Two Henrys…
About five or six years ago, after my father-in-law had passed away but my mother-in-law was still living in St. Augustine, we took her to see a play at the Limelight Theatre. It was a one-man play by an actor who reenacted the life of Henry Flagler. It also featured two female singers who performed turn-of-the-20th-century music which Jackie knew. She loved it.
Flagler, of course, was the other industrial magnate who developed Florida. Being from the Tampa side of the state, Henry B. Plant was the “original” to me.
The parallel lives of these two men who came down from the North to take advantage of the opportunities jungly Florida afforded at that time are amazing.
At the end of the Flagler play, there was a question period and I asked the actor – still in character – about what he thought of Henry B. Plant. His comments led me to believe that Flagler thought Plant to be a midget up against his own great achievements. This was stated with a twinkle in the actor’s eye.
Tonight, Glen and I attended another presentation. This was a one-man show reenacting the life of Plant. It was not a musical presentation, but it did feature a very interesting slide show of old Florida: Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota, and Miami before and during the very early years of the 20th century.
The Plant show did mention Flagler quite a lot, and the actor led me to believe that the relationship between the two men was competitive, but also more developed and friendly than the Flagler show did. In fact, he said that Flagler had served on one of Plant’s boards of directors, for the railroad line that ran from Sanford to Tampa.
Both men not only brought the railroads to the state for the purpose of luring industry, development and tourists’ dollars, they also each built a beautiful resort hotel: Flagler’s Ponce de Leon Hotel and Plant’s Tampa Bay Hotel. Both exist today, but as private universities. Both have unusual architecture for their locales.
Turns out this was because they, being built in the “jungle” during the Victorian Age, needed to offer extreme high-end culture to their patrons in order to lure them at all. They needed to create spectacle as destination – a tradition that’s been emulated in Florida ever since!
When Flagler served on The Plant System’s BOD, he voted against Plant’s proposal to build the hotel and said it could never succeed as a tourist resort because his own hotel had already captured the entire market with that idea. Plant proceeded anyway, and tourists did come, and it was nice. But it never saw black ink. Flagler was right. At that time, there was only a large enough market for one such resort. And the fact that the Ponce was completed first and stood near the Atlantic Ocean gave it primacy.
I was able to tell the actor/professor that I went to H.B. Plant High School and had taken my SATs at his former hotel. I also asked him – in character – what Davis Islands had looked like during his time. He replied that it was mostly a spit of land until Davis came along in the early 20th century and made it a success. Selling land he pumped up from the bay’s bottom, Davis made $3 million in three days! But although Davis Islands has been an ongoing success, Davis himself died penniless.
Interestingly, Davis reproduced some of his Davis Islands success over on Anastasia Island in St. Augustine, with the neighborhood known as David Shores. It is reminiscent of some parts of Davis Islands.
And, also interesting, is that Glen grew up in the land of Henry Flagler and Davis Shores, on an island, while I grew up in the land of Henry B. Plant, and on Davis Islands. In two lives otherwise unlike one another’s, and two temperaments unlike one another’s, the histories of our hometowns on either side of the state create “bookends” and make some sort of statement about the lives of two native Floridians who happened to get together in the modern age.
Alligators, humidity, mosquitoes and biting gnats, hurricanes… these are not the elements that caucasian, northern Europeans usually gravitate toward. But the two Henrys opened the wilderness – for their own profit, of course – to the rest of us and built the foundation of modern Florida. St. Augustine and Tampa are two of the best parts of the state – along with beautiful Tallahassee, of course. But that’s a different story…
.................................................................................................................................@
About five or six years ago, after my father-in-law had passed away but my mother-in-law was still living in St. Augustine, we took her to see a play at the Limelight Theatre. It was a one-man play by an actor who reenacted the life of Henry Flagler. It also featured two female singers who performed turn-of-the-20th-century music which Jackie knew. She loved it.
Flagler, of course, was the other industrial magnate who developed Florida. Being from the Tampa side of the state, Henry B. Plant was the “original” to me.
The parallel lives of these two men who came down from the North to take advantage of the opportunities jungly Florida afforded at that time are amazing.
At the end of the Flagler play, there was a question period and I asked the actor – still in character – about what he thought of Henry B. Plant. His comments led me to believe that Flagler thought Plant to be a midget up against his own great achievements. This was stated with a twinkle in the actor’s eye.
Tonight, Glen and I attended another presentation. This was a one-man show reenacting the life of Plant. It was not a musical presentation, but it did feature a very interesting slide show of old Florida: Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota, and Miami before and during the very early years of the 20th century.
The Plant show did mention Flagler quite a lot, and the actor led me to believe that the relationship between the two men was competitive, but also more developed and friendly than the Flagler show did. In fact, he said that Flagler had served on one of Plant’s boards of directors, for the railroad line that ran from Sanford to Tampa.
Both men not only brought the railroads to the state for the purpose of luring industry, development and tourists’ dollars, they also each built a beautiful resort hotel: Flagler’s Ponce de Leon Hotel and Plant’s Tampa Bay Hotel. Both exist today, but as private universities. Both have unusual architecture for their locales.
Turns out this was because they, being built in the “jungle” during the Victorian Age, needed to offer extreme high-end culture to their patrons in order to lure them at all. They needed to create spectacle as destination – a tradition that’s been emulated in Florida ever since!
When Flagler served on The Plant System’s BOD, he voted against Plant’s proposal to build the hotel and said it could never succeed as a tourist resort because his own hotel had already captured the entire market with that idea. Plant proceeded anyway, and tourists did come, and it was nice. But it never saw black ink. Flagler was right. At that time, there was only a large enough market for one such resort. And the fact that the Ponce was completed first and stood near the Atlantic Ocean gave it primacy.
I was able to tell the actor/professor that I went to H.B. Plant High School and had taken my SATs at his former hotel. I also asked him – in character – what Davis Islands had looked like during his time. He replied that it was mostly a spit of land until Davis came along in the early 20th century and made it a success. Selling land he pumped up from the bay’s bottom, Davis made $3 million in three days! But although Davis Islands has been an ongoing success, Davis himself died penniless.
Interestingly, Davis reproduced some of his Davis Islands success over on Anastasia Island in St. Augustine, with the neighborhood known as David Shores. It is reminiscent of some parts of Davis Islands.
And, also interesting, is that Glen grew up in the land of Henry Flagler and Davis Shores, on an island, while I grew up in the land of Henry B. Plant, and on Davis Islands. In two lives otherwise unlike one another’s, and two temperaments unlike one another’s, the histories of our hometowns on either side of the state create “bookends” and make some sort of statement about the lives of two native Floridians who happened to get together in the modern age.
Alligators, humidity, mosquitoes and biting gnats, hurricanes… these are not the elements that caucasian, northern Europeans usually gravitate toward. But the two Henrys opened the wilderness – for their own profit, of course – to the rest of us and built the foundation of modern Florida. St. Augustine and Tampa are two of the best parts of the state – along with beautiful Tallahassee, of course. But that’s a different story…
.................................................................................................................................@
posted by Luna @ 10:17 PM
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