1920 J. S. Blains Real Estate Promotional Map of Florida

An unusual c. 1920s Florida Land Boom piece, this is a real-estate promotional map of Florida by J. S. Blain. The map embraces Florida in a circular frame wherein some 32 counties are identified and correlate with numbers on the map. In the county the acreage controlled by Blain is noted. While the extent of Blain's holdings seem mind-boggling here, he in fact controlled very little and many of his claims were fraudulent. Blain ran an investment syndicate that promoted Florida real estate investment nationally, offering outrageous returns of up to 100% monthly!

Florida Land Booms

In the second half of the 19th and throughout the early 20th century, Florida experienced a series of land booms and crashes. The first followed the Second Seminole War (1835 - 1842), when the government offered homesteaders who agreed to stay five years 160 acres of free land. The second follows the arrival of the railroads to central Florida, leading to nearly 15 years of prosperity and economic growth - mostly revolving around the booming citrus industry. New settlements sprang up throughout the northern half of the state, many owned by absentee investors who never personally visited Florida. The boom collapsed in 1894-95 when a series of historic freezes wiped out the citrus harvest. Property depreciation following the freezes allowed Henry Flagler (1830 - 1913) to develop the Florida East Coast Railway. This, and the arrival of the highway system in the 1920s, led to the third Florida land boom from 1920 to the stock-market crash of 1929.

Publication History and Census

A unique and ephemeral piece. We are aware of no other examples.