A Man of Determination Did This!

The bridge featured on the front of this post card is located 85 kilometers south of St. Augustine. It is on the Florida East Coast Railway line.

It is part of a rail empire built by a man who had no interest in railroads per se. Henry Flagler just wanted to improve the transportation system along “The American Riviera”, as he called it. He had retired (he was a founding member of Standard Oil) and wanted to get to St. Augustine to enjoy the sunshine. This website has a great, detailed description of the history of the Florida East Coast Railway.https://www.american-rails.com/fecry.html The modern Florida East Coast began with Flagler's acquisition of the Jacksonville, St. Augustine & Halifax River Railway. This narrow-gauge property started it all for the oil mogul. During the winter of 1883-1884, a 53 year-old retired Flagler spent vacation in historic St. Augustine, Florida. Flagler was appalled at the lack of transportation services into the region. Jacksonville was the furthest one could travel directly by rail; there was another 65 kilometers to go to get to St. Augustine. To reach St. Augustine, a hamlet of only 2,500 residents, one must board a steamboat to cross the St. Johns River and then catch a train on the narrow-gauge Jacksonville, St. Augustine & Halifax River Railway. Flagler purchased this railway on December 31, 1885. He purchased several other railroads to help to connect the two dots. On January 20, 1890 a bridge was completed across the St. Johns River establishing direct service into Jacksonville. On September 9, 1895 Flagler's railroads became collectively known as the Florida East Coast Railway. Following the Florida East Coast Railway's creation, Flagler continued his southward push reaching New Smyrna Beach in 1892, Cocoa in 1893, West Palm Beach in 1894, and finally Miami on April 15, 1896. The main line from Jacksonville now extended 366 miles. This was in order to send tourists to the hotels and resorts he also now owed in southern Florida.

The post card was published by the Hugh C. Leighton Company. Adam Philips Leighton went to work at Chisholm Brothers, a book store on Congress Street in Portland, Maine on November 19, 1867 for $5 a week. In 1868 he was sent to the Grand Trunk railway station to take charge of the newsboys at the Chisholm railroad office. The Chisholms began to enlarge their book and news business on the railroad until they held a monopoly in the business on several railroad lines. Adam’s son, Hugh Chisholm Leighton later managed the company and began printing postcards in the United States instead of farming them out to printers in Europe. The Chisholm company had long specialized in view books illustrated first with lithographs and then with black-and-white photographs. Familiar with pictorial postcards used in Europe, Leighton purchased sheets of one-cent postals from the government and had single-colored pictures put on the side not reserved for an address. The first were in 1888. He later had others printed in Germany. This post card you are looking at was printed in Germany. It was printed and published before March 1, 1907, when the US Postal Service finally allowed addresses and messages on the backs of post cards. The early post cards bore the Chisholm company name. Adam eventually began to publish postcards under his own name and built the new enterprise into a substantial business. Adam Philips Leighton (1851-1922) Hugh Chisholm Leighton (1878-1943).