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.
n 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.
Avenue of the
South" showcase the decadence and new-world architecture that lures
thousands of visitors a year. The art-deco district in South Beach is a
must-see for anyone interested in the marriage of art and functionality in
city design. North Beach is perfect for those who enjoy nostalgic 50’s
motifs and ocean views. Go for a
beachside stroll or
toward Haulover park for fishing, bike rides, tennis or a round of golf.
Miami Beach nightlife concludes an unforgettable vacation day with a diverse
array of ethnic food and American cuisine, topped off with jazz cafes and
hopping dance clubs.
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