Sublime

Among the various guests on board with Flagler on the morning of January 22 was Assistant Secretary of War Robert Shaw Oliver, the personal representative of President Taft, sharing a ride that was so sought after that it took a last-minute call from William Krome to Flagler direct to get himself on board.

Given South Florida’s proximity to Cuba, the government was under pressure to put a garrison in place there to defend U.S. shores. Not a man to let opportunity pass him by, Flagler lobbied Washington to deploy a sizable number of troops, adding that Miami was…

Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

From Chimborazo the party pushed farther south, into the valley of the upper Amazon. Then they were climbing again into the rarefied air of the Andes, traveling now, on occasion, along the “wonderful remains of the Inca Roads” and taking, as it happens, about the same route as the present-day Pan-American Highway. The Inca Road and the thought of t

In the company of a young French medical doctor turned botanist, Aime Bonpland, Humboldt had departed from La Coruña, Spain, in June 1799, on a Spanish frigate, slipping past a British blockade in the dark of night, in the midst of a storm, and carrying with him a unique document from the Spanish government. He and Bonpland had been granted complet

The few hardy settlers who lived there near the turn of the century had been enticed by land speculation syndicates at work everywhere in the wild southern half of Florida, groups of businessmen who stood to make their fortunes by seeing such frontier lands settled. Those who moved to Fort Dallas to seek their fortunes were interested in encouragin

I heard it proposed lately that two young men should travel together over the world, the one without money, earning his means as he went, before the mast and behind the plow, the other carrying a bill of exchange in his pocket. It was easy to see that they could not long be companions or co-operate, since one would not operate at all. They would pa

Once, with its price per share at $295, the Panama Railroad was the highest listed stock on the New York Exchange. There had never been a railroad to compare with it.