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The 1960s: A Last Look at Miami's Railroad Station
On May 20, 1913, Henry Morrison Flagler, industrialist, founder of Standard Oil and builder of the Florida East Coast Railroad, died.
Reaction in Miami was sober and subdued. The Miami Daily Metropolis (a paper founded with Flagler's money) noted the passing of a "Great financier ... drawn to South Florida by its salubrious climate" who had invested more than "fifty million dollars in Florida alone."
Fifty years later the Florida East Coast's Miami station, a wood frame structure built in 1912, was torn down. Reaction in Miami was gleeful.
"It's Coming Down This Week!" shouted the Miami "News" in a front-page headline. The accompanying story reported that the railroad had talked about demolishing the "rattletrap passenger station" seventeen times since 1940 and noted that an FEC vice president "used the word 'predict' in telling County Manager Irving McNayr about the demolition."
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| Miami News, Sept. 23, 1963. (Click to enlarge.) |
The FEC station, located just north of the County Courthouse, was hated in Miami, seen as a traffic-snarling obstacle in a city where just about everybody drove. By early November, the station was history.
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| 1921. |
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| 1930s. |
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| Dade County Courthouse and Florida East Coast Railroad station, (building with dark roof center left of courthouse,) in 1962. (Click here to enlarge.) |
Curbed Miami: Future FEC Downtown Miami Station
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