Henry Bradley Plant

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Henry Bradley Plant

Henry Bradley Plant (born October 27, 1819 in Branford , Connecticut , † June 23, 1899 ) was an American railroad magnate and pioneer of tourist development in western Florida . His life's work was the so-called Plant System .

Plant was allowed to study at a prestigious university by his family, but decided to work his way up in the transportation industry from scratch. Plant was particularly successful in organizing express delivery services and reached senior executive positions at a relatively young age. Because of her poor health, Plant's wife Elizabeth was recommended in 1853 to stay mainly in the south. This and previous business connections with the southern states led Henry B. Plant to be interested in the depressed railroad system in the states defeated in the Civil War from the 1870s . He began buying up bankrupt lines cheaply and created a railroad network known as the Plant System . Plant also promoted tourism in the western coastal areas of the state of Florida by building railroad hotels , similar to what Henry Morrison Flagler did around the same time on the east coast of Florida. Plant's Tampa Bay Hotel, built in 1891 with its 13 Moorish towers, is a kind of counterpart to Flagler's Ponce de Leon Hotel in St. Augustine . Since 1933, the building, which is now a listed building, has housed the University of Tampa . It also houses a museum dedicated to Henry B. Plant.

The city of Plant City is named after him.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Plant, Henry Bradley
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American railroad tycoon
DATE OF BIRTH October 27, 1819
PLACE OF BIRTH Branford, Connecticut
DATE OF DEATH June 23, 1899