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FLAGLER STATION: OVER-SEA RAILWAY HISTOREUM

 
 
 
     

In 1905, Henry M. Flagler decided to undertake his most daring, expensive endeavor: to link the island city of Key West with the rest of the Florida mainland via railroad. Most said it couldn't be done, some even referred to it as "Flagler's Folly." Flagler was one of the wealthiest men in the world, having been Rockefeller's business partner at Standard Oil Company, and it is estimated that he spent $30 million (in 1905 dollars!) of his own money to fund the Key West Extension of the Florida East Coast Railway. Seven years and 130 miles later, the first train arrived in Key West from Homestead on January 22, 1912.
Flagler Station will take visitors on a journey back to Old Key West, giving them firsthand historical accounts of

  what it was like to live in Key West back then, what it was like to be a worker on the Railway That Went to Sea, and what it was like to ride the train via video recreations. Visitors will also be able to walk through an actual Florida East Coast Railway train car as part of the exhibit. Flagler never lived to see the demise of his beloved railroad. He died just months after the first train arrived in Key West, and years before the devastating Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, which washed out the fill supporting the tracks, swept away two locomotive engines, and killed an estimated 400 people.
Take a visual ride through one of the most important and enduring aspects of Key West's History at Flagler Station: Over-sea Railway Historeum.