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The first South Floridians were the Tequesta Indians, who discovered the area more than 10,000 years ago and had it all to themselves until the Spanish claimed it in the 16th Century. In 1821, the Spanish flag was lowered and the Stars and Stripes raised over Florida. Enterprising wreckers from the Bahamas came to South Florida and the Keys in the early 19th Century, to hunt for the remains of an international array of ill-fated ships that crashed onto the treacherous Great Florida reef.

At about the same time, the Seminoles arrived, along with a group of runaway slaves. They fought to stay in Florida, and the area became a war zone from 1836 until 1857, with most non-Indian residents being soldiers stationed at Fort Dallas on the Miami River. Some of these soldiers and a few other adventurous frontier settlers gave Miami yet another new, foreign-born population. At war's end, many of the Indians remained in the Everglades.

The Bahamians who stayed became Miami's first permanent residents and helped found South Florida's first real community, Coconut Grove.

The area's greatest change came thanks to a visionary Cleveland widow named Julia Tuttle, who purchased 640 acres on the north bank of the Miami River in 1891, moving her family into the abandoned Fort Dallas buildings. Within four years, Tuttle -- the "mother of Miami" -- convinced Standard Oil co-founder Henry Flagler to extend his railroad to Miami, build a luxury hotel, and lay out a new town. The railroad arrived in 1896. The City of Miami was incorporated on July 28 that same year.

All kinds of people flocked to the new city, which was never an ordinary Southern town. Miami's first mayor was an Irish Catholic. Most of the early merchants were Jewish. African Americans and Black Bahamians made up one-third of the city's incorporators.

Greater Miami never lacked for forward thinkers, including John Collins (a New Jersey Quaker) and Prest-O-Lite king Carl Fisher, who together in 1913 embarked on an agriculture venture on a spit of oceanfront beach and started a bridge across the bay. Miami Beach was born.

During the Depression, Pan American Airways launched the era of modern aviation with "Flying Clippers" from Miami's Dinner Key. Even then, Pan Am advertised Miami as the "Gateway to the Americas." Today, Greater Miami has overtaken New York's JFK as the nation's leading gateway for international arrivals with 5.1 million international travelers arriving in the U.S. through Miami in 1994.

Also during the Depression, another new group, predominantly Jewish, came to Miami Beach and built a large number of small hotels with stark modern lines along lower Collins Avenue and Ocean Drive. This building boom helped bring the area out of the Depression and forty years later would become the world-famous Art Deco District, which includes the internationally renowned South Beach area.

World War II brought another 100,000 people to Greater Miami and the Beaches when the Army Air Corps and the navy established major training centers. Many of these servicemen made the area their permanent home after the war. By the end of the 1950s, South Florida had doubled its pre-war population.

When Fidel Castro took over Cuba in 1959, no one dreamed that the revolution would change Miami as much as Cuba. The Cuban exiles who were just beginning to pour into the area were bringing the next Miami with them. The '60s and '80s brought mind-boggling change as more than half-a-million Cuban exiles fled to Miami to start a new life. These enterprising refugees launched the area into its future as what many call the "Capital of the Americas."

The 1980s and early '90s brought a multi-billion dollar infusion of investment capital that produced a beautiful new Miami downtown skyline, a reborn Miami Beach, a modernized transportation infrastructure and a new way of life that features the arts, culture, sports and entertainment, all with an international accent. Although it has changed almost beyond recognition (again), Miami Beach has thrived amidst change and overcome many difficulties.

Greater Miami and the City of Miami Beach continue to be an international mecca for travel, business and to establish a home.

History
From the coral reefs to the everglades the unique subtropical environment of South Florida makes this area unlike any other in the United States. Four hundred years ago the area was a center of international rivalry between the English and French to the north and the Spanish to the south. When the United States gained possession of Florida, the major industry was “wrecking” – living off the spoils from shipwrecks caused by sailing too close to the coral reefs. Early settlements were located near the Miami River and Biscayne Bay. In 1825 a lighthouse was built on Key Biscayne to warn passing ships of the dangerous reefs.

The modern era began with the arrival of Henry Flagler’s railroad in 1896. A system of drainage canals began to crisscross the area after the turn of the century. The destruction of mangroves and draining swampland created new land for settlers. In the 1920s a real estate boom changed the area as new subdivisions and tourist resorts were built. From one winter season to the next the City of Miami changed so rapidly that visitors remarked that it had “grown like magic” and Miami came to be know as the “Magic City.”

During World War II the military brought thousands of troops to the area for training. When the war ended many returned with their families to live here permanently. A growth surge in population followed the war and the number of tourists began a steady increase as advancements in transportation helped Miami-Dade become a year-round resort.

Miami -- The name comes from Mayaimi, which means "very large lake" and probably refers to Lake Okeechobee. The Miami River marked the beginning of a canoe trail through the everglades to the big lake.  

In the 1960s thousands of refugees from Cuba began coming into the area. In the 1990s Haitians fled their homeland to come here seeking a better life. Emigration helped the County’s population surpass one million in 1962. Today many different ethnic groups and cultures live in this modern metropolitan community.

When European ships first arrived on the South Florida coast Native American peoples called the Tequesta already inhabited the area.

The first people to live in the area, perhaps as long as 10,000 years ago, were nomads following herds of big game animals such as mammoth and bison. As these animals became extinct, the people turned to smaller game, along with fish and shellfish. Miami-Dade County’s archaeologist has uncovered evidence of these early peoples. The county is one of a very few to have its own archeologist on staff.  

In 1998 archaeologists uncovered the “Miami Circle,” a series of holes cut into the oolitic limestone forming a 38-foot diameter circle located on the south side of the mouth of the Miami River. Radiocarbon testing of artifacts found at the site suggests that it is about 2,000 years old and that it served as a ceremonial site long after the arrival of the Europeans.

Juan Ponce de Leon visited the area in 1513. Two years after founding St. Augustine, Spanish Admiral Pedro Menendez de Aviles established the first European mission on the Miami River’s north bank in 1567. Hostile Indians and mosquitoes soon forced them to leave. The Spanish controlled Florida for the next 250 years, bringing with them modern weapons and diseases that eventually caused the Tequestas to vanish. In the early 1800s a few Bahamian families accepted Spain’s offer of land and began to settle and farm land along the Miami River.

Spain sold Florida to the United States for five million dollars in 1821. By 1830 the Bahamian lands along the river were purchased and became a slave plantation. A barracks built by the slaves was relocated to downtown’s Lummus Park in the 1920s.

A series of wars against the Seminoles kept the environment hostile to settlers. During the Second Seminole War army troops and navy sailors built Fort Dallas on the north bank of the mouth of the Miami River. At the end of the nineteenth century Henry Flagler built his elegant Royal Palm Hotel on the site so that travelers on his train would have a place to stay when they came to Miami.  

When the county was created in 1836, it stretched from Indian Key to Jupiter inlet. By the late 1890s there were fewer than 1,000 residents in all of Dade County.

Indian Key was the first county seat, home to a new courthouse where the bounty from wrecked ships was awarded. The Key West courts were too busy and too far from the eastern keys, so locals persuaded the state to split Monroe and form a new county.

In 1844 the County seat was moved to Miami. Six years later a census reported 96 residents living the area.

Following the Civil War and the passing of the Homestead Act, determined homesteaders slowly began staking claims and farming the land.

Rapid development followed the arrival of the railroad 1896. The City of Miami was incorporated later that year with 344 voters.

The real estate boom of the 1920s was interrupted by a major hurricane and halted by the stock market crash and the Great Depression. On August 24, 1992 one of the country’s worst disasters caused more than $20 billion in damage when Hurricane Andrew hit Miami-Dade County.

Since that time communities have been rebuilt and today tourism and transportation continue to be the major local industries.  

Dade – On February 4, 1836 the Florida legislature voted to name the new county for Major Francis Langhorne Dade who was massacred by Indians in north central Florida at the beginning of the Second Seminole War on December 28, 1835.

Sightseeing

RESTORATION UNDERWAY AT VIZCAYA VILLAGE

Most people know Vizcaya as the lavish Italianate villa on Biscayne Bay, surrounded by formal gardens. But Miami's beloved Renaissance masterpiece was originally an estate of 180 acres. The property on which Chicago industrialist James Deering built his winter home extended south to where Mercy Hospital now stands and west to include the neighborhood of Bay Heights.

 

Also on the west side of South Miami Avenue, Deering created an area to resemble a typical northern Italian village, with a dairy barn, poultry house, mule stable, greenhouse, machine shop and staff residences. Miami-Dade County had until recently occupied this historic cluster of buildings.

 

Vizcaya Museum, along with the Foundation for Villa Vizcaya and the State of Florida, announces the commencement of a $1.2 million restoration project at Vizcaya Village. The initial phase of the restoration will be to renovate the Garage and Blacksmith's Shop, including new roofing. New roofs will also be added to the Family Residence and the East and West Gate Houses, providing stabilization for future restoration of those buildings. Expected completion of this phase is April 2003. The master plan is underway to determine how the Village buildings will be utilized.

Vizcaya, the winter home of International Harvester vice president James Deering, offers a unique glimpse of a vanished lifestyle in America.

Today one of South Florida's leading attractions, Vizcaya Museum and Gardens provides a window to both the history of Miami, graced by the villa since it completion in 1916; and to the Italian Renaissance, represented in the Museum's architecture. Its art and furnishings portray 400 years of European history.

Vizcaya was originally an estate of 180 acres, designed to resemble a typical Italian villa, self-sufficient, with a dairy, poultry house, mule stable, greenhouse, and staff residences. The house and gardens are the creation of three architects: F. Burrall Hoffman designed the buildings; Diego Suarez planned the gardens; and Paul Chalfin was the general artistic supervisor for every phase of the project. Together they created an estate that looked as if it had been lived in by succeeding generations of the same family with each generation adding their own period furnishings of the time. All of the decorative elements including furniture, lighting fixtures, doors and fireplaces were purchased by Deering on shopping expeditions throughout Europe. The house took two years to build. The formal gardens were not completed until 1921 due to the outbreak of World War I. During construction, 1,000 workers were employed, representing nearly 10% of Miami's population.

After Deering's death in 1925, a minimal staff maintained the house. The hurricane of 1926, which devastated much of Miami, severely damaged the estate. In 1952, Miami-Dade County purchased Vizcaya and opened it as a museum. Extensive restoration has brought the house and the remaining 50 acres back to the way they appeared in Deering's day.

Nearly 200,000 people visit Vizcaya each year including some of the world's leading dignitaries such as President Reagan, Pope John Paul II, Queen Elizabeth of England and King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia of Spain. In 1994, the historic Summit of the Americas was held at Vizcaya with President Clinton and the 34 leaders of the Western Hemisphere.

Vizcaya, possessing national significance to the history of the United States, has been designated a National Historic Landmark. Vizcaya is accredited by the American Association of Museums.

In 1998, Miami-Dade County Commissioners officially granted governing authority to the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens Trust.

The rooms of industrialist James Deering's winter residence, now Miami's landmark Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, provide visitors with a glimpse of a long-lost lifestyle, as well as the finest collection of 15th through 19th century furniture and decorative arts in America.

 

More than 85 years ago, when Deering set out to build his winter estate in the then-infant city of Miami, he enlisted the assistance a young New York painter named Paul Chalfin. Together they made buying trips to Europe to select and purchase the important architectural components, furniture and art for the house. These included wall panels, ceilings, mantels, tapestries, sculptures and paintings.

Deering was not an art collector in the manner of many other wealthy men of his time. Consequently, while each of the 34 rooms of the Italian Renaissance style villa convey the general feeling of a particular period style, with its historic art and furnishings, the items were selected by Deering to actually be used in the house by himself and his guests. In addition, they were chosen to create the impression that Vizcaya was the home of a family over a 400-year span, and furnished by succeeding generations in their own contemporary styles. Consistent with that concept, the periods represented through the house are Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassic.

The reception room, styled after a Rococo salon, demonstrated how effective this concept was and how the acquired elements were brought together. The room's 18th century plaster ceiling came from the Rossi Palace in Venice and the wall silks, made by Scalamandre of New York, are exact copies of the original 18th century French silk wall panels that previously graced the house. The room is illuminated by an 18th century Venetian chandelier. The French furniture of the Louis XV period is set on an 18th century Portuguese rug.

The adjacent Adam Library is furnished in the late 18th century English Neoclassic style, incorporating the molded wall and ceiling decoration designs of Robert Adam. A mahogany center table is American. The 18th century inlaid desk, featuring a frieze of swan, squirrel, giraffe, winged unicorn and griffonne is French. A pair of delicate shield-back chairs is Italian but inspired by English Hepplewhite designs. The library connects to the Reception Room via a mahogany walk-through bookcase.

Chalfin displayed the talent of combining elements from different sources to create complete components such as fireplace mantels, lamps or wardrobes. A 16th century Caen mantelpiece, for example, is combined with a Chalfin-designed statuary group to create the massive fireplace that dominates the Renaissance Hall. And a 17th century Neapolitan painting of the Virgin with Saints screens a pipe organ, framed by baroque columns and entablature, which may have been a church altar.

Similarly, Vizcaya's guest bedrooms feature different period designs and furnishings, and are identified by exotic names suggestive of the design theme. The guestroom called Manin is named for the president of the 1848 Venetian republic and is furnished in the Biedermeir style, a provincial version of the Empire style popular in Austria, which dominated Venice at the time. The 18th century European interpretation of Chinese themes, Chinoiserie, set the whimsical mood in the Cathay Room. A canopied-bed and other Italian painted furniture are enhanced flowered Chinese silk wall panels.

James Deering's own suite covers several Neoclassic periods. In the sitting room, Italian carved wood paneling frames Louis XVI silk panels on the walls and the massive mahogany desks are French Empire. A richly colored French Savonnerie rug dates from the early 19th century. His adjoining bedroom contains elements such as a gold laurel wreath on the ceiling, bed drapery supported by a bronze eagle and gold-decorated mahogany furniture of the Napoleonic French Empire period.
Deering's bathroom features a linen ceiling canopy, suggestive of a Napoleonic campaign tent. The marble walls are decorated with Sheffield silver plaques.

Since Vizcaya was acquired by Miami-Dade County in 1952, the main house and its contents have undergone extensive restoration. The house had been unoccupied since Deering's death in 1925. Consequently, the effects of South Florida's humid climate, the salt air of the Bay and neglect had taken their toll. In 1987, the open courtyard was enclosed in glass. Although the courtyard allowed the flow of bay breezes through the house, the need to preserve the collection, as well as the building itself, necessitated the installation of a climate-control system.

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About Vizcaya

 

Miami Sporting Entertainment

 Miami is a

 

 Coconut Grove is known for its artsy flavor with Renaissance-style castles, popular festivals and endless nightlife. Miami golfing also boasts unique attractions, such as the Miami Metro-zoo, Viscaya Museum and Gardens, Miami Seaquarium, Ichimura Miami-Japan Gardens and the Parrot Jungle and Gardens. Fairchild Tropical Garden in Coral Gables includes 83-acres of tropical plants from around the world, conservatory, museum, rainforest, garden shop, cafe and narrated tram tours.

When the sun goes down, Miami nightlife heats up with hundreds of nightspots, including cozy taverns, hip jazz bars, and trendy dance clubs. Definitely a place to "see and be seen," Miami has long enjoyed a reputation as a playground for the rich and famous, and celebrities can often be found reveling in one of the many fashionable nightspots.

New World Cuisine Often referred to as the "Gateway to Latin America," Miami's flavor is heavily influenced by the confluence of cultures that meet in this diverse urban area. Ethnic food, artwork and crafts abound in the area, as well as many colorful festivals and events. Little Havana, Miami's most concentrated Cuban community, is centered around Calle Ocho (S.W. 8th Street), where visitors can enjoy steaming cups of café con leche or shop for exquisitely embroidered guayabera shirts and cigars made in the finest Cuban tradition. The city's Caribbean community is centered around Little Haiti, where Caribbean culture melds with American spirit. Be sure to stop by the Marketplace, an unusual shopping area noted for its unique architecture. Ballet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Miami Metrozoo Directions | Print
Address 12400 SW 152 Street
Miami, Florida 33177
Phone Number (305) 251-0400
Hours of Operation Every day of the year (incl. holidays) 9:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. 
Admission gates close at 4:00 p.m.
Amenities and Facilities After-school programs Picnic tables - click for list Wheelchair accessible Totlot/Playground area - Click for list First aid available

 

One of the world's great zoos is right here in Miami-Dade County. Metrozoo houses more than 900 wild animals in a cageless setting that closely approximates the animals' natural habitats and gives the visitor the feeling of embarking on an international safari. Large, open-air exhibits allow visitors to enjoy beautiful and endangered wildlife at a safe yet remarkably close range. With nearly 300 developed acres on a 740-acre parcel of land, Metrozoo is the only zoo in the continental United States located in a subtropical climate. This enables the Zoo to showcase animals that cannot easily be exhibited in colder climates. Trek through Asia and see Asian River Otters, Komodo Dragons, and Bengal Tigers. Hike the African Plains with giraffes, zebras, and lions. Walk about Australia with koalas, kangaroos, and wallabies.

 

Tours/Services
Metrozoo offers guided tram tours, fascinating behind-the-scenes tours, a free elevated air-conditioned monorail tour, state-of-the-art playgrounds and water play areas for children, dining areas scattered throughout the Park, and souvenir/gift shops.

Location/Cost
Metrozoo is located at 12400 SW 152nd Street, ½ mile west of the Florida Turnpike Extension in Miami, 3 miles west of U.S. 1 and 20 minutes southwest of Miami International Airport. It is open every day of the year, including holidays, from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., with admission gates closing at 4:00 p.m. Admission is $8.95 plus tax for adults, $4.75 plus tax for children ages 3-12. Free for children under 3 and members. Rates are subject to change. For information call (305) 251-0400.

Event Planning
For picnics, company and group get-togethers, conventions, meetings, parties and school reunions (minimum 100 people), call the Metrozoo Sales Department at (305) 251-0400, ext. 246.

For birthday parties (minimum 20 people),
call (305) 233-8389.


Shows at Miami Metrozoo
12400 SW 152 Street
Miami, Florida 33177
(305) 251-0400

Get eye-to-eye with snakes, gators, the bearded lizard and much more at the Ecology Theater in the Children's Zoo as you focus on Florida's native animals. The enormously popular Wildlife Show in the Amphitheater spotlights a variety of birds, reptiles and mammals. Majestic hawks and vultures swoop overhead as they demonstrate how they capture their prey in the wild. Amazon parrots tickle your funny bone when they sing and imitate their animal friends. And your breath is taken away when a sleek, very rare king cheetah strolls out onto the stage.

Talk to the animal keepers and learn more about the Zoo's fascinating animals. Keeper talks and animal feedings begin at 11:00 a.m. and run to 3:30 p.m. You'll find it hard to pull yourself away from the keepers and the tiger, orangutan, Asian river otter, meerkat, dromedary camel, pygmy hippopotamus, chimpanzee, Himalayan black bear, giraffe, African elephant and Galápagos tortoise.
 

Catch a ride on the restored carousel by the sea at Crandon Park. The historic carousel is at the heart of the new Family Amusement Center that includes an old-fashioned outdoor roller rink, dolphin-shaped splash fountain, and a host of marine play sculptures at the beachfront playground. In 1972, the Carousel and roller rink were locked up when the Crandon Zoo moved to South Dade. Left behind in the dark silence were the historic jumping horses, crafted of wood and molded aluminum in 1949 by the famous Allen Herschell Company.

 

Crandon Park Family Amusement Center 
Directions
|
Print
Address 4000 Crandon Boulevard
Key Biscayne, Florida 33149
Phone Number (305) 361-7385 or (305) 361-5421
Hours of Operation 10:00 am- 7:00 pm
Amenities and Facilities Picnic tables - Click for list Roller-skating symbol

 

Today, the Carousel swirls once again to the tunes of the soulful organ music that first filled the air more than a generation ago. The brightly painted horses recall the whimsy of a child's dream with their pictures of dancing dolphins, butterflies, and pirates painted onto their sides. With names like "Mercy," "Pretty Phoebe" and "Danny Boy," the horses also immortalize the volunteers who lovingly, painstakingly brought them back to life with fresh coats of paint and much imagination.

The amusement area is open daily from 10 AM-7 PM. A birthday picnic shelter at the Amusement Area is also available for rentals. For more information and directions, call the Crandon Park Beach office at 305-361-5421.

Larry and Penny Thompson Park Directions | Print
Address 12451 SW 184 Street
Miami, Florida 33177
Phone Number
E-mail
(305) 232-1049
l&p_campground@miamidade.gov
Hours of Operation Park: Sunrise to Sunset
Amenities and Facilities  Campgrounds symbol Picnic tables - Click for other locations Shower symbol Wheelchair accessible Pets allowed symbol Running and vita courses symbol 

 

Campgrounds

Waterslide

Larry and Penny Thompson Campground
Larry and Penny Thompson Campground is a first-class camping area adjacent to world-famous Metrozoo. It has 270 acres of natural South Florida woodland, bridle trails and hiking paths. The Campground has 240 separate campsites for recreational vehicles, with full electrical and water hook-ups, four large restroom/laundry facilities with hot showers, a camp store, picnic shelters, a large freshwater lake with its own beach and water slide (open seasonally) (lifeguards on duty), a playground, concession stand, a 20-station fitness course, access for the disabled, a jogging and bike trail, and more. Pets are welcome, but must be kept on a leash.

The camp ground is open every day, with daily, weekly and monthly rentals; advance seasonal reservations are available. Rates are $22.00 daily; $135.00 weekly and $400.00 monthly and include full hook-up, water and sewer and taxes. Tent sites are $10.00 nightly. For reservations, call (305) 232-1049.


History and Natural Assets
Larry & Penny Thompson Park is dedicated to the memory of Larry Thompson, a popular humorist and columnist with the Miami Herald for more than 25 years. Mr. Thompson was a nature enthusiast and advocate of park beautification. The parkland, which was once part of the Richmond Naval Station, was acquired in December 1974 as part of a 1,010 acre land transfer from the federal government and included the Miami Metrozoo property.

In the campground, you'll see remnants of fruit groves, which once belonged to the University of Miami. These groves acts a natural buffer in the campground and feature avocado, mango and lychee trees.

Larry & Penny Thompson is one of the last portions of wilderness in Miami-Dade County, with wildflowers, palmettos, and rock pinelands. The facility truly harmonizes the recreation experience with Miami-Dade County finest natural assets.

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Waterslide
Larry and Penny Thompson Park features three mammoth water slides carved into a rock mountain. Each slide offers a different sensation as sliders spill into a cool refreshing pool. There's also a sandy white beach and clear blue lake that visitors boast is "the ideal inland swimming spot." Nearby is a concession stand that sells cold drinks and ice cream.

The slide is open during the summer.

Admission to the slide and beach is $4, adults; $3, children ages 3-17; $2.00, seniors over age 62. Individuals must be at least four feet tall to ride the slide. Beach only admission is $3, adults, $2.00, children ages 3-17; $1.50, seniors over age 62.

Fruit and Spice Park Directions | Print
Address 24801 SW 187 Avenue
Homestead, Florida 33031
Phone Number
E-mail
(305) 247-5727
fsp@miamidade.gov
Hours of Operation Park: Sunrise to Sunset
Amenities and Facilities Arts Nature center - Click for list

Fruit and Spice Park Annual Calendar of Events (.pdf format)
 
In 1944, the Miami-Dade Park and Recreation Department established the Fruit & Spice Park, the only garden park of its kind in the United States, on 32 acres of fertile farmland in the area known as the Redlands, 35 miles south of Miami. The Fruit and Spice Park is internationally known for its more than 500 varieties of exotic and subtropical fruit, nut, spice and herb trees and shrubs. Visitors can sample and learn about many of these varieties and take daily guided tours and naturalist-led workshops.

Among the park's many services are classes and tours of various fruit and vegetable-growing regions, including farm tours and fruit safaris, plus expert gardening and botanical advice. The park has its own store, where visitors from around the world can buy exotic and wonderful jellies, canned preserves, aromatic teas, unusual seeds, cold fruit juices, plus an amazing selection of books ranging from cookery to plant propagation.

The Fruit and Spice Park plays an important role in the introduction of new crops to the public, and of providing new germ plasm for nurseries, farms and backyard growers. The park has an active exchange program with botanical gardens and parks in Central American, Southeast Asia, and Australia.

Every January, more than 15,000 people flock to the annual Redland Natural Arts Festival at the park, where local artisans, artists, and gardeners display and sell their crafts. A like number of participants attend the annual Asian-American Arts Festival, held in March, to experience the culture and food of more than 40 Asian nations. This festival has helped to bring many new and unusual vegetables and fruits to the South Florida market.

Also of interest in the Park is one of the original coral rock buildings constructed in South Florida in 1912. This structure exemplifies early pioneer life in south Miami-Dade County.
 

 

The City of Miami- facts and figures

Now 105 years old, Miami is part of the nation's eleventh largest metropolitan area. Incorporated in 1896, Miami is the only municipality conceived and founded by a woman - Julia Tuttle. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Miami's population in 1900 was 1,700 people. Today it is a city rich in cultural and ethnic diversity with 362,470 residents, 60% of them foreign born. In physical size the City is not large, encompassing only 34 square miles.

As the gateway to Latin America and the Caribbean, Miami is a growing center of international trade and commerce. Tourism is one of the area's most important industries.

Millions of visitors flow through Miami International each year. They come to do business and enjoy the area's countless pleasures. They also join millions of others who cruise to the Caribbean from the busiest passenger cruise port in the world, the Port of Miami.

The Miami Free Trade Zone, the first and largest privately-owned and operated trade zone in the world, provides importers and exporters with a secure area to store, label, assemble, display and ship commodities to and from almost 100 countries.

Exports and imports processed through U.S. Customs in Miami have increased. Miami's workforce has grown steadily during the past decade. Approximately 160,000 new employees entered the workforce in the past 10 years.

Miami is a center of world finance with 135 financial institutions and foreign agencies located here.

The film and TV industry has experienced a tremendous economic growth, making Miami one of the largest production centers in the nation. Last year productions in the County, ranging from television commercials and print ads to music videos and films, totaled more than $200 million. The Miami-Dade Office of Film, Print and Television helps facilitate productions, and supplies the industry with no-cost permits and location scouting. The office issued more than 2,000 production permits last year.

Agriculture continues to be an important economic force. Miami-Dade County harvests more tropical vegetables than any county in the U.S. Miami-Dade also holds the title of Florida's largest producer of squash and ornamental nursery products. Miami-Dade growers are diversifying into tropical fruits and specialty Asian vegetables.

Manufacturing, which also ranks as a key industry in Miami-Dade County, is comprised of almost 3,000 companies with approximately 80,000 employees.

 Some interesting statistics on Miami:

- Cruise ship capital of the world: 3,112,355 passengers in 1999.

-The Miami airport is the third largest in the United States for international passengers.

- Financial Capital of Latin America and the Caribbean:
- 38 State licensed foreign bank agencies with $12.5 billion in deposits
- 13 Edge Act banks with $7 billion in deposits
- 59 Commercial banks and 11 thrift institutions with 38.8 billion in deposits

- More than 500 multinational corporations
- 61 foreign consulate offices
- 25 foreign trade offices
- 40 bi-national chambers of commerce

Miami Weather

- Average daily winter temperature: 67 degrees (January)
- The coldest months are December through February (61 - 77 degrees)

- Average daily summer temperature: 82 degrees (July)
- The warmest months are July and August when the temperature ranges from 76 - 91 degrees

Miami-Dade numbers

- Miami Population: 2,253,362
- Registered drivers: 1.598,322
- Registered cars: 1,290,001
- Registered voters: 817,628
- Registered boats: 53,290

- Hotels: 277 with 35,196 rooms
- Motels: 189 with 11,937 rooms

- Broadcast Television Stations: 13
- AM Radio Stations: 15
- FM Radio Stations: 19

 

History of Miami

 
hasflogo.gif - 1415 Bytes Historical Museum of Southern Florida

Miami: One Hundred Years of History

Paul S. George, Ph.D.

Few cities of such youth can claim a history as eventful, significant, and tumultuous as that of Miami. From its beginnings as a tiny settlement along the Miami River to the robust international city of today, Miami has represented for multitudes of new residents a place to begin anew, a gateway to a better tomorrow. And at no time has this been more true than the present.

The Beginning

The story of Miami begins more than 10,000 years ago with a settlement of Paleo-Indians along the edge of south Biscayne Bay near today’s Charles Deering Estate. Many millennia later, Tequesta Indians entered the lush, subtropical area and built settlements stretching from the Florida Keys to Broward County, with the largest concentrations along the north bank of the Miami River and on Key Biscayne.

Like Florida’s other native inhabitants, who numbered more than 350,000 at the time of the Spanish entrada in 1513, the lifestyle of the Tequestas changed radically, and for the worse, following the Spanish arrival. Victims of disease, war and other dislocations, the Tequestas, along with Florida’s other native populations, had virtually vanished 250 years after the entry of the Spanish.

Beginning in 1565, Spain exercised control over Florida for nearly 250 years. Spain’s colonization effort is divided into two eras separated by a twenty-year British interregnum in the late eighteenth century.

During the Second Spanish Period, which stretched from 1784 to 1821, Spain liberalized her settlement policies in an effort to develop her colony, encouraging, in addition to her own countrymen, residents of other lands and faiths to settle in Florida. In the early 1800s, a few Bahamian families accepted Spanish land offers along the Miami River and on Biscayne Bay, and farmed in those lush areas.

In 1821, Spain sold Florida to the United States for five million dollars in Spanish damage claims against the American government. One year later, Florida became a territory, marking the beginning of its march toward statehood. In 1830, Richard Fitzpatrick, a prominent figure in the politics of Territorial Florida, purchased the Bahamian-held lands on the Miami River, and established a slave plantation over a portion of them. Sixty slaves cultivated Fitzpatrick’s land. Fitzpatrick, however, abandoned his plantation soon after the commencement of the Second Seminole War.

The Seminole Wars

The Second Seminole War, fought between 1835 and 1842, was the longest, bloodiest Indian war in American history (The First Seminole War was waged in several parts of northern Florida in 1818). The conflict erupted following efforts by the United States to relocate Seminole Indians west of the Mississippi River in Indian Country (today’s Oklahoma and a portion of Arkansas). The Seminoles were renegade members of the Creek nation who had left their ancestral home in Georgia in the previous century for Florida.

The Second Seminole War led to the rapid depopulation of Miami and other parts of southeast Florida. A small military force replaced the civilian population near the end of the 1830s, as the United States Army established Fort Dallas on a portion of Fitzpatrick’s abandoned slave plantation on the north bank of the stream. Soldiers from Fort Dallas periodically paddled upriver and into the nearby Everglades in an effort to engage the elusive Seminoles in combat.

The Second Seminole War ended in 1842. Shortly thereafter, Fitzpatrick’s nephew, William English, acquired the former’s Miami River possessions and reconstituted the slave plantation, adding new buildings to the complex. A man of large ambitions and vision, English platted the “Village of Miami” on the south bank of the river. He sold several lots in that development before leaving the area, at the beginning of the 1850s, for California and the gold rush.

The Third Seminole War (1855-1858) prompted the United States Army to reestablish Fort Dallas on the English property. Although it was fought on a far smaller scale than the previous conflict, this final Seminole War further discouraged settlement in Miami.

While the Indian problem had receded by the latter decades of the nineteenth century, the site of today’s Miami consisted of only a few families as late as the 1890s. Dade County, stretching from Indian Key to the Jupiter Inlet, contained less than 1,000 persons by the beginning of the century’s last decade. Undoubtedly, the area was among America’s last frontiers.

Miami Is Born

But change was in the air. Small homesteading communities were arising along Biscayne Bay and many influential pioneers were among the incoming residents. Julia Tuttle moved to the area in 1891 and purchased the Fort Dallas land to build her home. A woman of great foresight, Tuttle prophesied that a great city would someday arise in the area, one that would become a center of trade with South America and a gateway to the Americas.

Across the river from Tuttle lived William and Mary Brickell and their large family. The Brickells arrived in Miami at the outset of the 1870s, and quickly established themselves as successful Indian traders as well as shrewd real estate investors.

Meanwhile, Henry M. Flagler, a multi-millionaire from his partnership with John D. Rockefeller in Standard Oil, was extending his railroad south along Florida’s east coast, and developing cities and resorts along the way. In 1894, Flagler’s railway entered West Palm Beach.

During the following year, in the wake of two devastating freezes that wreaked havoc on Florida’s farm crops but failed to reach Miami, Flagler met with Julia Tuttle. He agreed to extend his railway to Miami in exchange for hundreds of acres of prime real estate from Tuttle and the Brickells.

Additionally, the great industrialist agreed to lay the foundations for a city on both sides of the Miami River and build a magnificent hotel near the confluence of the river and Biscayne Bay. Flagler had been quietly planning this extension long before his fateful meeting with Tuttle, since he wanted to bring his railroad all the way to Key West and link it with other parts of his vast system, which included a steamboat line and a resort in the Bahamas.

The first train entered Miami on April 13, 1896. By then a city was arising on both sides of the Miami River. The heart of the community was a retail district along Avenue D (today’s Miami Avenue) emerging north of the river, in an area of piney woods.

On July 28, 1896, 344 registered voters, a sizable percentage of whom were black laborers, packed into the Lobby, a wood frame building on Avenue D standing near the Miami River. They voted for the incorporation of the City of Miami, along with the Flagler slate of candidates.

By then, the trappings and institutions that accompany developing communities everywhere, such as a newspaper, bank, stores, and churches, had appeared. What separated Miami from other frontier communities was Henry M. Flagler’s magnificent Royal Palm Hotel.

Standing five stories tall (its rotunda in the center added another story to the structure), the yellow frame building was topped by a red mansard roof and counted among many prominent features a 578-foot long verandah. The building contained more than 400 rooms.

Soon after it opened in January 1897, the Royal Palm became a popular resort for America’s Gilded Age princes, including John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and the Vanderbilt family.

Miami endured a series of traumas during its first years as a city. A fire destroyed much of the business district on the morning after Christmas 1896. Restless, troublesome and even violent troops among the 7,500 men bivouacked in Camp Miami during the Spanish-American War of 1898 threatened the residents of the small community. The following year a fearsome yellow fever epidemic forced many families out of their homes to seek temporary, safe housing until the disease subsided.

In spite of these perils, early Miami grew quickly and by the beginning of the new century, the fledgling city contained 1,681 residents. Tourism and agriculture represented its chief economic endeavors. New neighborhoods appeared on both sides of the river. Miami had shed its frontier ambiance for that of a small southern town.

Significant projects in the century’s first decade dictated future directions. Henry Flagler succeeded in securing federal funds for the construction of a deep water channel as well as for the dredging of the Government Cut, connecting Miami’s new bayfront port with the Atlantic Ocean lying several miles east of it. Flagler was also instrumental in connecting the Keys through the extension of the Florida East Coast Railway to Key West, some 120 miles south of Miami.

“Land by the Gallon”

The State of Florida embarked on an ambitious program of Everglades drainage in 1906. Its goal was to provide fertile new lands for agriculture. Two years later, a dredge started digging a drainage ditch near the headwaters of the Miami River, and by 1913, the Miami Canal connected the river with Lake Okeechobee, while the water from the swampland was carried out to sea along connecting waterways.

Everglades Reclamation (or drainage) led to the birth of a feverish real estate industry for Miami and much of southeast Florida as large speculators purchased millions of acres of reclaimed land from the State of Florida, then marketed it aggressively in many parts of the nation. The unsavory sales tactics of promoters who sold unwitting investors land that was underwater earned for Miami an enduring reputation for marketing “land by the gallon.”

By 1910, Miami’s population had soared to nearly 5,500, while the number of tourists and new business establishments rose sharply. Twelfth Street, today’s Flagler Street, had eclipsed Avenue D as Miami’s most important thoroughfare becoming the address for the city’s leading business establishments. Twelfth Street’s cachet continued to rise with the opening of the Burdine department store’s new five-story building, the city’s first “skyscraper,” in 1912.

Colored Town

Colored Town arose in the immediate aftermath of the city’s incorporation when land deeds to property within the municipal limits prohibited its sale to blacks everywhere except for that quarter. Despite deep pockets of poverty and a glaring absence of municipal amenities found elsewhere, this “suburb” hosted a rich array of enterprises, institutions and activities. The quarter’s main thoroughfare was Avenue G (Northwest Second Avenue), known as Little Broadway for its nightclubs and dance halls, as well as the sparkling roster of nationally renowned black entertainers who visited and performed in those attractions.

Black Miami grew quickly, comprising twenty-five to forty percent of Miami’s population in its first generation of existence. Later called Overtown, this region would grow rapidly before experiencing a period of steep decline beginning in the 1960s for a host of reasons, including the construction of an extensive expressway system that ripped through the heart of the quarter and led to the displacement of 20,000 residents (about one-half of its population).

Miami’s First Flight

Miami’s boisterous 15th birthday celebration in 1911 featured an aerialist soaring in a Wright Brothers airplane over a Flagler-built golf course west of Colored Town. For most Miamians this event marked their first glimpse of an airplane. The experience served as a harbinger for the city’s emergence as one of the nation’s early aviation centers, since Miami’s climate, level topography, and close proximity to water made it ideally suited for aviation activity.

Soon after the inaugural aerial display, Glenn Curtiss, a famed aviator, arrived and established a flight school. By the time America entered World War I in 1917, Miami and the surrounding area hosted several flying schools, including a facility near the Miami Canal that Curtiss operated for future combat pilots in the Great War.

Beauty of Miami

Tourism boomed before and after World War I primarily through the efforts of Everest G. Sewell, a self-taught public relations whiz who headed the Miami Chamber of Commerce’s tourist promotional campaign. Many prominent visitors built large, stately homes along beautiful Brickell Avenue, creating a “Millionaire’s Row.” The thoroughfare’s most prominent resident was William Jennings Bryan, presidential candidate and a sterling orator, who regaled crowds in Miami’s Royal Palm Park with his Sunday Bible addresses.

Bryan’s beautiful Villa Serena was overshadowed, however, by James Deering’s Villa Vizcaya, a multi-million dollar Renaissance-era palazzo with extensive gardens overlooking Biscayne Bay. Built between 1914 and 1916, Vizcaya employed ten percent of Miami’s population in its construction.

Miami was already booming when the Roaring Twenties began. The city’s population had climbed to nearly 30,000, a 440 percent increase over the figure for 1910. It represented the largest per capita increase of any municipality in the nation. Its expanding borders now extended several miles in each direction beyond the original parameters. At the outset of the 1920s, the Miami Herald marveled at the “astounding growth of Miami as a tourist center.”

Increasing numbers of tourists remained in the area after the winter season had ended, many becoming permanent residents. But this growth would pale by comparison with what lay ahead—the onset of the great real estate boom of the mid-1920s.

The Land Boom

Speculation brought people from all parts of the nation to Florida in quest of quick wealth in the overheated Florida real estate market and Miami was its storm center. In the late summer of 1925, as the boom neared its zenith, nearly 1,000 subdivisions were under construction in Miami and its environs. Speculators were selling lots several miles from the city’s center for fantastic profits. Beautiful developments bearing a Spanish eclectic or Mediterranean Revival style of architecture arose in areas that had only recently been farms or woodland. Most prominent here were the sparkling new municipalities of Coral Gables and Miami Shores.

The annexation of Lemon City, Coconut Grove, and other historic communities and neighborhoods in 1925 led to the expansion of the city of Miami from 13 to 43 square miles. This event, together with a population that unofficially stood in excess of 100,000 by 1925, was indicative of Miami’s emerging status as a metropolitan area.

The boom was accompanied by a breakdown in law and order. Bootleggers sold liquor obtained from the nearby Bahama Islands or from local moonshine stills to thirsty “boomers” and natives oblivious to Prohibition and its enforcement. Owing in part to the wrenching changes that accompanied the boom, the rate of violent deaths (homicides, suicides, and accidents) for Miami and Dade County in the middle years of the 1920s, was greater than at anytime since the state of Florida began record keeping.

And the Bust

The boom began dissipating in 1926. Wary speculators backed off from further investment in light of inflation, and a series of setbacks brought construction to a standstill. The spring and summer of 1926 witnessed a mass exodus of speculators. The boom was over.

In September, a hurricane with winds of 125 miles per hour smashed into the Miami area, with a portion of the eye passing over downtown. More than 100 Miamians and Dade Countians lost their lives in the storm. Thousands of homes were destroyed. Unfinished subdivisions were leveled. The entire region was plunged into a severe economic depression three years before the rest of the nation.

Miami weathered the Great Depression of the 1930s better than many other communities. This was due in part to the advent of commercial aviation—Pan American Airways and Eastern Airlines established headquarters in the Magic City—and a resurgent tourism in the second half of the decade. Tourism was pegged to special events and activities such as the Orange Bowl Festival, which began in the mid-1930s, and became a popular tourist draw.

New Deal programs put more than 16,000 Miamians to work, building fire stations, schools, and post offices. The federal government was also responsible, in this era for the creation of Liberty Square, one of the nation’s first black public housing projects. It arose in Liberty City, a new African-American community in the city’s northwest sector.

World War II

America’s entry into World War II in 1941, led to a radical shift in Miami’s fortunes, as the city and other parts of Dade County became a huge training base for hundreds of thousands of member of the armed services. Dimouts and blackouts were the rule in the early part of the conflict due to the German submarines in nearby waters.

The United States Navy operated a submarine chaser school, also known as the “Donald Duck Navy,” from the busy port of Miami. The headquarters for the Navy’s Gulf Sea Frontier, which oversaw naval operations in this region, was located in the Alfred I. DuPont Building. The Army Air Force Transport Command took control of the municipal airport at N. W. 36th Street.

Local businesses, such as shipbuilding and upholstering, worked double shifts on government contracted projects. Miami enthusiastically met its war bond quotas helped by weekly patriotic parades along downtown’s Flagler Street.

The Magic City was even involved in the Japanese surrender. Paul Tibbits, a Miamian, commanded the Enola Gay, a B-29 airplane named for his mother, herself a resident of Miami’s Riverside neighborhood. The Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima in August 1945. One week later the Japanese surrendered, ending the most destructive war in the history of humankind.

“Sand in their Shoes”

Postwar Miami bustled as never before. Many veterans who had trained here during the war had acquired “sand in their shoes,” and returned as permanent residents. The new Miamians represented one ingredient in a new boom whose impact was evidenced by soaring enrollments at the University of Miami, a suburban building explosion, and record numbers of winter visitors, especially on Miami Beach.

Change was everywhere, most notably in such vital sectors of the economy as aviation. The creation of the Dade County Port Authority resulted in the purchase of Pan Am Field, and its merger with the Army Air Transport Field led to create Miami International Airport.

Increasingly, Dade county was assuming a more important role over the destiny of its citizens. Miami delegated some of its powers to that entity, as in the case of city-operated Jackson Memorial Hospital, which became a county facility in this period. At the beginning of the 1950s, the Port of Miami came under the joint management of the governments of Dade County and the City of Miami, preparatory to the construction of a new port on Dodge Island.

The county’s growing powers culminated in the creation of a Metropolitan form of government, which provided for the consolidation of many of the functions and services, formerly provided by Dade’s separate municipalities, within one entity.

By 1950, the City of Miami contained 172,000 residents, or little more than one-third of the county’s population. Miami remained a Southern city but one with a prominent Jewish community and a large annual tourist population. The races were segregated, and would remain so until desegregation brought vast changes in society in the 1960s. Miamians called their city “Miamah,” as earlier residents had, with more than a trace of a Southern accent.

A New Ellis Island

One of the city’s most defining moments came in 1959 with Fidel Castro’s takeover of Cuba. Castro’s transformation of the island nation into a Marxist state led to a vast exodus of Cubans to Miami. Many of the first wave of refugees were highly educated persons who left behind successful careers and businesses.

Their presence in older Miami neighborhoods helped revitalize areas that had been suffering from an exodus of middle class residents to the new suburbs ringing the city. Moreover, the business acumen of many exiles was a boon to the city and region’s economy while their vibrant culture brought new life to their new home.

At the same time, Miami and south Florida became a center for intrigue as America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) prepared a force of exiles for an armed overthrow of Castro’s government. But the failure of the CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, and an agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, providing that the former would refrain from invading Cuba, left a bitter taste in the mouths of many Cubans toward the government of their adopted country.

Nineteen sixty-five marked the beginning of the U. S. sponsored “Freedom Flights,” a massive airlift of Cubans to Miami. By the time of their termination in 1973, more than 3,000 “Freedom Flights” had delivered 150,000 Cubans to America, primarily to Miami and its environs, and in the process had instituted the radical transformation of the city into a Latin American capital.

By the 1980s, the large Cuban refugee population, whose countywide numbers by the end of the decade exceeded 600,000, was actively engaged in the political process, dominating the government of the City of Miami, as well as those of neighboring communities. Through its fervent anti-Communism stance it added a more conservative bent to the city’s politics. Little Havana, the initial entry point for early waves of Cubans, had additionally become, by the 1980s, the destination for refugees from other countries in the hemisphere, especially Nicaragua.

In Miami’s northern sector, refugees from Haiti, the poorest nation in the hemisphere, were pouring into Lemon City and transforming that bastion of old Miami into a vibrant black Caribbean community. By the 1980s, that neighborhood had come to be known as Little Haiti.

Clearly, Miami could claim for itself in the century’s final decades the persona of a new Ellis Island for persons fleeing troubled countries in the Caribbean and Latin America. Miami’s place as a refugee haven, however, placed tremendous financial burdens upon it, and left it one of the poorest cities in the United States by the 1990s.

The influx of refugees who vied with blacks for many entry level jobs--and were perceived by the latter as receiving special governmental benefits denied them--led to simmering tensions between them and resentful residents of Liberty City, Brownsville, and other native black communities.

Black Miamians were also instrumental in affecting another major transformation of the city, as they began, in the 1960s, to spread beyond their cramped confines into adjacent white neighborhoods in Miami’s northern sectors, dramatically changing their demographics.

Despite gains realized by Miami’s African Americans in the aftermath of desegregation, poverty and crime remained disproportionately high among the race, while black anger over the perceived inequities and biases of the criminal justice system led to a series of searing riots, beginning in the summer of 1968, at the time of the Republican Party’s Presidential nominating convention on Miami Beach.

Another riot in May 1980, following the acquittal of several white policemen by an all white jury in the brutal killing of Arthur McDuffie, a black businessman, resulted in the loss of eighteen lives and property damages in excess of $50 million. It was the worst race riot up to that time in American history.

Adding to Miami’s woes in recent decades has been the city’s notoriety as a haven for drugs, especially cocaine, brought in from Latin America, and the pervasive problem of crime. Drugs, along with its propensity for political intrigue, has given Miami an image of a subtropical Casablanca. This image was burnished by “Miami Vice,” a popular television program of the 1980s, well as numerous movies playing to this theme.

For all of its problems, Miami could point to a lengthy list of accomplishments. In 1960, Dade County Junior College, today’s Miami Dade Community College, opened its doors for the first time in the Magic City. The largest community college in the world, Miami-Dade was, by the mid-1990s, preparing nearly 125,000 full and part-time students for more productive, fulfilling lives.

Florida International University, which opened in 1972, has already carved an enviable place for itself among America’s institutions of higher learning. Since the 1960s, Miami has become one of the nation’s most important centers for high school, college and professional athletics, with championship teams represented at each level. This achievement has knitted together periodically—and temporarily—the disparate denizens of Greater Miami.

The passage, in the early 1970s, of the county’s “Decade of Progress” bond issue led to the opening of several important cultural and educational institutions in downtown Miami. Downtown underwent a significant renaissance in the century’s final decades with the appearance of glistening new downtown skyscrapers, scenic retail facilities, and a vital educational complex within close proximity to the Port of Miami, home to the greatest collection of cruise ships and the largest number of vacationers of any port in the world.

Nearby Brickell Avenue has emerged as a center of commerce, with its shimmering glass skyscrapers, home to untold numbers of foreign banks and other financial institutions. Coconut Grove remains one of the city’s most picturesque and exciting neighborhoods.

Today Miami contains approximately 375,000 residents. One hundred fifty-thousand of them are Cuban; other Hispanics number about 100,000. More than one-half of Dade County’s two million residents are Hispanic, making it the largest county in the nation with a Hispanic majority. With their wide array of cultures, languages, lifestyles, and festivals, multicultural Miami and Dade County represent one of America’s most vibrant, colorful communities.

Miami has made extraordinary progress in its brief century as an incorporated entity. All indicators point to its growing importance as a nexus of trade and finance for the Americas, and as a hallowed sanctuary for peoples fleeing tyranny in our hemisphere in the twenty-first century. A major ingredient for its continued success over unprecedented challenges and obstacles will come from its willingness to draw comfort, direction, and inspiration from its proud past.

From South Florida History Magazine, v. 24, no. 2 (Summer 1996).

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