MIAMI – Mention Brickell Avenue and visions of the burgeoning apartment and financial heart on the south side of the Miami River occur to brain. But there is one more Brickell Avenue and it is in the heart of Fort Lauderdale.
As element of the CBSMiami Women’s History Thirty day period challenge, Hank Tester frequented with Patricia Zieler, the Government Director of Historical past Fort Lauderdale. We were being searching for photographs of Mary Brickell of which there are darn handful of.
Zieler handed Tester a huge photo of Mary indicating, “That is just one of the couple of photographs we have. The Broward relationship is what no one appreciates about.”
The Brickell Avenue in Fort Lauderdale is right downtown, most of what grew to become downtown Fort Lauderdale was acquired by Mary and William Brickell in 1874.
“This one particular mile and a quarter Brickell Avenue was the Key Street of our city from the extremely beginning of Fort Lauderdale,” explained Zieler.
Miami Historian Paul George is familiar with Brickell Avenue in Fort Lauderdale nicely. Has published about the place in excess of the years and appreciates Mary Brickell’s story.
“So if you look at the primary downtown Fort Lauderdale, that is west of Second, West of Andrews Ave, that was all Brickell home,” mentioned George
By 1894, Henry Flagler’s railroad had arrived in Palm Seaside. Mary Brickell and her husband William, an American worldwide entrepreneur, realized that at some point Flagler would expand to Miami which at the urging of Mary Brickell and Julia Tuttle he did. His tracks went correct by way of the Brickell’s Fort Lauderdale land, but the land of her preference.
The English-born Mary Brickell was a tough negotiator.
“She pushed him really much west, absent from what she thought of primary residence,” explained George.
The land she reserved is now the beneficial riverfront property in Fort Lauderdale.
“So she is liable for Fort Lauderdale currently being where by Fort Lauderdale is in several techniques,” stated George.
Mary and William Brickell hardly ever lived in Fort Lauderdale but they experienced the regional vision and it was Mary who carried it out.
“Their relationship was so great for the reason that they were a real, like a 21st-century marriage, for the reason that he still left her absolutely running the U.S. operations. It was she that ordered the land up listed here, not him, and she managed it,” mentioned Zieler
