Florida’s First Resort Hotels

1877-1893 

By the 1850s, Florida was already seen as a winter retreat, but tourism didn’t truly take off until after the Civil War. In the postwar boom, resort hotels flourished across North Florida, with Jacksonville as the main gateway. Ocean-going steamships brought the tourists and provisions, which river steamboats and railroads carried inland. Fourteen menus and an unusual piece of ephemera capture this early chapter of Florida’s tourism industry.