<P> The economic prosperity of the 1920s set the conditions for a real estate bubble in Florida . Miami had an image as a tropical paradise and outside investors across the United States began taking an interest in Miami real estate . Due in part to the publicity talents of audacious developers such as Carl G. Fisher of Miami Beach, famous for purchasing a huge lighted billboard in New York's Times Square proclaiming "It's June In Miami", property prices rose rapidly on speculation and a land and development boom ensued . Brokers and dealers speculated wildly in all classes of commodities as well, ordering supplies vastly in excess of what was actually needed and even sending shipments to only a general destination, with the end result being that railroad freight cars became stranded in the state, choking the movement of rail traffic . </P> <P> By January 1925, investors were beginning to read negative press about Florida investments . Forbes magazine warned that Florida land prices were based solely upon the expectation of finding a customer, not upon any reality of land value . The IRS began to scrutinize the Florida real estate boom as a giant sham operation . Speculators intent on flipping properties at huge profits began to have a difficult time finding new buyers . To make matters worse, in October 1925, the "Big Three" railroad companies operating in Florida--the Seaboard Air Line Railway, the Florida East Coast Railway, and the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad--called an embargo due to the rail traffic gridlock of building materials, permitting only foodstuffs, fuel, perishables, and essential commodities to enter or move within the state . </P> <P> Then, on January 10, 1926, the Prinz Valdemar, a 241 - foot, steel - hulled schooner, sank in the mouth of the turning basin of Miami harbor and blocked access to the harbor . It had been on its way to becoming a floating hotel . Because the railroads were still embargoing non-essential shipments, it now became completely impossible to bring building supplies into the Miami area, and the city's image as a tropical paradise began to crumble . In his book Miami Millions, Kenneth Ballinger wrote that the Prinz Valdemar capsize incident saved a lot of people a lot of money by revealing cracks in the Miami façade . "In the enforced lull which accompanied the efforts to unstopper the Miami Harbor," he wrote, "many a shipper in the North and many a builder in the South got a better grasp of what was actually taking place here ." New buyers failed to arrive, and the property price escalation that fueled the land boom stopped . The days of Miami properties being bought and sold at auction as many as ten times in one day were over . </P> <P> Although the railroads lifted the embargo in May 1926, the boom nevertheless fizzled out . Disaster then followed in the shape of the September 1926 Miami Hurricane, which drove many developers into bankruptcy . The 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane and the Wall Street Crash of 1929 continued the catastrophic downward economic trend, and the Florida land boom was officially over as the Great Depression began . The depression and the devastating arrival of the Mediterranean fruit fly a year later destroyed both the tourist and citrus industries upon which Florida depended . In a few years, an idyllic tropical paradise had been transformed into a bleak humid remote area with few economic prospects . Florida's economy would not recover until World War II . </P>

When did the land boom in florida end