In 1870, a father and son, Henry and Charles Lum, purchased the land for 25
cents an acre. The first structure to be built on this uninhabited oceanfront
was the Biscayne House of Refuge, constructed in 1876 by the United States
Life-Saving Service at approximately 72nd Street. Its purpose was to provide
food, water, and a return to civilization for people who were shipwrecked. The
next step in the development of the future Miami Beach was the planting of a
coconut plantation along the shore in the 1880s by New Jersey entrepreneurs
Ezra Osborn and Elnathan Field, but this was a failed venture. One of the
investors
