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PaperclipPerfector  18hr ago (text post)   791 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 14, 2026

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I came across the link to a Facebook page for Vanished Florida. I see a lot of hotels in Miami even back to 1910-1920. How did hotels work in 1920?

My understanding of the transportation system in 1920 is a northerner going to Miami the trip would take days. I don’t think you could drive a car from NYC to Miami in 1920. So maybe railroad or boat? I’m guessing a 2-day trip that was fairly expensive?

A modern hotel is essentially transients that stay on average probably 2-3 days. Would a hotel in 1920 in a place like Miami be much longer stays? For the obvious reason that you’re not traveling to a place that takes 4-5 days travel time round trip to stay for a day or two.

If my assumptions are correct it would be interesting staying in a fancy hotel in a vacation destination where everyone is staying month. There would be value in meeting other guests.

Here’s the link. https://www.facebook.com/share/1UKPu8znC9/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Seems like one guy (who became filthy rich by involvement with Standard Oil, and who's wife liked the climate in Florida) basically built/acquired/standardized railroads and put up hotels all over the place:

https://flaglermuseum.org/history/florida-east-coast-railway

This all happened right around the turn of the century though -- by the '10s and '20s I'd think you could pretty easily interconnect up the Eastern Seaboard via Jacksonville -- apparently there was freight service to Cuba (!) even, accomplished by loading cars onto a ferry.

By the mid-20s it looks like you could do NY-Miami in about a day and a half:

https://streamlinermemories.info/FL/SAL26OrangeBlossomSpecial.pdf

https://streamlinermemories.info/FL/SAL27OrangeBlossomSpecial.pdf

Which I guess is a bit longer than driving down there now (Google says 19 hours), but considering that you could eat/drink/sleep/get a haircut on the way, not really that bad! (Certainly nicer than being herded around JFK and getting searched/felt up by the help along the way -- after all one is on vacation; what's the hurry?)

Nice research. 1.5 days of travel isn’t that bad and would make it possible for a 10-day vacation. My guess is most trips were still a little longer.

Initially I didn’t want to know exactly the logistics of travel in the time period to keep it more abstract on how vacation hotels worked when travel times were long. NYC to Miami may have been the first time there was any long distance vacation travel in world history that was more than a tiny elite or a summer house outside a city. The very first period when people could go from a cold climate to a warm climate.

The 3-day bachelor party trips would still be out but anything over 10-days for a somewhat wealthy family would seem to be possible in this time period.

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