They turned a swamp into a destination

In the first half of the 1920s. South Florida just went nuts. You had this just insane real estate boom where it felt like every model T that was rolling off the assembly line was being driven straight down to South Florida. They came in droves and not merely to vacation. Wealthy Americans with marquee names. Jack Dempsey, Will Rogers, Henry Ford spent their winters idling in the tropical sunshine. While middle class transplants sought their fortunes or settled in for retirement, say. The image of the sun and sand and beaches is what they use to lure the tourists in, and what they lure retirees in. This is the come to Florida where retirement is going to be easy. And the idea of starting a new and building a dream home was remarkably alluring for many.

That west of Miami, literally in the Everglades, they would put it in sidewalks and street lights. Not that anybody was ever going to be live there during the summer rainy season, but they could say in a northern that in the newspaper sidewalks? Yes. Street lights? Yes.