Last Train to Paradise by Les Standiford

Flagler's interest turned to the nascent state of Florida, and he can properly be described as the founder of that as well, with its cities (including Miami), its luxury hotels and resorts, and, relevant to our story here, the Florida East Coast Railway. He begins, as he has to, by introducing Henry Morrison Flagler, best known (if known at all) as the equal partner of John D Rockefeller in founding Standard Oil. It needs a narrator and chronicler of a high order, and it has found one here in Les Standiford.

The story of the railway across the Florida Keys all the way to Key West is nothing short of astounding. In Last Train to Paradise, Standiford celebrates this crowning achievement of Gilded Age ambition, bringing to life a sweeping tale of the powerful forces of human ingenuity colliding with the even greater forces of nature’s wrath. The railroad stood as a magnificent achievement for more than twenty-two years, heralded as “the Eighth Wonder of the World,” until its total destruction in 1935's deadly storm of the century. Many considered the project impossible, but build it they did. Rockefeller, dreamed of a railway connecting the island of Key West to the Florida mainland, crossing a staggering 153 miles of open ocean-an engineering challenge beyond even that of the Panama Canal. In 1904, the brilliant and driven entrepreneur Henry Flagler, partner to John D. The fast-paced and gripping true account of the extraordinary construction and spectacular demise of the Key West Railroad-one of the greatest engineering feats ever undertaken, destroyed in one fell swoop by the strongest storm ever to hit U.S. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice. Click ‘Customise Cookies’ to decline these cookies, make more detailed choices, or learn more. Third parties use cookies for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalised ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. This includes using first- and third-party cookies, which store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. If you agree, we’ll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie Notice. We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements.

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Last Train to Paradise by Les Standiford