Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
And yet, even without its visionary at the helm, the Key West Extension managed to roll on, struggling through good economic times and bad, occasionally assailed by critics, yet always a favorite of travelers drawn to the American tropics, to Key West, and beyond. By the 1930s a round-trip ticket from Miami to Havana cost as little as twenty-four d
... See moreLes Standiford • Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean
One year after its founding, L’Isle de la Nouvelle Orléans suffered its first inundation. “The site is drowned under half a foot of water,” Bienville wrote. The settlement would remain submerged for six months. Rather than retreat again, the French dug in. They raised artificial levees atop the natural ones and started cutting drainage channels thr
... See moreElizabeth Kolbert • Under a White Sky
“How near are we to Haiti?” the brother asked, distractedly scraping at his plate. “The first lighter-than-air craft was launched from there—the first launch of such a craft in the Americas, I believe.”
Esi Edugyan • Washington Black
As early as 1928, Congress had passed legislation making provision for an Overseas Highway across the Keys, and by 1935 one could actually drive much of the distance between Miami and Key West, though an intrepid motorist would have to make use of several ferry services on his way to the Southernmost City. The vets who had died in the Labor Day sto
... See moreLes Standiford • Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean
One of the last of the gargantuan tasks involved in the completion of the route was the building of a bridge across the Bahia Honda Channel, connecting Bahia Honda, at MM 37, and the Spanish Harbor Keys. Though the distance was not nearly so great as some of the other spans that had been crossed—a little more than a mile, including approaches—the w
... See moreLes Standiford • Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean
legs almost too small to see, circling his
Richard Powers • The Overstory: Winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The resorts and golf courses and budget luxury—a hotel style first innovated on Tybee Island, Georgia—have creeped up on Sea Island after Sea Island. This was where the forty acres and a mule were promised. And where, after emancipation, the formerly enslaved tried out a collective model of ownership, something that we clunkily call “socialism,” be
... See moreImani Perry • South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
There had been almost no railroad construction in Florida since the end of the Civil War. The aftermath of the conflict had sent most of the operators into bankruptcy and the ensuing litigation had tied up much of the state-owned right-of-way in court battles. The lines that did exist had been built without regulation and with no regard for consist
... See moreLes Standiford • Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean
