 It was on its way to becoming a floating hotel, during the heady days of the Florida land boom of the 1920s.Railroads had already begun raising shipping rates in response to the strain created by the population boom, and when the sea route to Miami was blocked the city's image as a tropical paradise began to crumble.Investors were seeing primarily negative press on Miami by 1925, and the rising prices that fueled the land boom stopped rising.