Product Description
The building of Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway extension over water to Key West from 1905 to 1916 was a triumph of engineering and logistics.
The Keys were remote and with little means of communication. The massive amounts of materials had to be moved with steam power. This book tells the story of the planners and their plan and its execution. It has 250 old photos, most have never been published before.
Henry M. Flagler called his project “landscape gardening.” The ambitious project is even more awesome when you consider the primitive machines engineers designed and workers built to do the job. Most of these machines were powered by steam engines, but the engineers experimented with gasoline engines for some of their tools.
Dan Gallagher was a college professor who moved to the Keys and became a boat captain, environmental guide, editor, and writer. He wrote a number of books and publications on various parts of the Keys railway before writing this book.
