James Ingraham worked for both of Florida's railroad magnates -- Henry Plant and Henry Flagler. Both Plant and Flagler realized that to extend their railways into the southern part of the peninsula, they would have to deal with the water on the land. In 1911, Ingraham reflected on this problem:

The project of draining the Everglades attracted the attention of Henry B. Plant in the early nineties, but he was by no means sure that the scheme was feasible, so I, acting under his direction, undertook an expedition through the region. Despite its proximity to centers of population, it was then for the first time thoroughly explored by white men. Ours was virtually a voyage of discovery. We paddled our light boats on lakes and camped on islands that, I have good reason to believe, had never before been visited by any human beings but Seminole Indians, and by these but rarely...our efforts were not in vain, for we ascertained the important fact that the Everglades, along the whole 160 miles of the eastern side, are rimmed by a rock ledge. We furthermore learned that all of the lakes are several feet above sea level, and we decided that there was nothing whatever to prevent the water of the lakes from flowing into the ocean and leaving the land drained if vents could be made in this long ledge of rock.

Experiment proved that this work would present no great difficulties. It was merely a matter of a great deal of digging. Henry M. Flagler took up the project, and it is being carried out by his lieutenants. We are not only making artificial outlets through the rock, but are also... turning large bodies of water into rivers and creeks which flow to the ocean. The work has progressed far enough to enable me to predict confidently the opening in Florida, within a very few years, of a great tract of land of almost unprecedented fertility.

Ingraham later served as mayor of St. Augustine. He died in 1924, at the age of 73.