History and Philosophy of Science

Henry Flagler was born in 1830 in the state of New York. After a series of business ventures, Flagler finally struck it big in the early 1870s when he went into partnership with John D. Rockefeller, an American oil industry business magnate, industrialist, and philanthropist who is widely considered the wealthiest American of all time and the richest person in modern history. The two formed Standard Oil, which quickly became the top oil refinery company in the U.S. After ten years in New York City with Standard Oil, Flagler moved to St. Augustine to pursue transportation and tourism ventures in Florida.

In the mid-1880s he began construction on the Hotel Ponce de Leon and quickly purchased the Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Halifax Railroad to provide the reliable transportation for out-of-state visitors to reach his hotels and attractions. This railway became only the first in a series of railways that were combined and expanded to become the Florida East Coast Railway. Flagler opened hotels all throughout the state as well as numerous other enterprises and the Florida East Coast Railway grew as he developed areas in the southern parts of the state including Miami and even as far as Key West. The developers in Miami desperately wanted Flagler to continue the railroad to Miami in the 1890s so he was offered land from the Florida East Coast Canal and Transportation Company and the Boston and Florida Atlantic Coast Land Company as well as private landowners.

Henry Flagler died in 1913 and is buried in St. Augustine.