History & Business
Julia Tuttle’s Real Estate Holdings
She would have been a billionaire in today’s market, but she died sunken in debt.
[Real Estate Defines Miami, Part 2. Adapted from Downtown Miami History.]
Miami was originally called Fort Dallas, named after the old military outpost. Louisianan doctor J.V. Harris bought a large part of the territory that would become Miami, including the old military outpost and its structures, for $1,450.
Dr. Harris was shocked to discover that William Gleason, a Republican from New York, had taken over his newly acquired property in South Florida. Gleason had originally come to the area in an official capacity looking to make South Florida a new home to thousands of freed African slaves, but he was enchanted by the beauty of Biscayne Bay and decided to claim the land for himself. Despite reporting to his superiors that the land was unsuitable for human habitation, he returned with his family, livestock, and belongings and settled on Dr. Harris’s property, agreeing with Flagler’s assessment that Fort Dallas was little more than a squatter’s haven.
Dr. Harris, known for his quick temper and the use of his cane for punishment, evicted Gleason from the property. However, Gleason was not deterred and found a man named John Egan in Key West who forged a deed making him the legitimate heir to the original Spanish Grant. Gleason’s wife purchased the fake deed for $700 and claimed Fort Dallas, but a judge eventually dismissed his claim.
Dr. Harris later sold his property to the Biscayne Bay Company for $7,000.
Julia Tuttle enters the real estate game.
The Historical Association of Southern Florida dedicated a marker to Julia Tuttle at S. E. First Avenue and Third Street, Miami, on July 25, 1952. It reads: “Mrs. Julia D. Tuttle of Cleveland, Ohio, acquired 644 acres on the north bank of the Miami River in 1891. She resided in the remodeled officers’ quarters of old Fort Dallas 100 yards S. E. of this spot until her death Sept. 14, 1898.”
U. S. Senator Scott M. Loftin, in dedicating the marker, said that such astute and far-sighted businessmen as John Egan, Richard Fitzpatrick, William F. English, Dr. J. V. Harris, and members of the Biscayne Bay Company had, one after another, purchased the property not knowing they held in their hands a future city. “It remained,” said the senator, “for a wise and remarkable woman to envision its possibilities.”
A mystery unresolved.
Julia Tuttle bought half of the 644 acres north of the river from the Biscayne Bay Company. The other half she bought from other heirs of William English’s brother. How much did she pay? In 2018, working on a chapter for Downtown Miami History, I asked historian Arva Moore Parks, who passed in 2020, if she knew how much Julia Tuttle had paid for the land? She did not know. Dr. Paul George, the other distinguished Miami historian, had examined Julia Tuttle’s probate file but has not seen the sum of the purchase.
Researcher and journalist Larry Wiggins had a figure: Julia Tuttle purchased half of the 644 acres north of the Miami River from the Biscayne Bay Company in 1891 for the sum of $6,000. The other half she bought from William English’s other heirs for a stubbornly elusive figure.
What would her property cost in today’s market?
It’s difficult to give a precise value for Julia Tuttle’s 644 acres in Miami today, as the current real estate market is constantly fluctuating and affected by various factors such as location, zoning laws, and demand. However, given the prime location of the land in Miami and its historical significance as the site of the city’s founding, it is likely that the value of the property would be quite substantial. Some estimates suggest that the land could be worth hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars.
Metro News + asked FIU Professor Suzanne Hollander, Esq, who served as Director of Real Estate and Asset Management for the City of Miami, for a rough approximation.
“If Julia Tuttle had owned 644 contiguous waterfront parcels in Miami, we could estimate the value of her holdings to be between $5.1 billion and $94 billion, based on two recent real estate transactions.
“First, the estimate of $5.1 billion is based on Genting’s announcement that SmartCity Miami LLC, an investment group led by Miami-based Terra and its CEO, David Martin, agreed to pay $1.255 billion for the 15.5-acre site on Biscayne Bay. This would equate to about $8 million per acre. Second, the estimate of $94 billion is based on Citadel’s purchase of the Biscayne Bay frontage property located at 1201 Brickell Bay Dr for $363,000,000. This property is approximately 2.49 acres and, at this purchase price, equates to about $145,783,133 per acre.
“However, it’s important to note that not all of Julia Tuttle’s properties faced the Bay.”
She had a dream.
Julia Tuttle, a widow from Cleveland, Ohio, was determined to transform her land into a thriving city. She managed to persuade Henry Flagler to extend his railway from Palm Beach to her land, with the promise of giving him half of her kingdom, and convinced William and Mary Brickell to give him a hundred acres south of the river.
Tuttle shared her ambitious vision with the editor of Flagler’s newsletter, The Florida East Coast Home Seeker, saying: “Now, I want to talk to you, and don’t laugh at my predictions, for I feel sure that they all will come true. All these years I have had but one thought, and that is to see Miami grow to become one of the largest, if not the largest, cities in the Southland.”
Tuttle’s dreams also extended to the port of Miami, as she believed that “It will not be many years hence when Miami will be the most important port on the Atlantic coast in the South… South American vessels will finally ply between their home ports and Miami, and Miami will become the great center of the South American trade. Vessels from all ports of the world will call on Miami, making Miami the greatest commercial center.”
Once Flagler’s railroad reached Fort Dallas, his team dredged a canal, built streets, and implemented the town’s first water and power systems, and even financed the town’s first newspaper. The first crews of engineers and surveyors had to be housed in tents and shacks along a clearing that Tuttle had opened, which would later become known as Avenue D.”
A Tequesta burial site.
Jonh Sewell moved to Miami in 1896 to work on Flagler’s Royal Palm Hotel. While at work, he stumbled upon the burial grounds of the Tequesta. Sewell gave away some of the skulls as souvenirs and ordered the African American laborers to move the remaining bones and bury them in a hole.
Bankers, a medical practice and a newspaper arrived.
“After arriving in Miami with merchandise for a store, Isidor Cohen documented the city’s growth in his published diary, noting the impending opening of a bank and plans for a new newspaper, The Metropolis, by Dr. Graham. “Buildings are springing up in every direction as if by magic.”
Dr. James M. Jackson was invited to move from Bronson, Florida, to start a practice in Miami. He purchased land on Flagler Street and NE 2nd Avenue (formerly known as 12th Street and Avenue B) from Julia Tuttle for $2,500, where he built a house for his family and his medical practice. Today, the Jackson Memorial Hospital bears his name, and the house has been moved to Brickell via barge in 1916 and currently serves as the home of the Dade Heritage Trust.
On May 3, the Bank of Bay Biscayne opened, in time to get publicity in the first issue of The Metropolis. Julia Tuttle was one of the bank’s directors.
Arva Park Moore summarizes the mood and demographics of the early city: “As soon as the railroad arrived, the South Florida wilderness came to life as if by magic, and all kinds of people flocked to the rawboned new city. These early Miamians were a variegated lot but with a predominant Southern streak. Even though “Mi-am-a” had a Southern accent, it was never your ordinary Southern town. Miami’s first mayor was an Irish Catholic, most of the merchants were Jewish, and Blacks made up one-third of the city’s incorporators, even though they were forced to live in a separate part of town known as “Colored Town.”
Reporting the birth of Miami.
The City of Miami was incorporated on July 28, 1896. The population hardly reached 500 souls, but it had a newspaper with a bold name: The Miami Metropolis.
The Metropolis reported that 163 of the 344 signatories were registered as colored and added: “That is what we did in Miami. It’s worth remembering that the site of the present city was a tract of wild land less than six months beforehand, and that the railroad only reached here four months prior, on April 15th.”
The Metropolis covered the events at the Lobby, a pool hall near the Miami River on Avenue D, where the incorporation meeting took place. The newspaper reported that “the meeting for the purpose of incorporating the City of Miami was remarkable in many respects, for a large number of votes polled, for its unruffled harmony, and for the expeditious way all business was handled. What other city in the State of Florida ever sprung into existence with a list of 400 registered voters, and at its meeting for the purpose of incorporating polled 344 votes?”
Although some residents wanted the city to be named after Flagler, he suggested Miami, after the river where the settlement was built. Julia Tuttle, the Mother of Miami, did not have the right to vote as women were not allowed to vote in 1896, but she certainly had a voice. For instance, she successfully advocated for a law banning alcohol in the city, with the exception of Flagler’s exclusive Royal Palm Hotel, which opened overlooking Biscayne Bay.
The cost of realizing a dream.
Julia Tuttle saw her dream of founding Miami realized, but it did not bring her wealth. On the contrary, it left her deeply in debt. As T.D. Allman writes in his book, Miami, the City of the Future, “Tuttle’s debt, like Flagler’s wealth, flowed inescapably from that most primal of all Miami relationships: the relationship between land and money. Flagler could draw on his immense Standard Oil fortune to develop his Miami holdings. But to develop her own real estate, Julia Tuttle, like many a later Miami landowner, had to go to the banks.”
When Tuttle appealed to Flagler for help, he was unable to offer much assistance. As Allman writes, “Flagler was not a heartless man, but he didn’t build Standard Oil by paying off his competitors’ bank loans. ‘I don’t want you to suffer but I cannot accept responsibility for your suffering,’ he informed Julia Tuttle shortly before her death. ‘For months past, I have advised against you becoming so deeply involved in debt.’”
The Mother of Miami died unexpectedly and heavily in debt of apparent meningitis in 1898. She was 49 years old. “If only she could have lived to see the value of her prescient investment,” remarked Professor Hollander.
