When DRE* and I visited Florida recently to celebrate her mom's birthday she took us to visit the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum in Palm Beach. The museum is in the mansion that Flagler built when he first came to Florida. I'd never heard of Henry Morrison Flagler and would guess that maybe most people outside of Florida haven't either. The short version is he was one of the founders of Standard Oil (along with John D. Rockefeller) and became a hotel and railroad baron in Florida. He envisioned a railroad from Miami to Key West, with the idea of Key West becoming a major deep water port. His vision was completed in 1912 and was a major engineering and technical feat, considering that one stretch of the railroad crossed 7 miles of open ocean. The railroad was in continuous operation until it was destroyed by the Category 5 Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, which is often considered the worst storm in modern history. DRE*'s mom bought me a book about Flagler and his railroad called: Last Train to Paradise : Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean . I highly recommend the book if you are unfamiliar with Flagler (as I was). He had the kind of vision and determination that is seen very little these days and is one of the last great tales of the Gilded Age.