false 60176761 2433100 16007 1400049474 9781400049479 27 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166696751m/16007.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166696751s/16007.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16007.Last_Train_to_Paradise_Henry_Flagler_and_the_Spectacular_Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Railroad_that_Crossed_an_Ocean 3.63 84 Last Train to Paradise novelist Les Standiford has written a lively, felicitous account of the building of the Florida East Coast Railway, which, for a little over two decades, connected mainland Florida with Key West. Henry Morrison Flagler, John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil partner and, in many eyes, the true genius behind that company, embarked on the project in 1905 when he was 74 years old. The railroad, which crossed more than 150 miles of open sea, was an engineering feat nearly equal in scale and difficulty to the digging of the Panama Canal. Standiford's narrative skillfully blends tales of construction perils (not the least of which were escadrilles of mosquitoes) with brief, illuminating travelogues and natural histories, pocket descriptions of life in early 20th-century Florida, and a truly gripping description of an epic standoff between Mother Nature, in the form of a monstrous hurricane, and a stalled, 160-ton steam locomotive. With nary a single missed note, this fascinating tale is popular history at its best. --H. O'Billovich]]> 9886 3.47 858 174 2002 4 0 false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Jun 18 09:45:36 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 18 09:50:07 -0700 2009