An Historical Overview

In 1845, Florida was a vast wilderness filled with tremendous potential. It was home to approximately 70,000 people, forty percent of them slaves. But change came rapidly with statehood.

Over the next one hundred and fifty years, the population of Florida exploded in a series of boom times. The first occurred in the 1880s as citrus, phosphate and timber teamed with tourism, vegetable farming and cattle to bring new industries, visitors and residents to the state. Steamship lines connected with new railroads to transport people and products to markets both north and south of the state. In the1900s, other areas of Florida were opened by the railroads of Henry Flagler and Henry Plant.

The Land Boom of the 1920s, however, dwarfed these earlier booms. Real estate tycoons built thematic developments such as Miami Beach, Coral Gables and Davis Island. However, the hurricanes of 1926 and 1928 threw Florida into a depression several years before the rest of the country. In the 1930's Florida rebounded slowly until the onset of World War II as service men and their families relocated to Florida. Lastly, Florida's population exploded in the 1970s and '80s, as tourism and the lure of the sun belt made Florida the nation's fourth largest state.