OF THE OLD MIAMI AND THE NEW MIAMI--OF DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MIAMI BEACH
AND PALM BEACH--OF THE SCENIC POSSIBILITIES IN FLOATING COCONUTS AND THE
ACTIVITIES OF JOHN S. COLLINS
The people who knew Miami prior to 1918 have in their minds an entirely
different place from the Miami of to-day. The old Miami was a city first
and a winter resort afterward. This statement will, of course, offend
the touchy Miami folk; but it is true none the less. It was--and is--a
hustling, bustling, booming, noisy city with about one automobile for
each seven-eighths of an inhabitant, and with perpetual warmth and
sunshine. In the long run, however, the big-money tourists don’t want to
go to a hustling, bustling, rapidly growing city for their winter
holidays, even though the city may boast perpetual warmth and sunshine.
What they want is clean air and plenty of sun and sky, and a complete
change from the scenery to which they are accustomed in their northern
cities, and a surcease from all noises except the noises they make
themselves--which are frequently much louder than the ordinary noises of
a city. For that reason Palm Beach was in a class by itself. The
big-money tourists went to Palm Beach. Miami got a smattering of them,
but a very small smattering. Palm Beach sneered at Miami Beach and
called it “the Coney Island of Florida.”
That, however, was prior to 1918. To-day Miami has been augmented by
Miami Beach; and eventually Miami Beach will nose out ahead of Palm
Beach and get all the youngsters and live wires who like to be on the
jump from eight in the morning until three and four and five o’clock the
next morning--with occasional busy evenings which will keep them up
until six or seven in the morning. Palm Beach folk still sneer
[Illustration:
_Photograph by F. A. Robinson_
The outdoor swimming pool on a private estate in Miami.]
[Illustration: Any January morning at Miami Beach.]
[Illustration: A January afternoon tea-dance on the shore of Biscayne
Bay.]
at Miami Beach and still, according to their ancient custom, call it the
Coney Island of Florida. But it isn’t the Coney Island of Florida; and
Palm Beach is frightened for the first time in years--frightened that
the wealthy tourists will desert the endless corridors of her hotels and
the continuous clothes-changing and the eternal chatter and twaddle of
society and near-society and the lifeless air of Bradley’s Roulette
Emporium, and get down to Miami, where there’s something doing every
minute, and where people go into dinner in golf clothes without getting
a hard look from the head waiter.
The story of Miami Beach is a remarkable one and without it Miami would
scarcely be able to get out gaudy prospectuses with pictures of
beautifully shaped ladies in red one-piece bathing suits on the covers.
This is the way of it:
Miami’s palm-shaded streets run down to the shores of Biscayne Bay,
which is a strip of water some seven miles long and between two and
three miles wide. Between the bay and the ocean is a long narrow tongue
of land, not much over a mile in width at its widest point. Prior to
1913, ninety-nine per cent. of this narrow tongue of land was a
worthless jungle. The man who owned it is said to have bought it for
twelve thousand dollars. The only way of reaching it was by ferry boat,
and there was nothing on it in the line of a winter resort except a
bathing shack on the beach at the extreme tip, to which a few tourists
occasionally repaired when the urge for sea bathing became almost too
intense to be endured.
A persistent attempt had been made to utilize the natural advantages of
this narrow tongue of sand and jungle. In 1884 some New Jersey business
men essayed to plant coconuts on it in sufficient quantities to make the
venture profitable. There were no railroads, and it could only be
reached by boat. Three shiploads of coconuts were brought from the
island of Trinidad. The ships were anchored off the tongue of land; and
when the wind blew toward the shore, the coconuts were dumped overboard
to float to land. Three hundred and thirty-four thousand coconuts were
sent ashore by the promoters of this scheme. They cost five cents apiece
in Trinidad, and the freight figured up to six cents apiece. The venture
became so costly that the promoters hunted around for more capital and
succeeded in interesting a New Jersey fruit-grower named John S.
Collins. As a commercial proposition, the coconut planting was a
complete failure. But as a flyer in landscape architecture, it was a
great success; for the entire ocean-front of the tongue of land was
fringed with beautiful coconut palms.
The original coconut planters dropped out as their failure became
apparent. Collins and one other man hung on to their narrow and
apparently worthless piece of land. In the center of it was some high
ground on which Collins conceived the idea of starting a grove of
avocados, better known as alligator pears. The avocado shuns frost as an
Epworth Leaguer shuns cocktails; and since there is no frost worthy of
the name on the tongue of land because of its water-protection on both
sides, Collins figured that avocado culture could be made to pay. He was
right; and his avocado grove is now the largest in the world. The speed
with which he worked, however, didn’t meet the approval of his one
remaining partner; so Collins bought him out, becoming the sole owner of
the narrow sand-spit with the avocado grove down its backbone.
It then began to dawn on Collins, who was seventy-four years old and
therefore able to see a good many things that younger men overlooked,
that his sand-spit was a pleasant place on which to live during the
winter and summer too, but that he probably couldn’t persuade people to
live there until he made it possible for people to get there.
Consequently he conceived the idea of building a wooden bridge two and
one-half miles in length--the longest vehicle bridge in the
world--between Miami and the sand-spit.
The bridge was started in July, 1912; and, as has always been customary
in the early developments of Florida, his friends, attorneys and bankers
almost had heart-failure over his wild scheme. They prophesied
enthusiastically that in about two years’ time he would be standing at
the Miami end of his unfinished bridge, begging for nickels with which
to get a square meal. The population of Miami at that time was about
seven thousand five hundred.
At one time, late in 1912, the amateur prophets were looking gloomily at
Collins and saying proudly to each other: “Well, I told him so!” The
bridge was such a tremendous undertaking that the Collins money began to
pinch out; and no local talent could be found to advance any sum larger
than nine dollars on the chance of making a success out of the bridge or
the sand-spit.