This paper discusses the life and work of Henry Morrison Flagler. Henry Morrison Flagler was born in 1830 in Hopewell, New York. At the age of 14 he moved to Bellevue, Ohio, where he would eventually meet and become a partner of John D. Rockefeller in the Standard Oil Company. By the 1870's Standard Oil would make both Flagler and Rockefeller very wealthy men. After all but retiring from the oil business, Flagler made his first visit to Florida in 1878 with his ailing wife, Mary. Mary died in 1881 and two years later Flagler married his second wife, Ida Alice Shrouds. The couple visited St.Augustine, and while Flagler saw the potential of St.Augustine for attracting tourists, he found the hotel and transportation facilities there to be poor. By 1885 Flagler returned to St.Augustine and began construction of the 540 room Hotel Ponce de Leon. In order to ensure proper transportation, Flagler also purchased the Jacksonville, St.Augustine & Halifax Railroad. This was the first of several railroad purchases Flagler was to make.
