Did you know that St. Johns County farmers are Florida’s most productive potato growers? In fact, St. Johns County is the #7 producer of potatoes in the nation. St. Johns County potatoes have anchored products by Frito-Lay, Cape Cod, Kettle, Snyder’s and others. Do you know how potatoes took root in the County?

Henry Morrison Flagler, with an eight grade public school education, founded Standard Oil. Along with his business partner, John D. Rockefeller, he built the company into the richest, biggest business in the world. At its height, the company controlled 90% of the world’s oil refining. The New York World paper reported that Standard Oil was “the most cruel, impudent, pitiless and grasping monopoly that ever fastened upon a country.” By 1911, the Supreme Court of the United States had successfully broken Standard Oil’s monopoly into 34 new companies.

At the peak of his business, Flagler brought his wife, Mary Harkness, to Jacksonville for convalescence. She died shortly afterwards in 1881 and Flagler married her caregiver, Ida Alice Shourds two years later (incidentally, Ida Alice was later declared insane in 1896, enabling Flagler to marry once again to Mary Lily Kenan). The newlyweds honeymooned in St. Augustine, sparking an entirely new business tack – one that made the name “Flagler” synonymous with old Florida.