1924 Schulte Realty City Plan or Map of New Smyrna Beach, Florida

This is a 1924 H.B. Schulte Realty Company map New Smyrna Beach at the height of the Florida Land Boom. The map focuses on Divisions A and B. Depicting the development from 2nd Street to 27th Street in between the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian River, blocks B through Z are illustrated and divided into individual lots. Blocks B through G are only partially illustrated. Blocks 2 through 24 are illustrated along the east side of Atlantic Boulevard and a hotel site is marked as well. Some lots are blank, suggesting they were already sold at the time this map was published. An area for a proposed golf course and a small piece of land reserved for a school and church are marked off to the west of Riverside Boulevard.

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 - represented on this map - follows the arrival of the railroads to central Florida, leading to nearly 15 years of prospered 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 inventors 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

This map was issued by the H.B. Schulte Realty Company in 1924.