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The Grand Tour 1910 - that time in American history dubbed "The Gilded Age" by Mark Twain. During these years, from the beginning of reconstruction to the end of the 1920's, the monied upper and merchant classes spent their leisure time in travel. When months were spent traveling to the capitals of Europe, the trip was called The Grand Tour. Sometime in 1910, a particular Gilded Age traveler embarked on an extended excursion to Florida and on to Havana. Luckily, he brought his camera. A train may have been his mode of transport to Jacksonville but from there, he and his companions traveled by both steamship and rail - First Class all the way. The finest accommodations were booked - the Hotel Ormond in Ormond Beach (an early, wooden, Flagler Hotel - torn down in the early 1990's) and the Royal Poinciana in Palm Beach. A cruise was taken along the Oklawaha River. A jaunt to Tampa yielded a stay at Plant's magnificent Tampa Hotel - now Plant Hall on the University of Tampa campus. Journeying then to Miami, our traveler boarded a steamship to Key West. (Top, Left) In Key West, he photographed the Jefferson Hotel - then considered the premiere accommodation in town - where our traveler surely stayed. (Right) At the dock, the traveler preserved the image of "the steamship that will carry us from Key West to Havana," the Governor Cobb. Built in 1906 as America's first turbine-propelled commercial ship, the Governor Cobb was leased annually for the winter season by the P&O Steamship Line (principal stockholders: Morton F. Plant and Henry M. Flagler.) |
