Julia DeForest Tuttle | |
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 Portrait of Julia DeForest Tuttle | |
| Born | (1849-01-22)January 22, 1849 Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. |
| Died | September 14, 1898(1898-09-14) (aged 49) Miami, Florida, U.S. |
| Spouse | Frederick Leonard Tuttle |
| Children | 2 |
Julia DeForest Tuttle (néeSturtevant; January 22, 1849[1] – September 14, 1898) was an American businesswoman who owned the property upon whichMiami, Florida, was built. For her boosterism, she's called the "Mother of Miami." She is the only woman to have founded what would become a major American city.[2]
Julia Sturtevant was the daughter ofEphraim Sturtevant, a Florida planter and state senator. She married Frederick Leonard Tuttle on January 22, 1867. They had two children: a daughter, Frances Emeline (b. 1868), and a son, Henry Ethelbert (b. 1870). Julia Tuttle first saw theBiscayne Bay region ofsouthern Florida in 1875 with her husband, visiting a 40-acre (16 ha) orange grove her father had purchased. She loved the experience, but returned toCleveland, Ohio, with her family.[citation needed]
Tuttle came toFort Dallas, Florida, from Cleveland, Ohio, on a steamship after her father and mother had moved to South Florida. A little over ten years later, in 1886, her husband died; the foundry had already been sold. Upon his death, she found that her husband had not been good at managing money. This placed Julia in dire financial straits. To supplement her small income, she had to turn their four-story home into a boarding house and tearoom for young ladies. In 1890, when her father died and left her his land in Florida, she sold her home in Cleveland, Ohio, and relocated to Biscayne Bay.[citation needed]
Tuttle used the money from her parents' estate to purchase the James Egan grant of 640 acres (2.6 km2), where the city of Miami is now located, on the north side of theMiami River, including the old Fort Dallas stone buildings, and the two-story rock house built by Richard Fitzpatrick's enslaved workers some 50 years earlier. This was converted into her home. In 1891, Tuttle brought her family to live there. She repaired and converted the home into one of the show places in the area with a sweeping view of the river and Biscayne Bay.[3] She stated in a letter to her friend “It may seem strange to you, but it is the dream of my life to see this wilderness turned into a prosperous country. Where this tangled mass of vine, brush, trees and rocks now are to see homes with modern improvements surrounded by beautiful grassy lawns, flowers, shrubs and shade trees.”[4]
Tuttle saw the opportunity to found a new city on the Miami River, but knew that arailroad was necessary to attract development. Tuttle tried to induceHenry Flagler to extend hisFlorida East Coast Railwayto Fort Dallas, and offered to divide her large real estate holdings as an enticement. After numerous fruitless letters she made the trip to St. Augustine and made a personal appeal, again unsuccessful. Good fortune for her expansionist ambitions too the form of theGreat Freeze of 1894-1895, which devastated the old orange belt of central and northern Florida, wiping out valuable groves and fortunes alike.
Either Flagler recalled Tuttle's touting of the South Florida weather and sent some men to investigate, or Tuttle alerted Flagler that the freeze had spared the Miami River area, sending as evidence a bouquet of flowers and foliage (possibly oranges) as proof; the order to extend his railroad came. Under an agreement between the two, Tuttle supplied Flagler with the land for a hotel and a railroad station for free, and they split the remainder of her 640 acres (2.6 km2) north of the Miami River in alternating sections.
On February 15, 1896, Joseph B. Reilly, John Sewell, and E.G. Sewell, the vanguard of the Flagler forces, arrived, and the work of building the Royal Palm Hotel was commenced.[citation needed] On April 22, 1896, train service of the Florida East Coast Railway came to the area. On July 28, male residents voted to incorporate a new city, Miami. Steady growth followed.[citation needed]
In 1898, Tuttle fell ill with apparentmeningitis. Plans were made to move her toAsheville, North Carolina, by rail for treatment, but her condition deteriorated before she could be transported. She died on September 14, 1898, at age 49. Her funeral took place at her Fort Dallas home, and she was buried in a place of honor at theCity of Miami Cemetery. Her tombstone notes her year of birth as 1848, while other sources list 1849.
Tuttle died leaving a large amount of debt, partly the result of her land grant incentives to Flagler. Her children sold her remaining land to pay it off. Her name was mostly forgotten until it was placed on a causeway forInterstate 195 over Biscayne Bay.[when?] In contrast, the name ofWilliam Brickell, a large landowner on the south side of the Miami River who contributed to Tuttle's efforts to incorporate the city, appeared widely on the south side of what became Miami.[5]
Just as Tuttle is called theMother of Miami, Flagler became known as theFather of Miami. Both Tuttle and Brickell had previously lived inCleveland, where they first met.[citation needed]
In addition to the Julia Tuttle Causeway, the memory of Tuttle has been honored with a sculpture inBayfront Park, by Daub and Firmin.[6] Additionally, the large downtown Miami food hall, Julia & Henry's, is named for her and Flagler.
Julia Tuttle inspired several projects of theMiami Girls Foundation and the Miami Girls Manifesto written byRebecca Fishman-Lipsey.[7]
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