Last Train to Paradise: The True Story of the Railroad That Crossed the Ocean to Key West
In 1904, Henry Flagler decided to build a railroad across 153 miles of open ocean from mainland Florida to Key West, and Les Standiford’s book makes the audacity of that idea feel real on every page.
Last Train to Paradise tells the true story of one of the most ambitious construction projects in American history. Flagler, already in his seventies and a partner to John D. Rockefeller, poured his fortune into an engineering challenge that rivaled the Panama Canal. Thousands of workers battled hurricanes, mosquito swarms, and stretches of nothing but open water to lay track from island to island across the Florida Keys. When the first train rolled into Key West in 1912, the world called it the Eighth Wonder of the World.
Standiford, a Miami-based novelist and nonfiction writer, keeps the pace tight. He weaves together Flagler’s relentless vision, the harrowing conditions the laborers endured, and the 1935 Labor Day hurricane that finally destroyed the railroad after 22 years of service. The bridges and roadbed left behind became the foundation for the Overseas Highway that drivers use today.
If you have ever driven U.S. 1 through the Keys and wondered how those bridges got there, this is the book that answers it.
