10 TEQUESTA


to support the weight of a man two feet out. Snow fell on Tampa and
Fort Myers.17
 This second cold wave, coming just when citrus trees were
putting out new growth and vegetable growers were preparing to
harvest their replanted crops, finished off any of the remaining season's
yield. Where citrus crops had been lost in December, the trees them-
selves were lost in the latter freeze. Farmers were demoralized and
numbed; what they thought could not happen again in ten years had
occurred only six weeks after the first freeze. Homesteaders who
had looked upon Florida as the promised land and had invested years
in their farms were wiped out in two days.18
 Again, the reports coming from the areas of New River (Fort
Lauderdale) and Biscayne Bay were difficult to comprehend. The
freeze had not reached the far south end of Florida and again it was
reported "many crates of tomatoes are being shipped to Key West
daily.""19 Two days after the second freeze, Flagler dispatched James
E. Ingraham to investigate the reports from South Florida. Ingraham
headed the railroad's land department, which had the responsibility
for securing land for the railroad, surveying and laying out the new
towns that sprang up on the newly granted railroad lands, and attract-
ing settlers and farmers to these lands. He was among Flagler's most
trusted employees. Ingraham initially came to Florida in 1874, and
worked for Henry Sanford and Henry Plant, two major entrepreneurs,
before joining the Flagler organization.20
 Sanford had purchased a large tract of land in central Florida
and Ingraham had laid out and handled the development of the town
of Sanford for him. Ingraham also talked Sanford into building a
railroad to connect Sanford with Kissimmee. Ingraham became presi-
dent of this railroad in 1879. When Plant, a wealthy Tampa investor,
bought Sanford's railroad, Ingraham moved over to become president
of this new line. Ingraham was president of the South Florida Rail-
road when Plant extended the train to Orlando and later to Tampa.
Ingraham was hired away from Plant by Flagler in 1892.21
 Two years earlier, in 1890, Ingraham met Julia Tuttle at a
dinner party at her home in Cleveland. Tuttle was preparing to move
to her property at Fort Dallas and remarked to him, "Some day
somebody will build a railroad to Miami. I hope you will be interested
in it, and when they do I will be willing to divide my properties there
and give one-half to the company for a town site." Ingraham re-
sponded, "Well, Mrs. Tuttle, it is a long way off, but stranger things