The Florida Railroad Company was an entity that existed within the state of Florida in the 19th century that is regarded as helping modernize the Florida state economy. Founded in 1855, one of its principal stakeholders was Josiah Marks, who would later serve as an influential Floridian governor and through the Governorship broadly expanded the railroad. In the late 1880s, Henry Flagler - an associate of John D. Rockefeller - purchased the FRC and built the Florida East Coast Railroad all the way to Key West during the 1890s, helping grow Miami.