Lindsey Hopkins Sr.

Lindsey Hopkins Sr. was the owner of the Shoreland Arcade, one of Miami's principal commercial structures fronting on E. Flagler Street, N.E. First Street, and N.E. First Avenue. In addition to being a stockholder in the Carl G. Fisher hotel chain operating in Florida and New York, he owned 98 houses and cottages in Miami. Mr. Hopkins also had an interest in the 17-story Columbus Hotel at Biscayne boulevard and N.E. First Street with S.A. Lynch.

Mr. Hopkins was also the director of the Bureau of Supplies at a time when, in his words, “the world’s markets and the transportation facilities of the United States perhaps have never been as greatly demoralized as now.” In 1917 he responded by letter to a request from a Mrs. Moore, who complained that she had been trying to obtain wool for more than two months. Because of a lack of supplies, the order couldn’t be fulfilled completely, Mr. Hopkins explained: “Bear in mind that this situation exists, but that we are doing everything possible to increase the efficiency of the service.”[6]

At the time of his death at 57 years old, Hopkins was perhaps the largest individual owner of valuable Metropolitan Miami real estate, investing great sums in real properties throughout the last few years before his passing.[7]

Postcard, Lindsey Hopkins Vocational School

The construction of the Roosevelt Hotel was started by Fred Rand, far out on the other end of his Second Avenue business strip, at Fourteenth street. It was slated to be a $2,750,000 hotel with 560 rooms. However, the Roosevelt Hotel Project was left unfinished in 1926, and its unfinished walls and rude interior furnished a haven for hobos and the homeless for 10 years, while two hurricanes did their unsuccessful best to ruin it.

The structure was bought in January 1936 for $38,000 by Lindsey Hopkins, Sr., and his associates, Oscar E. Dooley and his son, Lindsey Hopkins, Jr., to both repair and finish.[8] Over one million dollars was spent to complete the Roosevelt Hotel.[9][10]

Upon the passing of Lindsey Hopkins Sr., the building was sold for only $225,000 dollars to the Miami Dade Public Schools by Lindsey Hopkins Jr. in honor of his father and thus was named the Lindsey Hopkins Vocational School. It is now known as Lindsey Hopkins Technical College.[11] At the time of the sale, the Roosevelt Hotel had an appraised value of one million dollars.

“Dad was a farm boy, from Reidsville, NC., and his first job brought him 50 cents a week. He wasn’t a college graduate, though he studied a little at Chapel Hill, at the University of North Carolina. He was a self-made man, and a self-educated man. He did a good job, because I have met few men who had a better education – he read widely – he did it himself. The school that carries his name would have made him very proud.”[12]

— Lindsey Hopkins Jr.

Lindsey Hopkins Sr. financed and owned the San Sebastian Hotel in Coral Gables, Florida. He made his winter home in the city for several years.[13][14] Later the hotel was acquired by the University of Miami for $200,000. The building would be used as a residence hall for women students, and it would provide apartments for some faculty members and quarters for nine sororities.

Mr. Hopkins was also responsible for building 100 homes in Coral Gables using The American Building Company of Cincinnati, Ohio, the same company used by Coral Gables developer George E. Merrick. He was also a member of the Century Club of Coral Gables.[3]

Lindsey Hopkins' holdings also included much real estate in Atlanta, Georgia, where for several years he maintained a home on the city's fashionable Peachtree street.

When Coca Cola stock was at a low point in 1921, Hopkins started buying, and by the spring of 1928 he was a major shareholder. However, his path to success was not smooth. In the words of a friend, Hopkins had a “divine spark of push, go-aheadness, and an acquisitive spirit that would broach no stopping.” Hopkins believed the Coca-Cola company had barely scratched the surface of the possibilities before it,” and he was pretty sure Ernest Woodruff was trying to sell it short. He meant to stop him.

As Frederick Allen tells in his book “Secret Formula,” about how Coca-Cola became a worldwide brand, “On April 9, 1928, Hopkins leaked a story to the Associated Press in New York disclosing his role as the investor who had been buying Coca-Cola stock and pushing up its price. Then he walked into the main branch of Chase National Bank in New York, signed a six-month note and borrowed $1 million in cash so he could buy more. For the next three weeks, he and the Woodruffs fought a desperate battle over the future of the company. Ernest and Robert and their allies at Trust Company launched a new round of short sales, hoping to depress the price of the stock, while Hopkins spent his million dollars buying up their positions and keeping the value high.”[2]