Julia Tuttle
Julia DeForest Tuttle | |
---|---|
Born | Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. | January 22, 1849
Died | September 14, 1898 Miami, Florida, U.S. | (aged 49)
Spouse | Frederick Leonard Tuttle |
Children | 2 |
Julia DeForest Tuttle (née Sturtevant; January 22, 1849[1] – September 14, 1898) was an American businesswoman who owned the property upon which Miami, Florida, was built. For this reason, she is called the "Mother of Miami." She is the only woman to have founded what would become a major American city.[2]
History
Julia Sturtevant was the daughter of
Moving to southern Florida
Tuttle came to Fort Dallas, Florida, from Cleveland, Ohio, on a steamship after her father and mother had moved to South Florida. A little over ten years later, in 1886, her husband died; the foundry had already been sold. Upon his death, she found that her husband had not been good at managing money. This placed Julia in dire financial straits. To supplement her small income, she had to turn their four-story home into a boarding house and tearoom for young ladies. In 1890, when her father died and left her his land in Florida, she sold her home in Cleveland, Ohio and relocated to Biscayne Bay.[citation needed]
Tuttle used the money from her parents' estate to purchase the James Egan grant of 640 acres (2.6 km2), where the city of Miami is now located, on the north side of the river, including the old Fort Dallas stone buildings, and the two-story rock house built by Richard Fitzpatrick's enslaved workers some 50 years earlier. This was converted into her home. In 1891, Tuttle brought her family to live there. She repaired and converted the home into one of the show places in the area with a sweeping view of the river and Biscayne Bay.[3]
Tuttle immediately decided to take a leading role in the movement to start a new city on the Miami River, but knew that decent transportation (in that time, a
Either Flagler then recalled Tuttle's story of the tropical Biscayne Bay weather and sent some men to investigate, or Tuttle alerted Flagler that the freeze had spared the Miami River, sending as evidence a bouquet of flowers and foliage (possibly oranges) to Flagler, whose order to extend the Florida East Coast Railway was then given. On February 15, 1896, Joseph B. Reilly, John Sewell, and E.G. Sewell, the vanguard of the Flagler forces, arrived, and the work of building the Royal Palm Hotel was commenced.[citation needed]
Under an agreement between the two, Tuttle supplied Flagler with the land for a hotel and a railroad station for free, and they split the remainder of her 640 acres (2.6 km2) north of the Miami River in alternating sections. On April 22, 1896, train service of the Florida East Coast Railway came to the area. On July 28, male residents voted to incorporate a new city, Miami. Thereafter, the city steadily grew from a small town to a metropolis.[citation needed]
Death and legacy
In 1898, Tuttle fell ill with apparent
Tuttle died leaving a large amount of debt, partly the result of her altruistic land grants to Flagler. Her children sold her remaining land to pay off the debt. For that reason, her name was mostly forgotten until it was placed on a causeway for Interstate 195 over Biscayne Bay. In contrast, the name of William Brickell, a large landowner on the south side of the Miami River who contributed to Tuttle's efforts to incorporate the city, his and his wife’s name were widely used on the south side of what became Miami.[4]
Just as Tuttle is called the
In addition to the Julia Tuttle Causeway, the memory of Tuttle has been honored with a sculpture in Bayfront Park, by Daub and Firmin.[5]
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Julia Tuttle statue in Bayfront Park - Miami
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Julia Tuttle memorial marker in the Miami City Cemetery
References
- ISBN 978-1-56044-993-5.
- ^ Copquin, Claudia Gryvatz (January 23, 2014). "What's the One Major American City Founded by a Woman?". Parade.
- ^ Andrew K. Frank. Before the Pioneers: Indians, Settlers, Slaves, and the Founding of Miami (University Press of Florida, 2017)
- ^ Kleinman, Jeff (March 7, 2023). "What did Miami's Brickell Avenue used to look like? These old photos show the changes". Miami Herald.
- ^ Kelly House (27 July 2010). "Julia Tuttle statue arrives". The Miami Herald. Retrieved 28 July 2010.
Sources
- Akin, Edward N.. The Cleveland Connection: Revelations from the John D. Rockefeller - Julia Tuttle Correspondences. In Tequesta: the Journal of the Historical Association of Southern Florida, no. XLII (1982). [1] Archived 2012-02-22 at the Wayback Machine
- Frank, Andrew K. Before the Pioneers: Indians, Settlers, Slaves, and the Founding of Miami (University Press of Florida, 2017)
- Peters, Thelma. Biscayne Country, 1870-1926. Miami, Fla.: Banyan Books, c1981.
- Tuttle Family Papers. Finding aid. Tuttle Family Papers - 1889-1954 -
- Wiggins, Larry. The Birth of the City of Miami. In Tequesta: the Journal of the Historical Association of Southern Florida, no. LV (1995). [2] Archived 2012-02-22 at the Wayback Machine
Further reading
- Sheppard, Elena (2021-12-03). "Overlooked No More: Julia Tuttle, the 'Mother of Miami'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-12-29.