by Jeff Blakley

Published histories of South Dade always mention the arrival of Flagler’s F.E.C. Railway in Miami in 1896 and the construction of the Key West Extension, which started in the spring of 1905. However, I’m not aware of any published account of the construction of the portion of the railroad between Miami and Homestead. Initially known as the Cutler Extension, it was renamed the Homestead Extension after it reached what became the Town of Homestead on July 30, 1904.¹

For a succinct introduction to Henry M. Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway, Edward N. Akin’s book, Flagler: Rockefeller Partner & Florida Baron is a good place to start.² Flagler acquired a number of small railroads, starting in 1885. On May 28, 1892, he incorporated the Florida Coast and Gulf Railroad Company.³ In 1895, “Flagler changed the name of his railroad enterprises to the Florida East Coast Railway Company. The state approved the new company in September 1895…”⁴

Flagler and the officers of his company had planned to take the railroad beyond Miami as early as 1895, when Flagler made his first trip to Miami to meet with Julia Tuttle.⁵ That information was a closely-guarded secret designed, no doubt, to prevent others from engaging in real estate speculation that would not be in the best financial interests of the Florida East Coast Railway. After reaching Miami in 1896, Flagler did not authorize any more construction because his railroad needed to cross the Perrine Grant. The heirs of Dr. Henry Perrine, who claimed to own the Perrine Grant, did not have a deed for the property and thus they could not sell it.

Perrine Grant Survey⁶

The story of the Perrine Grant is the subject of my three-part article about it. Conditionally awarded to Dr. Henry Perrine by Congress in 1838, it was not until 1897 that the U. S. government issued a title to his heirs. They were then faced with additional legal challenges which were not resolved until late 1898. On May 24, 1899, the Perrine heirs sold their grant to the Perrine Grant Land Co., a subsidiary of the F.E.C. Railway, for $100,000.⁷

On July 2, 1902, a surveying party under the supervision of Aaron L. Hunt, assistant civil engineer of the F. E. C. Railway, left for Potter’s Mill. That was a sawmill on the homestead of Stephen S. Potter, part of whose land included what is now the main entrance to the University of Miami at Stanford Drive and Ponce de Leon Blvd. Potter had proved up his homestead claim on July 24, 1894.⁸ While Hunt was initially in charge of the surveying party, he only stayed for two weeks, handing control over to John S. Frederick, a civil engineer who had assisted Abner L. Knowlton and Lewis R. Ord in platting the City of Miami in 1896.⁹ Frederick had done a lot of work for the F.E.C. but he may not have been available when the railroad wanted to start. Frederick’s sons, Tom and Ted, were part of his survey party.¹⁰ By July 18, Frederick’s party was three miles south of Cutler, in the Black Creek district¹¹ and by the end of the month, they were six miles south of Cutler.¹² This put the location of the party at station 1180, shown on Krome’s survey.¹³ This was near the present intersection of S. W. 264th St. and S.W. 127th Ave. From this point, Frederick turned due west until he reached the edge of the Everglades. On the way, he selected the northeast quarter of section 34 in township 56 south, range 38 east to file as a homestead claim. This claim was at the SW corner of Bauer Dr. and Richard Rd. After seeing the deep water of the Everglades, Frederick returned to Miami to arrange for boats to carry his crew and provisions across to Paradise Key.¹⁴ While in Miami, he filed his homestead claim on August 5, 1902. He had apparently already told his brother-in-law, George Kosel, about the country, because George filed his claim for the southeast quarter of section 26, township 56 south, range 38 east on July 23, 1902. George’s claim was one mile east northeast of John’s claim.

After arranging for supplies and boats, Frederick returned to his crew and they set out for Paradise Key. They made it as far as the Monroe County line before retracing their steps and returning to Miami on September 2, 1902, setting up camp on the south side of the Miami River.¹⁵ Frederick boarded the next train to Jacksonville¹⁶ so that he could give his reports to Joseph R. Parrott, the vice-president and general manager of the F. E. C.¹⁷ He returned to Miami the following Saturday, September 6, and tackled the backlog of surveying work he had not been able to do while in the Everglades.¹⁸

William J. Krome first came to Florida in February of 1899 to work as a transit man on a crew led by Aaron L. Hunt, who was in charge of a location survey for the Atlantic, Valdosta & Western Railway. He formed a “warm friendship” with his supervisor and when Hunt left that position to take a job with the Florida East Coast Railway, Hunt promoted Krome to his former position. When Krome finished that work, he held several jobs until, in 1902, he was working in “the beautiful Ozark region of southeast Missouri.” In late July, he read a note in the Engineering News about the F.E.C.’s survey into the Everglades. During a visit to his family in Edwardsville, Illinois a week later, he was informed by his father that he had forwarded a letter “bearing A. L. Hunt’s return card” to him in Weingarten, Missouri. Upon returning to Weingarten, Krome learned that Hunt wanted to know if he would be interested in the position. Krome didn’t think the F.E.C. would pay him the salary he wanted but, after exchanging letters with Hunt, he agreed to start on September 15. He was introduced to E. Ben Carter, the Chief Engineer and General Road Master for the F.E.C. and was told that the job entailed providing a cost estimate based on John Frederick’s survey information. After that, he was to take a crew and pick up where Frederick had stopped, at the Monroe County line, and take the survey to Cape Sable.¹⁹

Krome spent the rest of the month of September in Jacksonville, doing office work and making preparations to leave for Miami. He took the train from St. Augustine to Miami on October 1, 1902, arriving in Miami at 10:30 p.m. After putting together his crew, some of whom had worked for Frederick, Krome started south on the survey on Saturday, October 3.²⁰ E. Ben Carter was apparently satisfied with the cost estimate that Krome had worked up based on Frederick’s route and information. Krome followed the route surveyed by Frederick and in three weeks, reached station 1180, where Frederick had turned west. He then returned to Miami, waiting for further instructions from Carter.²¹ On November 9, Krome picked up where Frederick had stopped, at station 1180,²² and proceeded south-southwest until he got near the southwest corner of section 2, township 57 south, range 39 east. There, he turned southwest and stayed on that bearing until he got near Paradise Key.²³

Krome returned from his Cape Sable Exploration Survey in late June of 1903 and sent his reports to the headquarters of the F.E.C. in St. Augustine. Included in those reports was his survey of the territory between Miami and Cape Sable with his proposed route for the railroad. Note the difference in the route of the railroad between Krome’s survey and the F.E.C. map.

William J. Krome’s 1903 Cape Sable Survey

His extensive information led to a map of the land holdings of the F. E. C., the Model Land Co. and the Perrine Grant Land Co. being published in December of 1903.

The 1903 F.E.C. Railway Land Holdings Map

Krome had located enough of the route for the railroad before he started on the Cape Sable Exploration Survey on November 9, 1902 to keep construction crews busy while he was absent. Construction of the Cutler Extension started on the south bank of the Miami River shortly before January 30, 1903. Charles T. McCrimmon, who had the contract to clear the right-of-way for the railroad, “had 150 colored laborers … camped just south of the Miami River”²⁴ clearing the right-of-way and constructing the railroad grade so that ties and rails could be placed by the track laying machine.

On the north side of the Miami River, another crew of workers had started work on the railway bridge.²⁵ By April 1, 1903, all of the “huge timbers” that were to be used in the bridge had been placed for “several hundred yards on both sides of the track” and another crew on the south side of the river was “putting in piers for the bridge.”²⁶

It took six months for the railroad bridge across the Miami River to be completed. On October 6, 1903, the first construction train crossed the Miami River. Captain Lucien Baker was the engineer in charge of the locomotive, which pushed a track-laying machine that was used by the crews placing the ties and rails. The right-of-way had already been cleared by McCrimmon’s crews and the grade was completed so the work of laying the rails proceeded rapidly.²⁷

By April 17, McCrimmon’s crews had cut out the right-of-way down to Jackson Peacock’s homestead.²⁸ This was near the present intersection of S.W. 22nd Avenue and U. S. 1. By the end of May, the grading crews had reached “DeBogory’s mill,” a sawmill owned by Peter DeBogory.

Progore “Peter” DeBogory-Mockrievitch, born in Chernigov, Ukraine in 1846,²⁹ had claimed a homestead in Seminole County, Florida, receiving his patent on March 10, 1883. In 1895, he moved to Miami³⁰ from Linton (now Delray), Florida³¹ and in 1897 moved his sawmill from Linton.³² In 1900, he lived on 1st Street, which is now north 11th Street, where he was a machinist for a sawmill.³³ When all of the merchantable timber had been cut down for lumber in a given area, sawmill owners would pick up and move to new locations. By May of 1903, he was located near Larkin,³⁴ now known as South Miami. His son, Alexander, established a bicycle repair and welding shop where the Miami Police station now stands in downtown Miami in 1916.³⁵

By closely comparing the survey, completed in June of 1903, and the land-holdings map, completed in December of 1903, it is clear that the engineers in St. Augustine did not completely agree with Krome’s proposed route. Starting in the middle of section 5 of township 56 south, range 39 east, they decided to move the proposed route a few miles west. They sent Krome instructions to survey the new route. On September 1, he and a party of men who had been camping out on lots adjacent to the offices of The Miami Metropolis, left for Black Creek.³⁶ Black Creek was a large area in the East Glade on either side of Black Point Creek stretching from roughly 200th St. on the north down to SW 248th St. on the south. The newspaper account said that he was going to work on the drainage project going on in that area at the time. He started work on that project but didn’t spend a lot of time in the area of Black Creek because the construction crews on the main line were progressing rapidly and the work at Black Creek could wait. Krome proceeded southwest to relocate the route of the railroad and conceded in a letter to Carter that “[t]he change of line Westward brings us into even higher country than I expected.”³⁷ Krome and his men reached the future site of Homestead in early September.

They didn’t stay in Homestead long, however, as they were driven back to Modello, a few miles north, by a “heavy storm” which destroyed their camp. The next morning, they had to fall back to their supply base in Peters, just south of Perrine.³⁸ As this account was written in 1918, it is likely that the date of September 18 is incorrect, because The Miami Metropolis reported on a severe storm that struck Miami on September 4, being “the fiercest storm ever witnessed here in the memory of the oldest inhabitants.”³⁹ That storm was very likely a hurricane. After departing Peters, which the construction crews reached in early November, Krome re-visited Black Creek. In a letter dated October 22, 1903 addressed to E. Ben Carter and written from Camp Long Prairie, Krome provided a very detailed explanation of what work needed to be done, refererring to drawings he sent.⁴⁰ His reports included detailed drawings of his proposals to channelize Black Point Creek and construct dams to divert the natural flow of the water from the Everglades into ditches so that the land could be sold to farmers.⁴¹ An article in the Miami Metropolis claimed that 10,000 acres of land could “be drained through Black Creek so perfectly that it will be impossible for the truckers to suffer any inconvenience from an overflow.”⁴² This detailed information, naturally, was not well-publicized as it would have set off a frenzy of real estate speculation. Flagler and the top men of his company, including Krome, rarely spoke to newspaper reporters seeking more information about what they were doing.

On September 25, 1903, The Miami Metropolis reported that E. Ben Carter, general roadmaster of the F.E.C., had authorized McCrimmon to proceed with the right-of-way clearing down to Long Key.⁴³ The Long Prairie, shown a short distance below Homestead on the 1903 F.E.C. Railway land holdings map, crosses Krome Avenue just south of Lucy Street, the dividing line between Homestead and Florida City. “Long Key” was the name for all of the land between Long Prairie and the next prairie north, Sherritt’s Prairie, which crosses U.S. 1 near Avocado Dr.

Flagler and the top echelon of the Florida East Coast Railway were closely monitoring the progress of the construction project. On November 27, 1903, The Miami Metropolis reported that James E. Ingraham had returned from an exploration trip of “several weeks” to the Long Key area and had secured 600 acres “in the heart of the homestead country” from the government in section 13, township 56 south, range 38 east “to be used for buildings, yards and other terminal purposes.” He was accompanied by William J. Krome, John S. Frederick, Frederick S. Morse, and Capt. Edward A. Graham.⁴⁴ Frederick S. Morse was the F.E.C.’s land agent and the man in charge of selling the lands owned by the Perrine Grant and the Model Land Companies. Edward A. Graham was a mariner who captained not only several of the rear paddle-boat steamboats used in the construction of the Key West Extension, but was also the captain of the Enterprise, Ingraham’s personal yacht.

En Route to Homestead in November of 1903
Courtesy of the Florida Pioneer Museum

En Route to Homestead in November of 1903
Courtesy of the Florida Pioneer Museum

Edward A. Graham is the man pictured in the lower left corner of the photograph.

McCrimmon and his crews completed clearing the right-of-way and grading the road bed down to Homestead by early March of 1904.⁴⁵ Laying the rails from Miami to Homestead was all that remained to be done. That started on October 6, 1903 on the south side of the Miami River⁴⁶ and advanced several miles each day, due to the use of the track-laying machine.

On November 13, The Miami Metropolis reported that “the railroad people are putting in a siding … 1,700 feet in length” at Perrine⁴⁷ for Thomas J. Peters’ tomato packing business.⁴⁸ The siding was graded and ready for the arrival of the track-laying machine, which had stopped on the north side of Snapper Creek on November 27, waiting for the crossing to be built across the waterway.⁴⁹ This is the location of the Dadeland North Metrorail station today.

Plat of the Town of Perrine – 1903

On December 18, Mr. Flagler and his wife, along with four top officials of the F.E.C. Railway; John Sewell, the mayor of Miami; Frank B. Stoneman, the future editor of The Miami Herald, and B. B. Tatum left the Royal Palm Hotel in downtown Miami and traveled down to a point one-half mile north of No Man’s Prairie, where the track-laying machine stood idle, waiting for a trestle to be built across the finger glade.⁵⁰ No Man’s Prairie was where Kendall Lexus, at 10775 S. Dixie Highway, is now located.

The track-laying machine was in the Perrine Grant on the first day of the new year,⁵¹ having traversed the Benson Prairie, where the Falls Shopping Center now stands, on a 400 foot long trestle⁵² and by February 5 it had crossed the Freeman Prairie,⁵³ named after Dr. Mary Freeman, an early physician in Cutler and Perrine. The Freeman Prairie was located at S.W. 158th St. and U. S. 1 before the canal was dug and the prairie drained. By February 19, the tracks had been laid to the Peters Prairie,⁵⁴ located between present day Quail Roost and Marlin Drives.

Below Peters, no newspaper articles have been found to document the progress of the track-laying machine. This is likely because the area was sparsely settled, with few homesteaders near the route of the railroad and no packing houses to ship produce. There were only 17 claims for homesteads in the sections traversed by the railroad south of Peters and only five of them were claimed before railroad construction started in 1903. With no audience to write for, the newspaper reported nothing about the progress of the railroad. In early March of 1904, McCrimmon and his crews had completed the clearing of the right-of-way, graded the roadbed to the future location of the Homestead depot⁵⁵ and had returned to Miami.

In June of 1904, shortly before the arrival of the rails, John S. Frederick completed the plat of the Town of Homestead.

Plat of the Town of Homestead

The last rail for the Cutler Extension, now re-named the Homestead Extension, was laid on the afternoon of July 30, 1904.⁵⁶ With the completion of the railroad to Homestead, the number of homesteading claims filed in South Dade increased substantially as new settlers realized the potential for becoming wealthy through investing in real estate. The goal of the F.E.C. Railway to open up the area for exploitation proved to be a success and doing so set the stage for Flagler’s next ambitious project: the building of the Key West Extension. Construction on that project started in Homestead in April of 1905 but also in several locations in the Florida Keys at about the same time.
(Completely re-written on April 23, 2025)
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1. The Miami Metropolis, August 5, 1904, p. 1
2. Flagler: Rockefeller Partner & Florida Baron, Edward N. Akin, Kent State University Press, 1988. See, in particular, Chapter 7, pp. 134-142
3. Flager: Rockefeller Partner and Florida Baron, Edward N. Akin, Kent State University Press, 1988, pp. 136-141
4. ibid, p. 161
5. The Miami Metropolis, February 12, 1897, p. 2
6. University of Miami Special Collections: https://digitalcollections.library.miami.edu/digital/collection/asm0075/id/1243/
7. Deed Book Y, pp. 1-13, Miami-Dade County Clerk of Courts
8. BLM Website
9. The Miami Metropolis, July 4, 1902, p. 1
10. The Miami Metropolis, July 4, 1902, p. 1
11. Miami Metropolis, July 18, 1902, p. 5
12. Miami Metropolis, July 29, 1902, p. 4
13. Download and enlarge the Krome survey by clicking on the link beneath the image of the survey below.
14. Miami Metropolis, July 30, 1902, p. 2
15. In a letter written by Dr. Peter H. Rolfs to Ernest Coe, published in The Homestead Leader-Enterprise on June 28, 1935, pp. 1,2 & 11, Rolfs, then the superintendent of the Subtropical Experiment Station on Brickell Ave., wrote about a trip he and Dr. Nathaniel L. Britton, founder of the New York Botanical Society and his wife, who was an internationally-known authority on mosses, had taken to Paradise Key in the spring of 1903. Rolfs wrote, “Later, I found J. S. Frederick, a surveyor, who had gone there afoot. He gave me the location and later outlined the route of travel.” This statement proves, unequivocally, that Frederick’s survey in the summer of 1902 had crossed Paradise Key on the way to the Monroe County line.
16. Miami Metropolis, September 5, 1902, p. 1
17. Miami Metropolis, October 14, 1913, p. 1
18. Miami Metropolis, September 12, 1902, p. 8
19. A Synopsis of Preceding Events, William J. Krome. Copy in the archive of the Historic Homestead Town Hall Museum, Homestead, Florida
20. Ibid.
21. Letter from Krome to Carter, October 24, 1902. Copy in the archives of the Historic Homestead Town Hall Museum, Homestead, Florida.
22. Letter from Wm. J. Krome to E. Ben Carter, Nov. 9, 1902. Copy in the archives of the Historic Homestead Town Hall Museum, Homestead, Florida.
23. Consult the Krome survey, downloadable by clicking on the link under the survey image above, to understand these directions.
24. The Miami Metropolis, January 30, 1903, p. 1
25. The Miami Metropolis, March 20, 1903, p. 1
26. The Miami Metropolis, April 3, 1903, p. 1
27. The Miami Metropolis, October 9, 1903, p. 7
28. The Miami Metropolis, April 17, 1903, p. 1
29. The Miami Metropolis, December 13, 1922, p. 3
30. The Miami Herald, December 13, 1922, p. 5
31. Miami Metropolis, September 24, 1896, p. 1
32. Miami Metropolis, March 5, 1897, p. 5 – Linton column
33. 1900 U. S. census of Miami – search on Progore Debegorry, b. 1846 in Russia
34. Miami Evening Record, August 13, 1904, p. 5
35. Obituary for Alexander DeBogory, Jr. in The Miami Herald, April 17, 2015
36. The Miami Metropolis, September 4, 1903, p. 2
37. Krome to E. Ben Carter, September 12, 1903. Copy in the archive of the Historic Homestead Town Hall Museum, Homestead, Florida.
38. The Homestead Enterprise, October 24, 1918, p. 1
39. The Miami Metropolis, September 11, 1903, p. 1
40. Krome Letters, Black Creek Examination. Copy in the archive of the Historic Homestead Town Hall Museum, Homestead, Florida.
41. It is not known if these drawings survive. The only known reference to them is in the letter of October 22, 1903.
42. Miami Metropolis, November 27, 1903, p. 1
43. The Miami Metropolis, September 25, 1903, p. 1
44. The Miami Metropolis, November 27, 1903, p. 1. “section 13, township 56 south, range 38 east” contains a typo – the township was 57, not 56.
45. The Daily Miami Metropolis, March 18, 1904, p. 1
46. The Miami Metropolis, October 9, 1903, p. 7
47. The Miami Metropolis, November 13, 1903, p. 3
48. The Miami Metropolis, January 1, 1904, p. 8
49. The Miami Metropolis, November 27, 1903, p. 3
50. The Miami Metropolis, December 18, 1903, p.1
51. The Miami Metropolis, January 1, 1904, p. 8
52. The Miami Metropolis, December 18, 1903, p.1
53. The Miami Metropolis, February 5, 1904, p. 3
54. The Miami Metropolis, February 19, 1904, p. 4
55. The Daily Miami Metropolis, March 18, 1904, p. 1. The roadbed was complete as far as Station 1500, which was Homestead.
56. The Miami Metropolis, August 5, 1904, p. 1