Hamilton Disston - Disappointment

Disappointment

Further information: Draining and development of the Everglades

Disston's success at draining peninsular Florida quickly turned to disappointment. The positive report of his drainage results in 1883 was followed by a dreadful report in 1887. While it still credited Disston with draining parts of the upper Kissimmee valley, it credited a drought with drying the area north of Lake Okeechobee. Meanwhile, Lake Okeechobee—which typically rises and falls seasonally, and is affected by the frequent flooding and droughts associate with the Florida climate—was inundated despite Disston's canals, and the only canal out of the lake that Disston actually completed resulted in the Caloosahatchee River flooding the surrounding area. Furthermore, Disston's planned canals to the east and south out of Lake Okeechobee had not materialized.

The 1887 commission concluded that Disston had received 1,200,000 acres (4,900 km2) which he had not earned. Disston, however, reached a compromise whereby he would keep land that he had been given in return for spending $200,000 to improve drainage including improving the flow of the canals he had already dug. In total, he dug over 80 miles (130 km) of canals and received 1,600,000 acres (6,500 km2) of land under the terms of his first drainage contract of January 1881. Although he never finished his canal plans for Lake Okeechobee, and the Everglades remained relatively unaffected by the structures intended to drain them, he was formally credited with reclaiming large portions of land and generally improving the drainage of peninsular Florida.

Regardless of the lack of success in Disston's canals, the money he paid to the Internal Improvement Fund allowed other industrialists to take an interest in the development of Florida. In the early 1880s, railroad tycoon Henry Morrison Flagler spent a vacation in the town of St. Augustine, a brief distance south of Jacksonville, and, enchanted with it, decided to build an opulent hotel there. He extended the rail line—renaming it the Jacksonville, St. Augustine & Indian River Railway—to Daytona Beach, and then to Palm Beach. As the railroad was built, citrus farms followed, and Flagler constructed hotels down the east coast, envisioning a version of the French Riviera in Florida. A friendly competition developed between Flagler and another railroad magnate named Henry Bradley Plant. While Flagler oversaw the construction of rail lines and hotels along the east coast, Plant concentrated on extending the railroad from Sanford to Tampa, crossing the state and connecting the coasts. At the terminus of this line he built the exquisite Tampa Bay Hotel, opened in 1891.