Shortly after purchasing the Jacksonville, St. He also noticed that a major problem facing the existing Florida railway systems was that each operated on different gauge systems, making interconnection impossible. Flagler realized that the key to developing Florida was a solid transportation system and consequently purchased the Jacksonville, St. Augustine and began building a grand hotel, the Hotel Ponce de Leon. Flagler returned to Florida and in 1885 with an eye toward developing the area around St. When Flagler first visited Florida in 1878, he recognized the state's potential for growth but noticed a lack of hotel facilities. Standard Oil remained the largest and most profitable corporation in the world for more than a century. Rockefeller and Samuel Andrews, long before becoming interested in Florida. Flagler had co-founded Standard Oil with partners John D. Amazingly, Flagler accomplished these feats after retiring from his first career and having reached an age equal to the average life expediency for an American male of the time. In essence, Henry Flagler invented modern Florida. Flagler's construction of hotels at points along the railroad and his development of the agricultural industry through the Model Land Company established tourism and agriculture as Florida's major industries, which remain so even now more than a century later. The FEC was the product of Flagler's resources and imagination. With the completion of the Over-Sea Railroad the entire east coast of Florida, from Jacksonville to Key West, was linked by a single railroad system. In 1912 Henry Flagler arrived aboard the first train into Key West, marking the completion of the Florida East Coast (FEC) Railway's Over-Sea Railroad to Key West.
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