Florida Keys' Watercolor Kapers by Bob Kranich

The Brown Pelican (Final Episode)

This is the last part of the Brown Pelican story from Florida Keys' Watercolor Kapers. In it he talks about the Flagler Railroad that went to sea, and then he signs off.

The Brown Pelican

The final major visitor who was the forerunner of the great surge of population and so-called progress, was a man called Flagler with his dream.

Of course we pelicans could see it coming. We saw Flagler’s railroad building its way down the entire Florida East Coast. This was early in the 1900’s. Then he stretched out from Miami into the Everglades, through Homestead and built “The Railroad That Went To Sea.”

It was the engineering feat of the times. He accomplished what many had said was impossible, a railroad that ran through the Keys and linked Key West to the mainland! In that one hundred and twenty five miles of Keys, he constructed forty-four bridges. After that the visitors came, who told others, and then the highways.

You say, what next? We pelicans cannot foretell the future. But we have survived and observed. We were here before it all began, and God willing, will be here when it all ends.

The Brown Pelican

From the Author: My second full-length book, Florida Keys’ Watercolor Kapers is composed of 336 pages. There are 12 stories running from 6 pages to as many as 72 pages. It is fully illustrated with 88 watercolors and sketches. The watercolors I made roaming around Key West after I finished my 750 mile hike from Georgia to Key West. (See book or Don Browne’s SouthWest Florida Online News records, A Walk Across Florida.) As you read these stories you will experience Key West, the Keys, and the Caribbean. These stories span the time of the early 1800’s to 1969. bkranich.wixsite.com/bobkranich