Category: History Publisher: ECity Publishing
ISBN-10: 0983042586
Type: Non-Fiction
Pages: 80
Copyright: September 2018
ISBN-13: 9780983042587
Brief biography of the amazing man who created successful streetcar advertising businesses in Memphis and New York before investing in Southwest Florida where he was the largest landowner. He built the Tamiami Trail across the Everglades, linking Tampa to Miami, so that his chain of hotels and other properties were accessible
Barron Gift Collier was born in Memphis in 1873 and left school at age 16. He soon ran his own business installing gas street lamps and then branched out to sell streetcar advertising. His agency monopolized the southern states so he moved to New York City for a larger market, placing advertising cards in the subways as well as in trams and buses. He took his civic responsibilities seriously and supported the Boy Scouts. He was appointed a Special Deputy Police Commissioner in charge of public safety in the New York streets.
All that activity was not enough. He visited the island of Useppa off the Gulf Coast of Florida and fell in love with the area. By 1922 he had amassed over a million acres but there were no roads through his property. The Tamiami Trail linking Tampa to Miami had been started in 1914 but no funds were available to finish the link through the Everglades. Collier promised to finance the construction if a county were established which encompassed his lands.
Collier County was created by the Florida legislature in May 1923 and Collier started building. His engineering headquarters and county seat was the town of Everglades on the newly-named Barron River. Construction of the Trail and the pristine little city was completed only five years later in 1928.
Collier also owned and operated a shipping line, a bus company, the telephone system, several newspapers and a chain of luxury resort hotels, all in south Florida, while continuing to supervise his business in New York.
He died in 1939, having survived the Great Depression, at his legal residence in Useppa.
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Reviews for "EVERGLADES ENTREPRENEUR; Barron Gift Collier, Roaring Twenties Tycoon"
I read this with great interest. Barron Gift Collier was a very interesting man from the brief bio that you provided here. I'm so glad that you did the research on his life for this biography of him. So important for history.
As I read about the town of Everglades being completed in 1928, I remember that the Steele family, a minister in Fairmont West Virginia, had just completed his summer cottage on the newly created Cheat Lake. In 1975, I purchased the cottage from the Steele family son and his wife, a lawyer, and they permanently moved to Collier country for the rest of their days.
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