PBSCV1599
Gen. James Patton Anderson Camp 1599
Celebrating 34 Years 1992 - 2026
BOLLES HOTEL, Ritta Island, Lake Okeechobee
Boca Raton News
Mon, Oct 11, 1993 ·
Page 11
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The Bolles Hotel opened in April 1912. It was built at Lake Okeechobee to accommodate prospective land buyers. There even was a demostration farm nearby to show that crops could indeed grow in the rich muck of the area.
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The Palm Beach Post
Sun, Mar 14, 1920
Page 1
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BIG DEVELOPMENT AT HILLSBORO, THE NEW TOWN IN HEART OF EVERGLADES
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Now Within Eight Hours of West Palm Beach—Hillsboro Improvement Association is Boosting Section—New Boat Line Now in Service
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Until a short time ago a week might be required for a trip between West Palm Beach and points in Palm Beach county's upper Everglades. It is now possible for a farmer on the Hillsboro canal to leave home at six o'clock in the morning and be in the county seat by three o'clock. It used to be impossible to get to the Bolles hotel or the Miami hotel without the expenditure of much time, money and patience; the hotel can now be reached in less than eight hours. Development of boat service makes the improvement. Captain Benjamin has put his boat, the Lill, on a run between Moore Haven and Hillsboro canal points, making three trips a week. M. F. Meyer, of the Hillsboro settlement, who came in yesterday afternoon on the Bass Line mail boat, the Observation, left his home at six o'clock yesterday on the Lill and made connections at Ritta with the Observation, the Lill stopping at Ritta on its way to Moore Haven.
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The importance to West Palm Beach of this improvement in boat service is indicated in this circumstance. In the Hillsboro settlement is an organization known as the Hillsboro Improvement Association; at a recent meeting of the association W. C. Greer, a farmer in that community, moved a resolution that members of the association make West Palm Beach their banking and trading center. The resolution was adopted by a unanimous vote. Still other and closer relations between the county seat and the upper Glades settlements are to be brought about when roads have been extended.
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Mr. Meyer is in the city to hasten the shipment to the Hillsboro settlement of lumber he has ordered for a twenty-room hotel he will build. The lumber has been ordered from a sawmill near here. A twenty-room hotel may seem small when compared to the 2,000 guest rooms in the Hotel Royal Poinciana, but a twenty-room hotel in a settlement in the upper Glades is as important as would be the erection of a 100-room hotel in West Palm Beach. The Hillsboro settlement has "just growed"—there is no big land company with elaborate advertising and many salesmen to assist in its progress, for the farmers have worked out their development themselves.
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Mr. Meyer was a Montana farmer who came south for a winter; he hunted and trapped through the Glades until he became familiar with the country, and then made his selection and purchase of land. He is doing well, as can any other intelligent, industrious man who goes into drained areas of the Everglades and thinks and works. His neighbors are of the same character as he, which accounts for their successes.
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The Hillsboro settlement is soon to have a postoffice which will be known as Badger, although the farmers in that section have decided that their community shall be known as Belle Glade.
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The Palm Beach Post
Thu, Oct 20, 1921 ·
Page 7
PROGRESS OF THE PALM BEACH DRAINAGE AND HIGHWAY DISTRICT
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The Palm Beach drainage and highway district is still hammering away, pounding out dollar for dollar. In our last report we showed by means of a map of the district an area of 20,000 acres all ditched with twelve-foot ditches, one-half mile apart running into cross canals which in turn empty into the Hillsboro and North New River canals.
The cuts accompanying this article are taken in the field where operations are in progress. This machine is a twelve-foot Buckeye ditcher. It cuts a ditch twelve feet wide, on top, three feet on the bottom and about six and a half feet deep. During the past month the buckets, or diggers, were removed and new ones put on which have changed the shape of the ditch but do not change the capacity of the ditch. The new buckets are only ten feet wide on top but are seven feet deep. This gives a ditch with steeper sides and it is supposed will afford less chance for weeds to accumulate on its banks. When this machine is in operation it cuts a ditch at the rate of eight feet per minute. An ordinary day's work of nine hours is about 4,000 feet and when the crew wish to gain a certain point before quitting they turn on their powerful headlight and work a while at night. By the way, this machine generates its own electricity.
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By looking at the cuts you will note that the spoil bank is dropped about ten feet from the edge of the ditch. This spoil bank when dried out is spread and becomes a turnpike road, good enough to carry an ordinary load and for light auto traffic. While this ditching machine, weighs fifty tons it makes very little impression on the soft muck, yet ordinary trees and shrubbery are rolled down like grass. It has been operated on ground covered by a foot of water.
Cut No. 1 shows the machine in operation over a fire swept area. This is to remind you that the Everglades can get dry enough to burn at times. No. 2 is a side view showing the machine passing through the ordinary six-foot saw-grass. No. 3 shows the machine loaded on two 20x80-foot barges crossing the Hillsboro canal. These moves have to be undertaken frequently and are rather expensive. No. 4 shows a ditch cut through a burnt area. The barrier show across the ditch is left at the end of each day's work or whenever the ditcher is laid up for repairs. This barrier keeps the water from following the digging wheel. If the dirt becomes too mushy the carrier will not work well and the spoil bank may run back into the ditch. At the present writing the ditcher is working west from the North New River canal and north of the Bolles canal and if all goes well they should reach the Miami canal by the first of the year, at any rate, the crew say that they will eat their Christmas dinner on the bank of the Miami canal.
The state has just completed a lock at the head of the Miami canal and has dug a channel from it into navigable water of the lake. There are two dredges at work now making a spillway around this lock and cleaning out the canal south as far as the sunken Bolles dredge. This work will be completed in about two months. When this is complete boats can enter the Miami canal from the lake, proceed south and east to Okeelanta and from there go by water north or south on the North New River canal or east to West Palm Beach.
This will give tourists a chance to see the famous Bolles hotel. This old hostelry has been closed during the summer but now that such good navigation is again to be had, I see no reason why it should not open again and do a good business.
For the benefit of distant land owners and tourists, will say that an auto road over which light autos can travel on high is now completed from West Palm Beach to Belle Glade, a town in the drained area on the Hillsboro canal. From there the road runs north and south so that one can proceed north to the lake and west to South Bay. From there a good road leads west to the Miami lock and the Bolles hotel, or you can go south of Belle Glade and west along the cross canal to Okeelanta. From there a good road leads west to the Miami canal. The next task will be to build a road north on the Miami canal to the lake; this will complete a circuit in the finest lands of the drainage district. I am giving this information for those who are desirous of settling on their lands which are now drained. We are draining this land for settlers, not for tourists, and we want them to come into the district and make use of these ditches that are being built with taxes. We want you to reap some benefit from the outlay. Remember, 43,000 acres will be drained by the first of the year; every foot of which is the finest soil imaginable.
Volumes have been written on the value of the soil of the Everglades. It is not my intention of entering into such a discussion. All I have to say is that you can now get to the heart of the drainage district by boat or by auto, so come and see for yourself.
C. F. WERNER, Sec.
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The Palm Beach Post
Thu, Jan 15, 1931 ·
Page 4
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LAKE HARBOR HOTEL BURNS
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South Bay, Jan. 14.—Fire of undetermined origin destroyed the hotel at Lake Harbor, one of the old landmarks on this side of the lake, Monday. Known for many years as the Bolles hotel, it had housed many transients bound from the East Coast to points on Lake Okeechobee. After passing from the control of Mr. Jeffries and associates, the hotel went into the hands of the Southern Sugar Company and since that time had been closed to the public. The structure had served as a place of refuge in the hurricanes of 1926 and 1928. In addition to the building, palms and trees on the lawn also were destroyed.
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RITTA ISLAND
(Wilipedia)
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Early settlement and development (1908–1920)
The modern settlement of Ritta Island began in 1908 when developer Richard J. Bolles purchased 500,000 acres of Everglades land from the State of Florida for $2 each. Through the Florida Fruit Lands Company, Bolles marketed the island and surrounding areas to Northern investors as a winter agricultural paradise.The first pioneers arrived to find the island covered in a dense forest of custard apple (pond apple) trees. Early residents were tasked with clearing this vegetation to access the "black gold" muck soil beneath. In 1911, Bolles constructed the Hotel Bolles, a two-story wooden structure intended to house prospective land buyers and tourists. By the mid-1910s, a small community had formed, centered on the cultivation of winter vegetables such as tomatoes and beans.
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Growth and infrastructure (1921–1927)
At its peak in the 1920s, the community on Ritta Island was a self-sufficient agricultural hub. Because there were no roads connecting the island to the mainland, transportation was conducted entirely by boat, with steamships and gasoline launches frequenting the island's piers. The island also featured a one-room schoolhouse and several large packing houses. Residents typically built their homes on stilts to mitigate the seasonal fluctuations of Lake Okeechobee's water levels In 1922, a post office was established on the island, under the name Mabry
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1928 Hurricane and abandonment
The settlement was effectively destroyed by the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane. On September 16, 1928, the storm's powerful winds pushed a massive wall of water from the lake over the southern rim. The surge demolished the island's packing houses, the Hotel Bolles, and most private residences.
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While neighboring towns on the mainland like Belle Glade and Pahokee were rebuilt, the survivors of Ritta Island largely abandoned their properties. The subsequent construction of the Herbert Hoover Dike fundamentally altered the local geography, leaving the island outside the primary protection zone and rendering it unsuitable for permanent re-habitation. Today, the island remains largely uninhabited and is reclaimed by natural vegetation.
1913 Bolles hotel at Ritta florida on lake okeechobee,
source Internet Archive publiction
Source:
https://e-governmentresearch.blogspot.com/2019/11/napoleon-of-finance-swindled-local.html
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Monday, November 25, 2019
'Napoleon of Finance' Swindled Local Pioneers
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Richard Johnson "Dicky" Bolles was an infamous larger-than-life
land speculator who played a major role in the early development of
Dade and Palm Beach counties. In fact, some believe his life story
continues beyond the grave today in a supernatural afterlife.
Dicky Bolles was born Aug. 1, 1843, the son of Dr. Richard M. and
Henrietta Bolles of New York City. Bolles had an innate talent for in-
vestments and real estate marketing which at the youthful age of 23
earned him a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.
His aggressive business enterprises and short physical stature (just 5 feet, 6 inches) won Dicky Bolles the title from both critics and admirers as the "Napoleon of Finance" on Wall Street.
In 1906 his real estate business acumen was brought to the attention Florida's own political "Napoleon" - Governor Napoleon Bonaparte Broward (1905-09), a former ship captain and Cuban gun-runner from Jacksonville. Broward needed someone with Bolles' skill in land development to fulfill his vision of Everglades "reclamation".
Governor Broward's reclamation plan was the polar opposite of today's restoration projects in the Glades. He favored the draining and settlement of Everglades marshlands with new farms and townships to increase the state's tax base.
The target of Broward's ambition was Dade County, the vast thinly settled geographical area extending from the Florida Keys north to the St. Lucie River and west to the mouth of Kissimmee River on Lake Okeechobee at the turn of the 20th century.
On Dec. 26, 1908, trustees of the Florida Internal Improvement Fund signed a contract with Dicky Bolles, conveying 500,000 acres in "overflowed" (submerged) state lands to the developer for $2 an acre.
Bolles formed the Florida Fruit Lands Company to develop 180,000 acres of land within Dade and the newly created Palm Beach County (established in 1909). His plan was to divide the land into sections for farms and township units.
He later established the Okeechobee Fruit Lands Company to dispose of the remaining 240,000 acres of property available for development along the shores of Lake Okeechobee. Bolles and his affiliated developers would eventually sell more than 20,000 parcels of land.
Dicky Bolles' primary residence during his stay in Florida from 1910-17 was the exclusive "Seminole Club" in Jacksonville, a private men's-only institution hosting the city's leading business movers and shakers. He listed his occupation as a "Capitalist," according to the U.S. City Directories 1832-1998 archive.
Bolles promoted Everglades properties held by his development companies through a nationwide advertising campaign touting the marshes as the "Promised Land," a "Tropical Paradise" and even as a new "Garden of Eden".
The "Bolles Hotel," once located on the southern shore of Lake Okeechobee in the community of Ritta, was built by the developer in 1910-11 to house prospective Everglades land buyers. The landmark hotel was damaged by the 1928 hurricane and burned to the ground in 1929, according to the Florida Division of Archives.
During a four-day tour of the Everglades sponsored by the Florida Internal Improvement Fund, Dicky Bolles hosted a visit in April 1912 by Florida Governors William Sherman Jennings (1901-05) and Albert Gilchrist (1909-13) at the Bolles Hotel. The governors would later acquire property through his land company.
Dicky Bolles' most ambitious development scheme, which also marked the beginning of his misfortunes, was the infamous "Progresso Land Auction" of March 11, 1911. More than 3,000 land hungry settlers and investors descended on the unincorporated village of Fort Lauderdale for a chance to obtain property in a lottery drawing.
However, lotteries were illegal in Florida and the random drawing was canceled. The crowd was told they could purchase deeds to the plotted land tracks for $240 - sites unseen. The promised town of "Progresso" was never established.
After inspecting the swampland purchased during the Progresso auction, one Iowa investor reported, "I have bought land by the acre, and I have bought land by the foot, but by God I have never before bought land by the gallon."
An estimated 4,805 Everglades land buyers attended a similar 1912 "convention" held in West Palm Beach. Most of the prospective buyers traveled to Palm Beach County from the Midwest, according to a 2002 study appearing in the Florida Geographer.
An editorial published in the March 1912 edition of the Miami Metropolis lamented, "Florida has so much good rich land that requires no draining...that the state and its people have undoubtedly suffered great injury through attempts to unload upon unwary customers land that has no condition to produce at this time."
Dicky Bolles' final years in Florida were spent in state and federal courts, fending off criminal fraud charges and lawsuits from angry customers whose promised "Garden of Eden" was swampland.
Bolles was arrested in 1913 with his case going before a state court in March of that year.
Amazingly, the jury decided Dicky Bolles was an "honest man" and he was judged innocent by the court. He was later awarded $1.4 million by the State of Florida for his past land sales in November 1913.
However, Dicky Bolles legal problems were not over. A federal prosecutor in Kansas City presented a 122-page indictment against Bolles for mail fraud with more than 100 witnesses testifying against him.
Legal defense fees and a lavish lifestyle reduced his real estate fortune. What remained of his land grant in 1915 reverted to trustees of the Florida Internal Improvement Fund for nonpayment.
Dicky Bolles died March 25, 1917, soon after boarding a F.E.C. Railway train in West Palm Beach bound for Jacksonville. He was buried within the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY.
Upon his death, Bolles' estate passed on to his secretary in Jacksonville, Agnes Cain Painter. She established a not-for-profit foundation which was used to finance "The Bolles School" in Jacksonville.
Justice from Beyond the Grave?
Dicky Bolles successfully avoided a prison sentence during his lifetime, but at least one South Florida family is convinced he is facing a worse fate in the afterlife.
The story of Dicky Bolles' ghostly visitations at a suburban home in Davie, FL, is the topic of an episode entitled "Deadly Force" (Season 11, Episode 193) of "The Dead Files" cable television series featured on the Travel Channel.
The episode first aired Oct. 3, 2019. During their investigation, psychic medium Amy Allan and retired New York City detective Steve DiSchiavi revealed to a terrified Broward County couple that their property was once part of Bolles' Florida Fruit Lands Company.
Dicky Bolles is described by Allan as an unhappy spirit trapped in their home. He is being eternally tormented by his deceased common-law "wife," who is preternaturally angry about her small estate settlement, and pursues both the living and the dead.
Perhaps this is a final judgment for the Napoleon of Finance.
(c.) Davidsson. 2019.
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Posted by Palm Beaches Information at 4:22 PM
