All Aboard The Havana Special

As early as 1896, writing in a National Geographic article entitled "Across the Gulf by Rail to Key West," local judge Jefferson Browne pleaded for someone with money and engineering savvy to build a railroad connecting Key West to the mainland of Florida. The building of a railroad to Key West would be a fitting consummation of Mr. Flagler's remarkable career, and his name would be handed down to posterity linked to one of the grandest achievements of modern times," wrote Browne.

In June of 1902, when the Panama Canal Bill passed in Congress, Henry Flagler decided to take up the gauntlet.

Following three years of planning, construction on the 128-mile-long railway began in 1905. Seven years, three hurricanes, and a 7.2-mile-long viaduct later, the first train chugged into Key West at 10:43 a.m. on January 22, 1912 with Flagler onboard. Three days of partying ensued. Many Key Westers had never seen a train, nor had they ever seen such celebration. Bands played, flags waved, and bombs were literally bursting in air. A private reception was held at the home of Mayor Fogarty, with a reception and grand ball following at the Marine Barracks.

The appeal to a potential passenger was twofold - the lazy tropics of Key West and the cosmopolitan life of Havana. For when a traveler stepped off the train in Key West, he had only to walk a few steps and board a steamship to Havana.

The Havana Special departed Pennsylvania Station in New York City at 10:05 p.m. and arrived in Key West thirty-seven and three-quarters hours later. Sleeping cars, lounge and dining cars - even a swimming pool - gave the train and its accommodations an exclusive feeling. Those passengers boarding the train in Miami paid $24 each for a round-trip ticket to Havana.

The ship most often boarded at the dock in Key West for the trip to Havana was still the Governor Cobb (top), though she was joined in later years by the S.S. Cuba and the S.S. Northland. Passengers could book staterooms for the seven-hour trip - all the better to continue the party that had started in New York. And after the passage of the Volstead Act in 1920, the parties got even heartier. Prohibition may have been the best thing to happen to The Havana Special, everyone wanted to go to Cuba where liquor was legal. And a lot of liquor came back in suitcases.

The heady days of The Havana Special came to an end when the Florida East Coast Railway chose not to rebuild after the Labor Day storm of 1935.

Next: The Havana Special Revealed