Henry Morrison Flagler
Henry Morrison Flagler (January 2, 1830 – May 20, 1913) was an American industrialist and a
founder of Standard Oil. He was also a key figure in the development of the eastern coast of
Florida along the Atlantic Ocean and was founder of what became the Florida East Coast
Railway. He is known as the father of Miami, Florida, and also founded Palm Beach, Florida.
Upbringing and education
Henry Flagler was born in Hopewell, New York, and was the son of Elizabeth Caldwell
Morrison Harkness and the Rev. Isaac Flagler, a Presbyterian minister. His mother was the
widow of Dr. David Harkness of Milan, Ohio who had been a widower when they married. Dr.
David Harkness and his first wife were the parents of Stephen V. Harkness, whose business
success enabled him to invest substantially with Henry Flagler in the Standard Oil Company.
Elizabeth and Dr. David Harkness had one son, Daniel M. Harkness, Henry's half-brother.
Henry Flagler received an eighth-grade education before leaving home at 14 to join his halfbrother Daniel M. Harkness to work in Daniel's uncle's store, Lamon G. Harkness and Company,
in Republic, Ohio, at a salary of $5 per month plus room and board. By 1849, Flagler was
promoted to the sales staff at a salary of $400 per month. He eventually left Republic and joined
Daniel M. Harkness in Bellevue, Ohio in a new grain business started with Lamon G. Harkness
in Bellevue. In 1862, Flagler left Bellevue and founded the Flagler and York Salt Company, a
salt mining and production business in Saginaw, Michigan in 1862 with his brother-in-law
Barney York. By 1865, the end of the American Civil War led to a drop in the demand for salt
and the Flagler and York Salt Company collapsed. Heavily in debt, Flagler returned to Bellevue.
1
He had lost his initial $50,000 investment and an additional $50,000 he borrowed from his
father-in-law and Dan Harkness. Flagler felt he had learned a valuable lesson: invest in a
business only after thorough investigation.
Business and Standard Oil
After the failure of his salt business in Saginaw, Flagler returned to Bellevue and reentered the
grain business as a commission merchant with The Harkness Grain Company. Through this
business, Flagler became acquainted with John D. Rockefeller, who worked as a commission
agent with Hewitt and Tuttle for the Harkness Grain Company. By the mid-1860s, Cleveland had
become the center of the oil refining industry in America and Rockefeller left the grain business
to start his own oil refinery. Rockefeller worked in association with chemist and inventor Samuel
Andrews.
In 1867, Rockefeller, needing capital for his new venture, approached Flagler. Flagler obtained
$100,000 (equivalent of $1.6 million in 2012) from family member Stephen V. Harkness on the
condition that Flagler be made a partner. The Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler partnership was
formed with Flagler in control of Harkness' interest.[5] The partnership eventually grew into the
Standard Oil Corporation. It was Flagler's idea to use the rebate system to strengthen the firm's
position against competitors and the transporting enterprises alike. Though the refunds issued
amounted to no more than fifteen cents on the dollar, they put Standard Oil in position to
outcompete other oil refineries. By 1872, it led the American oil refining industry, producing
10,000 barrels per day. In 1885, Standard Oil moved its corporate headquarters to New York
City.
Standard Oil had the same principal owners that Rockefeller, Andrews and Flagler had, give or
take a few business associates: one of whom was John D. Rockefeller's brother, William.
Standard Oil monopolized quickly and took America by storm. Although Standard Oil was a
partnership, Flagler was credited as the brain behind the booming oil refining business.
According to Edwin Lefevre, in "Flagler and Florida" from Everybody's Magazine, XXII
(February, 1910) p. 183, "When John D. Rockefeller was asked if the Standard Oil company was
the result of his thinking, he answered, "No, sir. I wish I had the brains to think of it. It was
Henry M. Flagler.”
Henry Flagler dabbled in various businesses aside from building up infrastructure in Florida.
When he envisioned successes in the oil industry, he and Rockefeller started building their
fortune in refining oil in Cleveland, Ohio. Cleveland became very well known for oil refining,
as, "More and more crude oil was shipped from the oil regions to Cleveland for the refining
process because of transportation facilities and the aggressiveness of the refiners there. It was
due largely to the efforts of Henry M. Flagler and John D. Rockefeller. Flagler and Rockefeller
worked hard for their company to achieve such prominence. Henry explained: "We worked night
and day, making good oil as cheaply as possible and selling it for all we could get." Not only did
Flagler and Rockefeller's Standard Oil company become well known in Ohio, they expanded to
other states, as well as gained additional capital in purchasing smaller oil refining companies
across the nation. According to Allan Nevins, in John D. Rockefeller (p 292), "Standard Oil was
born as a big enterprise, it had cut its teeth as a partnership and was now ready to plunge forward
2
into a period of greater expansion and development. It soon was doing one tenth of all the
petroleum business in the United States. Besides its two refineries and a barrel plant in
Cleveland, it possessed a fleet of tank cars and warehouses in the oil regions as well as
warehouses and tanks in New York."
By 1892, Standard Oil had a monopoly over all oil refineries in the United States. In an overall
calculation of America's oil refineries' assets and capital, Standard Oil surpassed all others.
Standard Oil's combined assets equaled approximately $42,882,650.00 from Indiana, Kentucky,
New Jersey, New York and Ohio. The history of American oil refining begins with Henry
Morrison Flagler, and his business associate and friend, John D. Rockefeller, as they built the
biggest, most prosperous and monopolizing oil empire of their time: Standard Oil.
Florida: resort hotels and railroads
In 1876 on the advice of his physician, Flagler traveled to Jacksonville for the winter with his
first wife, Mary (née Harkness) Flagler, who was quite ill. Two years after she died in 1881, he
married again. Ida Alice (née Shourds) Flagler had been a caregiver for Mary Flagler. After their
wedding, the couple traveled to Saint Augustine. Flagler found the city charming, but the hotel
facilities and transportation systems inadequate. Franklin W. Smith had just finished building
Villa Zorayda and Flagler offered to buy it for his honeymoon. Smith would not sell, but he
planted the seed of St. Augustine's and Florida's future in Flagler's mind.
Although Flagler remained on the board of directors of Standard Oil, he gave up his day-to-day
involvement in the corporation to pursue his interests in Florida. He returned to St. Augustine in
1885 and made Smith an offer. If Smith could raise $50,000, Flagler would invest $150,000 and
they would build a hotel together. Perhaps fortunately for Smith, he couldn't come up with the
funds, so Flagler began construction of the 540-room Ponce de León Hotel by himself, but spent
several times his original estimate. Smith helped train the masons on the mixing and pouring
techniques he used on Zorayda.
Realizing the need for a sound transportation system to support his hotel ventures, Flagler
purchased short line railroads in what would later become known as the Florida East Coast
Railway.
This project sparked Flagler's interest in creating a new "American Riviera." Two years later,
Flagler expanded his Florida holdings. He built a railroad bridge across the St. Johns River to
gain access to the southern half of the state and purchased the Hotel Ormond, just north of
Daytona. He also built the Alcazar hotel as an overflow hotel for the Ponce de León Hotel. The
Alcazar stands today as the Lightner Museum next to the Casa Monica Hotel in St. Augustine.
His personal dedication to the state of Florida was demonstrated when he began construction on
his private residence, Kirkside, in St. Augustine.
Flagler completed the 1,100-room Royal Poinciana Hotel on the shores of Lake Worth in Palm
Beach and extended his railroad to its service town, West Palm Beach, by 1894, founding Palm
Beach and West Palm Beach. The Royal Poinciana Hotel was at the time the largest wooden
3
structure in the world. Two years later, Flagler built the Palm Beach Inn (renamed Breakers
Hotel Complex in 1901) overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Palm Beach.
Flagler originally intended West Palm Beach to be the terminus of his railroad system, but in
1894 and 1895, severe freezes hit the area, causing Flagler to rethink his original decision. Sixty
miles south, the town today known as Miami was reportedly unharmed by the freeze. To further
convince Flagler to continue the railroad to Miami, he was offered land in exchange for laying
rail tracks from private landowners, including Julia Tuttle, whom he had met in Cleveland, Ohio
and who ran a trading post on the Miami River, the Florida East Coast Canal and Transportation
Company, and the Boston and Florida Atlantic Coast Land Company.
Such incentive led to the development of Miami, which was an unincorporated area at the time.
Flagler encouraged fruit farming and settlement along his railway line and made many gifts to
build hospitals, churches, and schools in Florida.
Flagler's railroad, the Florida East Coast Railway, reached Biscayne Bay by 1896. Flagler
dredged a channel, built streets, instituted the first water and power systems, and financed the
city's first newspaper, The Metropolis. When the city was incorporated in 1896, its citizens
wanted to honor the man responsible for its growth by naming it "Flagler". He declined the
honor, persuading them to use an old Indian name, "Mayaimi". However, an artificial island was
constructed in Biscayne Bay called Flagler Monument Island to honor Flagler. In 1897, Flagler
opened the exclusive Royal Palm Hotel there. He became known as the Father of Miami, Florida.
Flagler's second wife, the former Ida Alice Shourds, had been institutionalized for mental illness
since 1895. In 1901, Flagler successfully persuaded the Florida Legislature to pass a law that
made incurable insanity grounds for divorce, opening the way for Flagler to remarry. Judge
Minor S. Jones of Florida's 7th Judicial Circuit presided over the divorce. Flagler was the only
person to be divorced under the law he pushed through before it was repealed in 1905. On
August 24, 1901, Flagler married his third wife, Mary Lily Kenan, and the couple soon moved
into their new Palm Beach estate, Whitehall, a 55-room beaux arts home designed by the New
York-based firm of Carrère and Hastings, which also had designed the New York Public Library
and the Pan American Exposition. Built in 1902 as a wedding present to Mary Lily, Whitehall
(now the Flagler Museum) was a 60,000-square-foot winter retreat that established the Palm
Beach "season" of approximately 8–12 weeks, for the wealthy of America's Gilded Age.
By 1905, Flagler decided that his Florida East Coast Railway should be extended from Biscayne
Bay to Key West, a point 128 miles past the end of the Florida peninsula. At the time, Key West
was Florida's most populous city, and it was also the United States' deep water port closest to the
canal that the U.S. government proposed to build in Panama. Flagler wanted to take advantage of
additional trade with Cuba and Latin America as well as the increased trade with the west that
the Panama Canal would bring. In 1912, the Florida Overseas Railroad was completed to Key
West. Over thirty years, Flagler had invested about $50 million in railroad, home, and hotel
construction and gave to suffering farmers after the freeze in 1894. When asked by the president
of Rollins College in Winter Park about his philanthropic efforts, Flagler reportedly replied, "I
believe this state is the easiest place for many men to gain a living. I do not believe anyone else
4
would develop it if I do not ... but I do hope to live long enough to prove I am a good business
man by getting a dividend on my investment.”
Death and Heritage
In 1913, Flagler fell down a flight of marble stairs at Whitehall. He never recovered from the fall
and died in Palm Beach of his injuries on May 20 at 83 years of age. He was entombed in the
Flagler family mausoleum at Memorial Presbyterian Church in St. Augustine alongside his first
wife, Mary Harkness; daughter, Jenny Louise; and granddaughter, Marjorie. Only his son Harry
survived of the three children by his first marriage in 1853 to Mary Harkness. A large portion of
his estate was designated for a "niece" who was said actually to be a child born out of wedlock.
When looking back at Flagler's life after his death on May 20, 1913, George W. Perkins, of J.P.
Morgan & Co., reflected, "But that any man could have the genius to see of what this wilderness
of waterless sand and underbrush was capable and then have the nerve to build a railroad here, is
more marvelous than similar development anywhere else in the world."
Miami's main east-west street, is named Flagler Street, and is the main shopping street in
Downtown Miami. There is also a monument to him on Flagler Monument Island in Biscayne
Bay in Miami; Flagler College and Flagler Hospital are named after him in St. Augustine.
Flagler County, Florida, Flagler Beach, Florida and Flagler, Colorado are also named for him.
Whitehall, Palm Beach, is open to the public as the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum; his private
railcar No. 91 is preserved inside a Beaux Arts pavilion built to look like a 19th Century railway
palace.
On February 24, 2006, a statue of Henry Flagler was unveiled in Key West near where the OverSea Railroad once terminated. Also, on July 28, 2006, a statue of Henry Flagler was unveiled on
the southeast steps of Miami's Dade County Courthouse, located on Miami's Flagler Street.
The Overseas Railroad, also known as the Key West Extension of the Florida East Coast
Railway, was heavily damaged and partially destroyed in the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. The
Florida East Coast Railway was financially unable to rebuild the destroyed sections, so the
roadbed and remaining bridges were sold to the State of Florida, which built the Overseas
Highway to Key West, using much of the remaining railway infrastructure.
5
A section of Flagler’s railroad
To Key West
Flagler’s Ponce de Leon Hotel,
Now Flagler College
\ in front of
Flagler’s statue
Flagler College
6
_________1. Which major corporation and monopoly was Henry Flagler a co-founder of?
A. US Steel Corporation
B. American Telephone and Telegraph
C. Standard Oil Corporation
D. General Electric Corporation?
__________2. Who was his famous partner in creating this business?
A. Thomas Edison
C. Philip Armour
B. John D. Rockefeller
D. Andrew Carnegie
__________3. Why did Flagler and his first wife travel to Florida for the first time in 1876?
A. His wife was ill and her doctor recommended the trip.
B. Flagler had business partners he needed to meet with in Jacksonville.
C. They were avoiding an outbreak of influenza in Cleveland.
D. Flagler was avoiding a subpoena to appear in an anti-trust law suit.
__________4. Flagler’s Ponce de Leon Hotel in St. Augustine eventually became
A. Flagler University
C. a railroad station
B. the Lightner Museum
D. a hospital
__________5. Flagler built railroads across the state of Florida. Most often to this was to
A. make it easier to distribute oil across the state.
B. allow him to move workers between his many orange groves.
C. provide a way for citizens to flee from hurricanes.
D. make it easier for guests to get to his many hotels.
__________6. Which Florida city wanted to name itself “Flagler?”
A. St. Augustine
C. Miami
B. Palm Beach
D. Key West
__________7. Why did Flagler get the Florida State Legislature to pass a special law just for his
benefit?
A. so he would have a monopoly on railroads in the state
B. so he could divorce his mentally ill second wife and remarry
C. to prevent another businessman from building hotels in the state
D. to get permission to build a canal across Florida
________8. Which of these is one reason Flagler decided to extend his railroad to Key West?
A. Key West was Florida’s least populous city with a lot of room for growth.
B. It was the closest port to the Panama Canal the US was planning to build.
C. The US Navy requested the railroad to help it supply its ships.
D. Flagler already owned several hotels in Key West.
7