Out of Bankruptcy
These first railroads were essentially “frozen in time” until 1881, when the Internal Improvement Fund emerged from bankruptcy. Construction on the railways recommenced, and Jacksonville and St. Augustine began to grow rapidly.
". . . 1881, when the state of Florida sold almost all of Central Florida to a man by the name of Hamilton Disston, who was the son of a famous manufacturer of tools in Philadelphia . . . well, he bought millions and millions of acres in Central Florida for twenty-five cents an acre, and with that you have that the Internal Improvement Fund was able to buy itself out of insolvency and begin distributing state lands to railroad companies in return for the commitment to build the railroads . . . but the business was real estate, and selling the land, even today, the Florida East Coast Railroad Company, its main business is real estate." |
"So, basically, before 1881, Florida is Sleeping Beauty. Hamilton Disston, the prince, came, gave millions of dollars, kissed Sleeping Beauty, and Sleeping Beauty awakens, and then Florida begins developing in 1881 and the railroad building boom begins in Florida." "That purchase saved the state of Florida." |