page_title: Carl G. Fisher
section_title: Miami Beach
hierarchical_section_title: Carl G. Fisher / Miami Beach
caption_attribution_description: This image was taken from the Florida Photographic Collection, where it is image N028477. Below is its description: [Opening of Collins Bridge&#160;: Miami, Florida] [picture] Leader: kmKa0c Fixed field data: kgbz Fixed field data: 961119s1913 Local call number: N028477 Title: [Opening of Collins Bridge&#160;: Miami, Florida] [picture] Publication info: 1913. Physical descrip: 1 photonegative&#160;: b&amp;w&#160;; 4 x 5 in. Series Title: (General collection) General Note: Photonegative of a postcard. General Note: The bridge opened officially on June 12, 1913. Geographic term: Collins Bridge (Fla.) Geographic term: Miami (Fla.)--Buildings, structures, etc.
context_page_description: Carl Graham Fisher was an American entrepreneur. Despite severe astigmatism, he became actively involved in auto racing. He was a seemingly tireless pioneer and promoter of the automotive industry and highway construction, and of real estate development in Florida. He is widely regarded as a promotional genius.
  Despite family financial strains and a disability, in the late 19th century he became a bicycle enthusiast and opened a modest bicycle shop with a brother. He became involved in bicycle racing, as well as many activities related to the emerging American auto industry. In 1904, Carl Fisher and his friend James A. Allison bought an interest in the U.S. patent to manufacture acetylene headlights, a precursor to electric models which became common about ten years later. Soon Fisher's firm supplied nearly every headlamp used on automobiles in the United States as manufacturing plants were built all over the country to supply the demand. The headlight patent made him rich as an automotive parts supplier when he and Allison sold their company, Prest-O-Lite, to Union Carbide in 1913 for $9 million.
context_section_description: The future City of Miami Beach became Fisher's next big project. On a vacation to Miami around 1910, he saw potential in the swampy, bug-infested stretch of land between Miami and the ocean, and in his mind transformed the 3,500 acres (14 km²) of mangrove swamp and beach into the perfect vacation destination for his automobile industry friends—he called it "Miami Beach". He and his wife bought a vacation home there in 1912 and he began acquiring land.
  The Collins Bridge across Biscayne Bay between Miami and the barrier island that became Miami Beach was built by John S. Collins (1837–1928), an earlier farmer and developer originally from New Jersey. Collins, then 75 years old, had run out of money before he could complete his bridge. Fisher loaned him the money in trade for 200 acres (0.81 km²) of land. The new 2 1/2-mile (4 kilometers) wooden toll bridge opened on June 12, 1913.
  The bridge replaced an old ferry service and connected Miami Beach and the mainland, providing a critical link between the established city of Miami and the new town. The Collins Bridge was awarded the title of being "longest wooden bridge in the world."
  Fisher financed the dredging of Biscayne Bay to create its vast residential islands. He later built several landmark luxury hotels including the famous Flamingo Hotel and attracted the wealthy and celebrated to visit the community, several of whom took up permanent residence there.
  Although a dedicated enthusiast of automobile travel, Fisher was aware that wealthy vacationers in those days often preferred to cross the long distances to southeastern Florida by railroad, a tradition begun by some families years earlier with Henry M. Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) and the resorts he established at places like St. Augustine and Palm Beach, and eventually Miami, the southern terminus of the FEC, where he built the famous Royal Palm Hotel.
  In developing Miami Beach's potential for resort hotels, Fisher needed a transportation connection the 5 miles (8.0 km) from the FEC railroad station in Miami.
  The solution he developed was the Miami Beach Railway, an electric street railway system which served the additional purpose of providing electric service. He and other investors formed the Miami Beach Electric Company and the Miami Beach Railway Co. It began service on December 14, 1920 and ran from downtown Miami, where it shared tracks with Miami's own trolley system, to the County Causeway (renamed MacArthur Causeway after World War II). After crossing Biscayne Bay to Miami Beach, the tracks looped around the section of Miami Beach south of 47th Street. Around 1926, Florida Power and Light acquired Fisher's streetcar system, and expanded it, double tracking the line across the causeway. However, while sale of electric service was a growth industry across the United States, the street railway portion went into a period of decline, along with the entire industry. All rail service between Miami and Miami Beach was terminated on October 17, 1939.
  However, even with the new street railway connecting with the FEC, while wealthy people came to vacation, only a few were buying land or building homes. The U.S. public was apparently slow to catch on to the vacation land and homes Fisher envisioned for Florida. His investments in Miami Beach were not paying off, at least not until he again utilized his promotional skills which had worked so well years earlier in Indiana.
  Ever the innovative promoter, Fisher seemed tireless in his efforts to draw attention to Miami Beach, a story recounted by PBS. Fisher had acquired a baby elephant named "Rosie" who was a favorite with newspaper photographers. In 1921, he got free publicity all across the country with what we would call today a promotional "photo-op" of Rosie serving as a 'golf caddy' for vacationing President-elect Warren Harding. Billboards of bathing beauties enjoying white beaches and blue ocean waters appeared around the country. Fisher even purchased a huge illuminated sign proclaiming "It's June in Miami" in Times Square.
  During the Florida land b
caption: Collins Bridge across Biscayne Bay between Miami and Miami Beach, Florida opened in 1913 as the "longest wooden bridge in the world." photo from Florida Photographic Collection
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