1888: Ponce de Leon Hotel in Florida

The Ponce de Leon Hotel, was an exclusive luxury hotel in St. Augustine, Florida, built by millionaire developer and Standard Oil co-founder Henry M. Flagler and completed in 1888. The hotel was designed in the Spanish Renaissance style as the first major project of the New York architecture firm Carrère & Hastings, which would go on to gain world renown.
Ponce De Leon Hotel.jpg

The hotel was the first of its kind constructed entirely of poured concrete, using the local coquina stone as aggregate. The hotel was also one of the first buildings in the country wired for electricity from the onset, with the power being supplied by DC generators installed by Flagler's friend, Thomas Edison.

1897 - Fountain at Ponce de Leon Hotel.jpg

The original building and grounds of the hotel are today a part of Flagler College.

KD: What do you think about this hotel? What are those antenna looking things, as well as those balls on the, supposedly, flag poles? What about them "decorative?" wire art on the park entrance miniature pillars? What else do you see?
 
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Something tells me that this 1869 Osborn's Concrete Building "Machine" was pretty similar to what they used to produce the Ponce de Leon Hotel. It does not appear to be a machine in the way we view machines today. After reading through the provided description, and comparing it to the walls of the Ponce de Leon Hotel, it kind of what they might have used with their "revolutionary" technic.

machine-2.jpg machine-3.jpg
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As far as I understand, the above Osborn's machine was not the only one introduced in 1869, so who knows, how old this technic was in 1869. Here is Drake Brothers' & Reid's concrete building machine.

What I don't see here is the concrete pouring pump machine. Then again, I have not even looked for it. Pretty sure it's not that hard to find it. Concrete mixers they definitely had as early as 1868. Pouring pump machine is somewhere out there as well.

What does the narrative tell us? When did we officially invented mechanized concrete mixers?
 
KorbenDallas said:

Something tells me that this 1869 Osborn's Concrete Building "Machine" was pretty similar to what they used to produce the Ponce de Leon Hotel. It does not appear to be a machine in the way we view machines today. After reading through the provided description, and comparing it to the walls of the Ponce de Leon Hotel, it kind of what they might have used with their "revolutionary" technic.

As far as I understand, the above Osborn's machine was not the only one introduced in 1869, so who knows, how old this technic was in 1869. Here is Drake Brothers' & Reid's concrete building machine.

What I don't see here is the concrete pouring pump machine. Then again, I have not even looked for it. Pretty sure it's not that hard to find it. Concrete mixers they definitely had as early as 1868. Pouring pump machine is somewhere out there as well.

What does the narrative tell us? When did we officially invented mechanized concrete mixers?
Click to expand...
Love that the blurb says, "may be looked upon as a very old method of construction revived. After being once employed and long abandoned the use of concrete [now] ... differs entirely from the... Romans who used it always in large masses."

They roll out that old chestnut every couple hundred years it seems. 😂 Suddenly "rediscovering" how roman roads/concrete were constructed.

They also really stretch the meaning of the phrase "differs entirely". They say this is the same concrete "revived", but then say it's totally different because they are using less of it, as if that makes any difference in the formula.
Last time they "revived it" was in 1868, wonder if we'll go from understanding its self healing properties, to "rediscovering it in 2068.

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This guy seems to have developed his own roman concrete, interestingly he uses shells in there. Another person posted that they developed their own formula for it. Wonder if these inventions will be suppressed until the next selected roll out period.

87296413-7781-4FCF-B883-587E477627AE.jpeg
 
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