Florida Tourist and Southern Investor’s Guide

A well-publicized opportunity to invest in Florida’s growing economy during the late 19th century.

This rare late 19th-century “booster booklet” promotes Florida as a destination for both agricultural investment and winter leisure. Issued by the Southern Immigration and Investment Company and printed in 1896 by Newton & Huston of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the publication was aimed in part at prospective settlers and investors in the Midwest. The expansion of railroads throughout Florida during the preceding decades had opened the state to a growing tourism industry while providing agricultural producers with access to national markets. Citrus receives considerable attention, but the booklet also promotes Florida’s production of rice, livestock, potatoes, cotton, sugar cane, and other agricultural products.

The devastating freezes of the previous winter are acknowledged, but the booklet’s relentlessly optimistic promotional language largely overwhelms any concern about the state’s agricultural prospects. Several maps illustrate popular railroad routes to Florida, including the Monon Route, Plant System, Louisville & Nashville, Chicago & Northwestern, and Mobile & Ohio railroads. Advertisements for hotels, banking services, and consumer goods are scattered throughout, alongside captioned black-and-white photographs, personal anecdotes, and descriptions of Florida’s geography and climate. Collectively, the contents offer a revealing example of the promotional literature used to attract Northern tourists, settlers, and capital to Florida during the state’s late-19th-century development boom.