Miami's Historic Neighborhoods

MIAMI’S HISTORIC
NEIGHBORHOODS
A History of Community
Edited by Becky Roper Matkov
A Publication of Dade Heritage Trust

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MIAMI’S HISTORIC
NEIGHBORHOODS
A History of Community
Edited by Becky Roper Matkov
A Publication of Dade Heritage Trust
Historical Publishing Network
A division of Lammert Publications, Inc.
San Antonio, Texas

First Edition
Copyright © 2001 Historical Publishing Network
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing
from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Historical Publishing Network, 8491 Leslie Road, San Antonio, Texas, 78254. Phone (210) 688-9008.
ISBN: 1-893619-15-X
Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 2001087257
Miami’s Historic Neighborhoods: A History of Community
editor: Becky Roper Matkov
contributing writers for
sharing the heritage: Susan Cumins
Paul Gereffi
Historical Publishing Network
president: Ron Lammert
vice president & project coordinator: Barry Black
project representatives: E. “Tito” Berrios, Timothy Hemsoth, Bari Nessel,
Flora Tartaglia, Ted del Valle, Jessica Vlasseman
director of operations: Charles A. Newton, III
administration: Angela Lake
Donna Mata
Dee Steidle
graphic production: Colin Hart
John Barr
PRINTED IN SINGAPORE
2 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

CONTENTS
4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
5 FOREWORD
by Governor Jeb Bush
6 A SENSE OF COMMUNITY
by Becky Roper Matkov
10 HISTORY IS WHERE YOU FIND IT
by Arva Moore Parks
15 VOICES FROM THE PAST
by Helen Muir
18 MIAMI
by Aristides Millas
26 THE MIAMI RIVER
by Robert S. Carr
30 SPRING GARDEN
by James Broton
32 OVERTOWN
by Dorothy Jenkins Fields
35 MIAMI CITY CEMETERY
by Penny Lambeth
38 MORNINGSIDE AND BAY POINT
by Gail Meadows and William E. Hopper, Jr.
41 MIAMI BEACH
by Howard Kleinberg
48 MIAMI SHORES AND EL PORTAL
by Seth Bramson
50 NORTHEAST DADE: BISCAYNE PARK,
FULFORD, NORTH MIAMI BEACH
AND AVENTURA
by Malinda Cleary
57 OPA-LOCKA: A VISION OF ARABY
by Thorn Grafton
60 MIAMI LAKES AND THE DAIRIES
THAT MADE DADE
by Donald Slesnick
63 HIALEAH
by Horatio L. Villa
66 MIAMI SPRINGS: GLEN CURTISS’ DREAM
by Mary Ann Goodlett-Taylor
70 NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE
by Stephen Tiger
72 BROWNSVILLE
by Enid C. Pinkney
76 RIVERSIDE AND SHENANDOAH
by Paul S. George
81 LITTLE HAVANA AND CALLE OCHO
by Leslie Pantin, Jr.
83 CLIFF HAMMOCK
by Julia Hodapp Cohen
87 COCONUT GROVE
by David Burnett
94 KEY BISCAYNE
by Joan Gill Blank
100 CORAL GABLES
by Ellen Uguccioni
106 CENTRAL MIAMI:
“THE LOST PART OF CORAL GABLES”
by Samuel D. LaRoue, Jr.
109 SOUTH MIAMI
by Susan Perry Reading
114 PINECREST
by Georgia Tasker
118 KENDALL
by Paul S. George
123 OLD CUTLER AND THE DEERING ESTATE
by Christopher R. Eck
129 SOUTH DADE:
HOMESTEAD, FLORIDA CITY, AND REDLAND
by Robert J. Jensen and Larry Wiggins
136 SHARING THE HERITAGE
206 INDEX
208 SPONSORS
CONTENTS ✧ 3

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With much appreciation, Dade Heritage Trust would like to thank
the following for all their help:
DEBORAH TACKETT, PHOTO EDITOR, for the vital role she played in helping locate,
photograph and organize so many of the photos in this book.
The CONTRIBUTING WRITERS, who gave so freely of their knowledge,
historic resources, photographs, time and talent:
Governor Jeb Bush
Becky Roper Matkov
Arva Moore Parks
Helen Muir
Aristides Millas
Robert S. Carr
James Broton
Dorothy Jenkins Fields
Penny Lambeth
Gail Meadows and
William Hopper
Howard Kleinberg
Seth Bramson
Malinda Cleary
Thorn Grafton
Donald Slesnick, II
Horatio Villa
Mary Ann Taylor
Stephen Tiger
Enid Pinkney
Paul George
Leslie Pantin
Julia Cohen
David Burnett
Joan Gill Blank
Ellen Uguccioni
Sam LaRoue
Susan Redding
Georgia Tasker
Christopher Eck
Robert Jensen and
Larry Wiggins
The PHOTOGRAPHERS whose donated work so enhanced this book:
Deborah Tackett, Antoinette Naturale, Becky Roper Matkov, Lambeth & Nagle Communications, Elena Carpenter of the Brickell Post,
Thorn Grafton, Dan Forer, Fernando Suco, Larry Wiggins, Julia Cohen, Randall Robinson, Malinda Cleary, William Hopper, Steven Brooke,
John Gillan, Phil Brodatz, Michael Conway, Nesie Summers, Rudi Klein, Paulette Mortimer, Jack Goodier, Norman McGrath, Mark Greene,
Charlie Williams, Mel Rea McGuire, Jose Gelabert-Navia
ARCHIVAL AND PHOTOGRAPHIC RESOURCES:
The Florida State Archives; The Historical Association of Southern Florida; Dade Heritage Trust Archives; The Black Archives History and
Research Foundation of South Florida; North Miami Historical Society; The Collection of Arva Moore Parks; The Collection of Seth Bramson; The
Collection of Sam LaRoue; The Collection of Joan Gill Blank; The Collection of Christopher Eck; The Collection of Bob Carr; The Collection of
Carolyn Junkin; The Collection of the John Witty Family; The Collection of Helen Muir; William Jennings Bryan Library Archives; Overtown
Main Street; Temple Israel; Miami-Dade Historic Preservation Division; Miami-Dade Park and Recreation Department; Miami-Dade Community
College; Vizcaya Museum and Gardens; The Kampong; Fairchild Tropical Garden; Coconut Grove Arts Festival; Miami Downtown Development
Authority; Metro-Dade Transit; Miami-Springs Historical Museum; Miami-Dade Public Library System Romer Collection; Parrot Jungle and
Gardens; Homestead Miami Speedway; Kiwanis Club of Little Havana; National Park Service; Biscayne National Park; Bill Baggs Cape Florida
State Recreation Area; Arquitectonica; The Graham Companies; DEEDCO; Aventura Mall; Bal Harbour Shops; The Biltmore Hotel; R.J.
Heisenbottle Architects, P.A.
Ceci Williams, for handcoloring the photograph of the Ideal Model Home.
Thomas J. Matkov, for his legal assistance.
The Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, for the use of their map.
The Board Members of Dade Heritage Trust, for all their support.
Dade Heritage Trust Staff Members Luis Gonzalez and Katie Halloran.
The staff of the Historical Publishing Network, for all their assistance.
The companies and individuals who purchased Profiles, especially those with J. Poole Associates, Inc., Realtors,
who were the first to buy a profile—and have been so patient in waiting for this book.
4 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

FOREWORD ✧ 5

6 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS
(COURTESY OF MIAMI DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE)

After Hurricane Andrew, friends and neighbors worked together to clear roads and yards filled with limbs and debris. (PHOTOS BY BECKY ROPER MATKOV)
A SENSE OF COMMUNITY
B Y B ECKY R OPER M ATKOV
In 1978, when we first moved to Miami
from Richmond,Virginia, I enrolled our son in
first grade, filled up our suburban look-alike
kitchen with groceries, and set about to dis -
cover the “heart” of our new community. That
had been an easy task in Richmond, when
your next door neighbor—who had lived in
his old colonial for forty years—brought you
roses and told you about the history of each
house on the street and who was the best
plumber to fix your leaky faucets and how the
pharmacy three blocks away would deliver
prescriptions and which were the proper
clubs and churches to belong to and oh, yes,
he would introduce you to “everyone.”
It had not been an easy task in Northern
Virginia, where I had been raised in the
“metropolitan Washington area” of McLean.
The rambling old farmhouses in the center
of McLean had been torn down by the
1960s, replaced first by gas stations, then by
strip malls and chain restaurants, and then
by office parks and mega-malls that gobbled
up miles of rolling countryside. One subdivision
blended into another, all united by
endless traffic congestion.
What I found in Miami at first glance
seemed dismayingly similar. Old mansions
along Brickell Avenue were being bulldozed
daily for highrise office buildings. Expressways
and I-95 were always under construction,
making little improvement in traffic flow even
when completed. Dade County seemed to
spread out forever, with no defined bound -
aries, no center, no history, no essence. There
appeared to be “no ‘there’ there.”
However, I soon learned that that was not
the case. Vizcaya and the Barnacle showed
me another world and time that once existed
here. The Junior League’s Designer Show
House in the French Village and a tour of the
long-closed Biltmore introduced me to the
charms of old Coral Gables. Photographing
Downtown Miami for an architectural guidebook
and writing a story on the Miami River
intrigued me with the rejuvenation potential
for the city’s tired central core. Then along
came Dade Heritage Trust! Social events at
beautiful old homes and landmarks, restoration
projects, eye-opening conferences and
seminars, and a chance to create and publish
a magazine on historic preservation followed.
And along the way, I learned something
about Miami, this complex, diverse, multifaceted,
far-flung, fast-changing, never-dull
metropolis: Miami is not one place, but
many. Not one story, but hundreds, thou -
sands of stories.
Professor Aristides Millas, in his chapter
on the City of Miami, quotes Dr. William
Davenport, who wrote in 1909, “Miami was
a collection of strangers…. We had all come
from someplace else.” In many ways, that
has not changed. “Natives” are being born
here every day, of course, but we have
numerically many more people coming from
afar, whether it’s Atlanta or Havana, New
York or Rio, Washington or Kiev,
Minneapolis or Port au Prince.
Too few have shared their stories with
others, and too few have listened to the stories
of others. Residents of Miami Beach may
seldom visit Homestead. People who live in
Aventura may never go to Hialeah. Opa-locka
and Key Biscayne may seem worlds apart.
Newcomers from less unwieldly parts of the
planet often remark that Miami is a confusing
city to really get to know. It is a challenge to
embrace all this geographic and demographic
expanse as one’s own hometown.
The role of historic preservation is to save
physical remnants of our past so that people can
understand that they are part of a continuum of
civilization, a part of the ongoing story of where
CHAPTER I ✧ 7

Matheson Hammock Marina was decimated by Hurricane Andrew on August 24, 1992.
they are living. People lived along the Miami
River and Biscayne Bay thousands of years before
the first condo was ever built on Brickell Avenue.
History books tell you that. The Miami Circle
archeological site, saved by preservationists from
being bulldozed into oblivion, can show you
that. Hardy pioneers survived on Key Biscayne
since 1825, long before the Rickenbacker
Causeway made possible Mackle homes and the
latest bumper crop of multi-million dollar man -
sions. History books tell you that. The Cape
Florida Lighthouse, restored by preservationists,
shows you that.
Walking into an historic building, or
through an historic neighborhood, is a
three-dimensional experience. No book, no
photograph, no museum exhibit, can convey
that experience as well as the reality of physically
being there with the real thing.
Historic preservation seeks to preserve
the character of an older neighborhood and
to make buildings past their prime once
more appreciated and nurtured. Historic
preservation recycles structures and sites,
restoring their youth, refreshening them for
new lives and times.
Preserving physical reminders of our
communal past increases a sense of community
for our city as a whole. It is a way of
welcoming us, of informing us, of inviting us
to be a part of this place called Miami,
whether our grandparents lived here or we
just arrived last week.
Developing a sense of community is not
an easy task. Festivals and celebrations like
Dade Heritage Days and Calle Ocho and Art
Deco Weekend expose thousands to differ -
8 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS
ent cultures and neighborhoods. A common
history, as experienced by Cuban exiles or
Holocaust survivors, binds people together.
Civic associations and historic districts give
residents of a neighborhood a forum and
structure to develop ties with one another,
whether for holiday parties, house tours,
park preservation or political lobbying.
A well-executed vision by the developers
of a city, as seen in Coral Gables, Miami
Springs, and Miami Shores, goes a long way
in creating a sense of place. Incorporation
into a separate municipality, as in Pinecrest
and Key Biscayne, has given residents a sense
of pride and participation missing before
they had a clearly delineated community.
And sometimes, calamities or perils that
befall an area unite people who have been
living as strangers in suburbia and transform
them into a close-knit community of friends.
That is what happened to neighborhoods
all over Miami when Hurricane Andrew
struck on August 24, 1992. For everyone in
the county there was a break in the flow of
life as as usual. For those closest to the eye of
this storm—described by TV weatherman
Brian Norcross as “the strongest hurricane to
ever hit a major metropolitan area”—there
was destruction beyond belief. The storm
slashed everything from Key Biscayne south
through Gables by the Sea, Pinecrest,
Kendall, the Deering Estate, Cutler Ridge,
Cauley Square, the Redland, Homestead and
Florida City. The terrain looked like a nuclear
bomb had leveled what had been the greenest
and lushest part of Dade County. Trees
were stripped of their leaves, their branches
gnarled and twisted. Roofs were ripped off,
windows and doors blasted out, mailboxes
and lights smashed. Refrigerators were floating
in flooded garages. Pools were filled with
sludge and dead animals. Boats were blown
from marina docks into mangrove swamps.
Tall concrete utility poles were snapped like
toothpicks. School gyms—and entire shopping
centers—were devastated.
Our neighborhood had no phones, no
water, no security and no electricity for
weeks. Air conditioning in the 90 degree
heat was a luxury one could only dream
about. Ice was a priceless commodity. Chain
saws and generators were avidly sought
after, as was plastic sheeting to cover up
leaky roofs in the torrential downpours. The
streets were lined with mountains of trash.
The roof and second floor of this home blew away while a family of five huddled downstairs under a mattress.

Troops from the 82nd Airborne camped on
the grounds of my daughter’s school.
Helicopters droned overhead incessantly,
evoking memories of the Vietnam War.
But out of this destruction and disruption
came something to treasure. As we emerged,
dazed, from our houses after the storm had
passed, we all met in the street. One family’s
entire second floor had blown away, and the
next door neighbors had rushed over to rescue
them during the storm. People who barely
knew each other were offering to share their
homes, food and gasoline and were pitching
in to clear each other’s yards. Fences had been
blown down, literally and figuratively, and
neighbors were talking to each other who had
never even met before. On countless streets
with broken traffic lights, drivers were unusually
polite to each other, resulting in traffic
flowing with amazing smoothness.
Never had we seen such total blackness at
night, without even a faint glow from distant
city lights. So we fell into an old fashioned
rhythm of rising with the sun and doing physical
labor—lots of it!—early on to avoid the
horrendous heat of the day. We talked with
friends on the porch—the inside of the house
was too hot!—and pooled our resources for
communal cookouts with neighbors in the
early evening. We used our flashlights to find
our way to bed when darkness descended,
with no computers, no answering machines,
no videos and no television to distract us.
Through the sweat and aggravation and
distress, we were forced to take time to get to
know each other. We cried at our losses of
antiques or art or special family photo -
graphs, but we laughed a lot too.
Friendships were made which have lasted
through the decade. We have shared reconstruction
horror stories, weddings, puppies,
margaritas, key lime bread, roses, a tragic
funeral, birthdays, Christmas parties, a book
signing, a bat mitzvah, progressive dinners
and “Hurricane Andrew” anniversaries.
Not only on our street, but throughout
many streets in Miami-Dade, Hurricane
Andrew forged a communal camaraderie.
Neighborhoods became communities that
cared and shared.
When people get to know each other,
bridges are built that unite groups and individuals.
It is our hope that this book on
Miami’s Historic Neighborhoods will introduce
you to your neighbors and “build
bridges” between different communities.
There are countless neighborhoods and stories
in Miami, and we’ve only highlighted a
few—but we hope that these will make us all
feel less like strangers, and more like friends.
Houses and landscaping in the eye of the storm looked as though they had been bombed in a war zone.
With no school, no air conditioning, and no television for weeks, neighborhood kids played card games to while away hot afternoons.
Neighbors—who had become friends—celebrate with a “lights on” party when electricity was restored after three weeks.
Reconstructing damaged homes took months, even years, longer.
CHAPTER I ✧ 9

In the 1920s, developments boomed all over Dade County, offering the “ideal home and neighborhood.” (FLORIDA STATE ARCHIVES PHOTO HAND-COLORED BY CECI WILLIAMS)
HISTORY IS WHERE YOU FIND IT
B Y A RVA M OORE P ARKS
“No place is a place until things that have happened in it are remembered.”
—Wallace Stegner
Nothing reveals Miami’s history better than
its own, distinctive historic places. They store
memories and events and safeguard the lessons
of the past. They hold precious pieces of human
life and connect generation to generation.
Until recently, Miamians have had little
interest in preservation. Instead of saving the
best, each generation has thoughtlessly bulldozed,
modernized or otherwise destroyed
much of what they found when they arrived.
As a result, many important landmarks have
disappeared and the monuments to Miami’s
founding can only be seen in old photographs.
But perceptive eyes can still discover frag -
ments of early days, and preservationists have
helped save some of what remains. In an
attempt to right past wrongs, they have also
focused on preserving the more recent past
and securing its future.
Without landmarks, we can lose our way.
Before we can look ahead, we must first look
around and see where we are and where we
have been. Only by doing this can we can
become what author Wendell Berry calls a
“placed person.”
Place, after all, is the root of our existence.
It marks our beginning and our end. It gives us
identity and shapes our character. It grounds
our memories. Place is our where: where we
came from, where we live, where we work,
where we met, where we have been, where we
are going. Place brings continuity to our life. It
joins past to present, present to future, and us
to each other.
Just as place defines us, we define place and
give it meaning. We are place’s who: who came,
who left, who lived, who died, who built, who
conquered, who ruled, who pillaged, who
destroyed and who restored. We make,
change, and write place’s history.
The place we live in today is Greater Miami.
Our past may be someplace else but our today
is here. We are Miami’s now. But we are not
alone. All the people who lived here in the past
or will live here in the future line up with us forever.
Our feet walk the same special piece of
earth where, eight millennia before our calendar
began, others trod. Recent discoveries of the
Miami Circle and the Deering Fossil Site have
re-written what we thought we knew about the
earliest people to call Miami home. As humans
of the twenty-first century, our connection with
Miami begins not with our arrival but with these
people and all the rest who will follow us in the
next millennium.
Just 2l years after Columbus discovered
what the Europeans called the New World,
Juan Ponce de León sailed into Biscayne Bay
and called the area Chequescha (Tequesta)
presumably after the native people he
encountered. In 1567, just two years after
founding St. Augustine, the oldest perma -
nent European settlement in what is now the
United States, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés
built a short-lived mission on the north bank
of the Miami River near its mouth. During
the next two centuries, Spain’s other two
attempted settlements in the Miami area were
also short-lived, but the Spanish remained
friendly with the native people. When the
English took control of Florida in 1763, most
of the Tequesta Indians left with the Spanish
for Havana.
During this ten-year British period, and
after Florida was returned to Spain,
Bahamians moved into the Miami area but left
no trace of their Cape Florida settlement.
Although no buildings remain from the earliest
Spanish and Bahamian settlements, arti -
facts uncovered in various archaeological digs,
including the one on the north bank of the
Miami River, prove that they were here. These
precious remnants of the past can be seen at
the Historical Museum of Southern Florida.
In 1825, four years after Florida became a
United States territory, the government built the
Cape Florida Lighthouse on Key Biscayne in an
effort to stop the frequent wrecks on the Great
Florida Reef. In 1836, the Seminoles destroyed
the light during the second in a series of three
costly wars. The Cape Florida Lighthouse, which
was re-built in 1845, is Miami’s oldest complete
structure. Because most of the keepers of the
Cape Florida Lighthouse traced their roots to the
Bahamas, the lighthouse is the earliest link to our
first permanent European and African settlers.
Soon after the government built the light -
house, South Carolinian Richard Fitzpatrick
bought four tracts of land on the north and south
bank of the Miami River from two Bahamian
families, the Egans and the Lewises. When
Florida became a territory of the United States in
10 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

1821, they had the distinction of being the only
private landowners on the mainland. In 1838,
two years after the 2nd Seminole War began, the
U.S. opened Fort Dallas on Fitzpatrick’s property.
At war’s end, Fitzpatrick sold his land to his
nephew William F. English. English built a rock
plantation house and a long building to serve as
slave quarters on the north bank. In 1845,
English also platted the Village of Miami just
across the river. Unfortunately, the Seminoles
forced English to flee before his dream for a new
city could be realized. The U.S. Army returned
and re-opened Fort Dallas. They completed the
two rock buildings and used them as part of their
military complex. As late as the 1890s, these two
buildings were the only substantial structures on
the north bank of the river.
Following the Civil War, a visitor noted that
the long building housed a motley crew of
deserters and runaways. In the 1870s, it served
as the Dade County Courthouse. In the early
1900s it became a private residence and later a
tea room. When the building was slated for
demolition in 1925 to make way for the Robert
Clay Hotel (now demolished), the Daughters
of the American Revolution and the Miami
Woman’s Club initiated Miami’s first preservation
effort to save it. They raised the money to
move what became known as Fort Dallas to
Lummus Park, a city-owned park up river.
Ft. Dallas still resides in Lummus Park along
with Miami’s oldest house, the Wagner
Homestead, built in 1858 by William Wagner, a
sutler who remained in Miami when the last
Seminole War was over. Dade Heritage Trust led
the effort to move and reconstruct Wagner’s
House in the park in 1979. Unfortunately, the old
plantation house that also served as the home to
Julia Tuttle, the “Mother of Miami,” was torn
down in the 1920s without a whimper of protest.
When Julia Tuttle arrived in 1891, what
would become downtown Miami had changed
very little since English’s time. William and
Mary Brickell had a trading post on the south
bank of the river and were doing a brisk busi -
ness with the Indians. Brickell and his family
had arrived two decades earlier and had pur -
chased all of English’s land on the south side of
the river extending to what would become
Coconut Grove. Unfortunately, nothing remains
of the Brickell trading post or their 1906 man -
sion, torn down in 1963. Their greatest legacy is
beautiful Brickell Avenue, platted by Mary
Brickell in 1911. A monument to Mary Brickell
in the median of Brickell Avenue between S.W.
Sixth and Seventh Streets was dedicated by
Dade Heritage Trust in 1998, thanks to the
efforts of activist Carmen Petsoules.
By 1891, Coconut Grove held the distinction
of being the first real community in South
The Mouth of the Miami River one hundred years ago, looking east toward Biscayne Bay from where the Brickell Bridge now
spans the river. The 2000-year-old Miami Circle archeological site, discovered in 1998, is located behind the white building
in the center of the photo. (COURTESY OF THE COLLECTION OF CHRISTOPHER ECK)
Florida. It had a population of over fifty hearty
souls, a six-year old hotel, a community Sunday
school, the first school in what is now Dade
County, a yacht club, a woman’s club and a general
store. Ralph Munroe, who came from Staten
Island, New York, had just completed his new
home, called the Barnacle. Munroe also brought
the first northern tourists into Miami to stay at
Charles and Isabella Peacock’s Bay View Hotel,
later the Peacock Inn. It stood on the ridge
between two magnificent oaks in today’s Peacock
Park. The inn spurred other development,
including the founding of Kebo—Miami’s first
black community—on today’s Charles Avenue.
Although Coconut Grove has experienced
enormous change in recent years, it still has the
greatest concentration of historic sites linked to
the romantic “Era of the Bay” before the railroad
came to South Florida and closed the frontier.
The 108-year-old Woman’s Club still sits on its
corner of South Bayshore Drive and McFarlane
Road in a 1921 building designed by renowned
Miami architect Walter De Garmo. The 1882
grave of Ralph Munroe’s first wife, Eva, is next to
the Coconut Grove Library and is Miami’s oldest
marked grave. The first Sunday school and
schoolhouse [1887], which once stood behind
the library, was moved to the grounds of
Plymouth Congregational Church [1917]. The
Biscayne Bay Yacht Club [1887] is located on the
bayfront a short distance to the east in a 1932
DeGarmo building. Charles Avenue, the first
street in historic Kebo, still has some important
historic sites including the E.W.F. Stirrup House
[1897], the Mariah Brown House [c 1900] and
the historic Bahamian-style cemetery, on the corner
of Charles and Douglas Roads. The Barnacle,
now a State of Florida historic site, sits just a
short distance away off busy Main Highway. It
still offers us a rare opportunity to re-enter this
“Era of the Bay” and see what Coconut Grove
offered its pioneers before there was a Miami.
Lemon City, another pre-Miami community,
grew up five miles north of the Miami River.
Lemon City had the best dock in the area and by
1892 was connected by a stage line to Lantana.
Like Coconut Grove, Lemon City had a school, a
church, a library and a growing population.
Unfortunately, almost nothing remains from
Lemon City except the Lemon City Drug Store
and Post Office [1902] on the corner of N.E.
Second Avenue and 6lst Street—now the heart of
Little Haiti. One important link to old Lemon City
stands proudly on NW Second Avenue and 62nd
Street (formerly Avenue G and Pocomoonshine
Road). Miami Edison Middle School traces its
roots to the original Lemon City School and later
Lemon City Agricultural High School. Significant
portions of the 1928 former high school, gymnasium
and auditorium have been painstakingly
restored and joined to a beautiful new addition.
The melding of the old with the new at Miami
Edison Middle School, and the dialogue and connection
of old timers with new comers that resulted,
shines as a model for the future.
South Florida’s other pre-railroad community
grew up in far South Dade. In 1884,
William Fuzzard opened the Cutler post office
near what is now Coral Reef Drive (152nd
Street). Fuzzard also chopped Old Cutler
Road through the hammock to Coconut
Grove. Remnants of the Cutler community
and the original road are found on 168th
Street and at the Charles Deering Estate. The
site includes the historic Richmond Inn
[1896] that was once a part of the town of
CHAPTER II ✧ 11

Cutler. Carefully re-constructed after being
almost totally destroyed by Hurricane Andrew,
the Richmond Inn reminds us of the time
when Cutler, like Coconut Grove and Lemon
City, was a thriving pioneer settlement.
As soon as Julia Tuttle arrived from
Cleveland in 1891, she set about to transform
a forgotten frontier into a new city. Like those
who came before her, she knew that Miami
would never develop until it became more
accessible. Offering half her land to anyone
who brought a railroad into Miami, Tuttle first
sought the help of Henry Plant, who had
extended his railroad as far south as Tampa.
After a harrowing trip across the Everglades
from Tampa to Miami, the Plant people
quickly lost interest in Tuttle’s proposal. She
then turned to Henry Flagler, whose railroad
was steaming down the East Coast of Florida
connecting his string of luxury hotels. Even
though Flagler reached Palm Beach by 1894,
he ignored Tuttle until the terrible freeze of
1894-95 made him realize Miami’s potential
as a winter fruit and vegetable center. The
idea of bringing tourists in and vegetables out
appealed to him. At Tuttle’s behest, Flagler
finally came to see Miami. After a dinner at
the Grove’s Peacock Inn and an offer of part of
Brickell’s land to sweeten the pot, Flagler was
ready to deal and the railroad was on its way!
In April 1896, the first train chugged into
Miami. A month later, Miami had its first
newspaper, The Miami Metropolis, and by July
had become an incorporated city with onethird
of the incorporators African Americans.
Five months later, much of the new “Magic
City,” as it was called, burned to the ground in
a disastrous Christmas night fire. Despite this
setback, Flagler’s magnificent Royal Palm Hotel
opened a month later at what is now the
Dupont Plaza parking lot. Unfortunately, one
of the only reminders of Miami’s founding
years and Henry Flagler’s legacy is a simple
house on the Miami River (Bijan’s Fort Dallas
Restaurant & Raw Bar) that was moved just
west of the Hyatt Hotel in 1979. Painted
Flagler yellow, the distinctive color of all
Flagler’s railroad stations and hotels, it was one
of two blocks of Royal Palm Cottages that
Flagler built for newcomers to his instant city.
Flagler also donated the land on Flagler
Street and SE Third Avenue for the First
Presbyterian Church, dedicated in 1900. When
it was torn down in the 1940s, the interior was
reconstructed in the chapel of the new church
on Brickell Avenue. Recently, one other frag -
ment of Flagler’s Miami was discovered on the
southwest corner of Flagler Street and SE/NE
First Avenue. Although hidden behind a 1940s
facade, Flagler’s 1897 brick Fort Dallas Building,
home to his real estate division, still stands as a
sort of “snail darter” link to Henry Flagler and
the earliest days of the City of Miami.
As the twentieth century began, Miami lost
its frontier feeling. One- and two-story vernacular
storefronts with arcaded sidewalks to protect
the shopper from sun and rain gave downtown
a tropical, small town atmosphere. A glimpse of
this era can be seen at NE First Avenue and First
Street. The old U.S. Post Office building, now
Office Depot, and the buildings across the street
including the Ralston Building, Miami’s first
“skyscraper,” were built between 1912 and
1917. Other buildings from this era include the
Seminole [1913] and McCroy Hotels [1906] on
Flagler Street between Miami and NE First
Avenues. They still retain their distinctive pro -
files even though some alterations have
occurred as pioneer hotels turned into ten-cent
and department stores.
The most pristine vernacular arcaded storefront
is at North Miami Avenue between
Fourth and Fifth Streets. In 1991, preserva -
tionists, citing Section 106 of the U.S. Federal
Preservation Act, convinced the Federal
Bureau of Prisons to retain and restore the front
section of the entire block (Chaille Block and
Dade Apartments) and incorporate it into the
new Federal prison.
Another unique pre-1920s building is Dr.
James M. Jackson’s office (190 SE 12th
Terrace), now the headquarters of Dade
Heritage Trust. Originally built in 1905, the
office, along with Dr. Jackson’s house, was
moved from Flagler Street to its present site
in 1917. A few blocks from Dr. Jackson’s
office is Southside School [1914]. This little
jewel, designed by Walter DeGarmo, sparkles
amidst the rapidly re-developing Brickell
area. Behind it sits the original Miami High
School [1904] moved there in 1911 to
become the original Southside School.
Although now a private residence, the careful
observer can recognize the typical school
house windows and bell tower.
The Miami River Inn, a restored complex
of buildings in Riverside (Little Havana), one
of Miami’s first suburbs, also recalls pre-
Boom Miami. Little Havana has the largest
concentration of Miami’s distinctive, coralrock-decorated
vernacular bungalows and
Mission style homes and storefronts. It is an
important historic district waiting to happen.
Spring Garden, another riverfront subdivi -
sion [1918], is already a City of Miami
Historic District.
In this same era, when the twentieth century
and the City of Miami were both
teenagers, national industrialists and capitalists
as well as a few well-heeled locals turned
Brickell Avenue and Main Highway into
Millionaire’s Row. Although most of these large
estates have been broken up, a few notable
ones remain. In 1916, James Deering of
International Harvester completed his palatial
Villa Vizcaya on former Brickell hammock
land. It remains Miami’s most spectacular
dwelling and is listed as a national landmark.
A year later, John Bindley, president of
Pittsburgh Steel, built the beautiful El Jardin,
now Carrolton School, on Main Highway.
Together these two buildings launched South
Florida’s love affair with Mediterranean
Revival architecture.
A postcard from 1910 illustrates a view of Miami looking west from what is now 27th Avenue toward the drainage canal for
the Miami River and the Everglades. (COURTESY OF THE COLLECTION OF BOB CARR)
12 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

Just east of Vizcaya, one can still get a
glimpse of what Millionaire’s Row looked like
more than 70 years ago. Villa Serena, built in
1913 by three-time presidential candidate and
U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan,
sits next to the home of his cousin and former
Florida governor William Sherman Jennings.
In recent years, several magnificent new mansions
have joined these and other historic
homes, giving the street a singular ambience
reminiscent of earlier halcyon days.
Because law segregated the races, African-
American communities developed separately.
White Miami had its downtown, and African-
American Miami had its Colored Town or
Overtown. This vibrant African-American
commercial and residential district developed
around Avenue G, now NW Second Avenue.
Cut up and mowed down in the 1960s by
urban renewal and expressways, Overtown is
making a comeback through efforts of the
Black Archives History and Research
Foundation, Inc., founded by Dr. Dorothy
Fields. The restored Dr. William A. Chapman
House [1923], the D.A. Dorsey House [1910-
1914] and the Lyric Theater [1910-1914], as
well as several historic churches, will give
Overtown a new beginning as a Historic
Folklife Village.
As Miami grew, Overtown became over -
crowded but was not allowed to expand its
borders. In response, developers created new
black suburbs in Liberty City and Brownsville.
Today, preservationists are also focusing on
preserving the heart of these historic African-
American neighborhoods.
The 1920s brought dramatic change to the
Magic City. In the span of just a few years, Miami
quadrupled its population and evolved from a
small southern town into a big city. The Boom
with a capital “B” became a national phenomenon
and its wild, no-holds-barred, get-rich-quick
atmosphere attracted hordes of people from all
over. As a result of the huge quantity of buildings
from this era, Miami’s oldest and largest concentration
of historic structures dates from the Boom.
Notable downtown buildings include: the Miami
News Tower [Freedom Tower-1925], the
Olympia Theater and Office Building [Gusman
Theater-1926], the Ingraham Building [1927],
the Dade County Courthouse [1928], Central
Baptist Church [1927] Gesu Church [1925],
Trinity Episcopal Cathedral [1926], the Miami
Woman’s Club [1925] and the Scottish Rite
Temple [1922]. The recently restored Martin
Hampton-designed Congress Building [1925] is
the latest historic building to make a come back
and once again brighten the skyline.
One cannot write about the Boom without
highlighting George Merrick, who had more to
do with its creation than anyone else. In
Merrick’s Coral Gables, one can find the greatest
number of Boom-time (and new)
Mediterranean Revival style buildings in
Miami-Dade County. This is due to the fact that
Coral Gables has made great strides in preserving
this legacy and was the first community to
pass a preservation ordinance [1973].
Merrick, who moved to the area with his
family in 1899 as a 13-year-old boy, grew up
on his family’s grapefruit plantation. His talented
mother Althea designed their rock
home, which they named Coral Gables
[1907]. After his father’s death in 1911,
Merrick took over the groves and began planning
his dream suburb around a Spanish/
Mediterranean theme.
In November 1921, after years of thoughtful
study, Merrick sold the first lots in what became
South Florida’s first planned city. For the next
seven years, Merrick’s firm hand kept the Gables
on track. With a strong belief that making a city
beautiful was more important than making
money, he spent millions on architectural fea -
tures such as entry gates, plazas, fountains and
major public and corporate buildings that set the
tone for the whole community. Every structure,
every color selection, every awning had to pass a
strict architectural board made up of Merrick, his
uncle Denman Fink and architect Phineas Paist.
Although some of the wonderful small commercial
buildings have been lost, Coral Gables is still
know for its singular landmarks like the spectacular
Biltmore Hotel [1926], The Colonnade
[1926], The Douglas Entrance [Puerta del Sol,
1927], City Hall [1928], Coral Gables
Congregational Church [1924], Coral Gables
Elementary School [1923] and the Venetian Pool
[1924], as well as thousands of private homes
and several themed villages.
Merrick was not the only developer caught
up in creating themed suburbs. James Bright
and aviation luminary Glenn Curtiss created
Hialeah and Miami Springs around a Mission
and Pueblo Revival theme. Curtiss also built
Opa-locka based on the Arabian Nights. Opalocka
remains a unique piece of Boom-time
fantasy architecture as seen in its restored City
Hall and other designated buildings.
The Boom also created other distinctive
suburbs in the northeast quarter. Miami
Shores, Coral Gables’ greatest rival, and
Fulford by the Sea [North Miami Beach]
were later incorporated into separate cities.
Morningside, the City of Miami’s first his -
toric district, is a planned bayfront development
characterized by many beautiful
Mediterranean Revival homes. Its wellorganized
group of enthusiasts has returned
it and Bayshore, to the south, into two of the
City of Miami’s most beautiful neighbor -
hoods. Nearby, the early suburb and onetime
Town of Buena Vista is also being
restored to its former glory. Thanks to the
efforts of dedicated preservationists, restoration
fever is spreading up Biscayne
Boulevard as one historic neighborhood
after another makes its comeback.
Miami entered the Great Depression
ahead of the rest of the nation. The Florida
Boom and crash were a dress rehearsal for
the stock market debacle that followed a few
years later. Like the rest of America, Miami
benefited by the numerous New Deal pro -
grams created in the 1930s to help the nation
out of depression. The Civil Conservation
Corps built Matheson Hammock, Greynolds
Park and Fairchild Tropical Garden with
unique rock walls, pavilions and architectural
features. The Public Works Administration
built Liberty Square and several Miami
schools, including Shenandoah Junior High
and Miami Shores and Coral Way
Elementaries. The old Coral Gables Police
and Fire Station and the Miami Beach Post
Office were but two of the public buildings
constructed by the PWA. Uncle Sam also
hired artists to beautify the new public buildings.
Denman Fink, uncle of George Merrick
and one of the principals in the design of
Coral Gables, created one of the most cher -
ished works—a mural in the Central
Courtroom of the U.S. Federal Courthouse
designed by Phineas Paist [1931].
By the mid-1930s, when the rest of the nation
was still wallowing in the slough of depression,
Miami was on the way out. The Mediterranean
Revival style architecture that marked the Boom
was on the way out as well. “Art Moderne” and
“Art Deco” were the new style of architecture in
America. The Bessemer Corporation introduced
the style in Miami as part of its ambitious
Biscayne Boulevard development. Billed as
Miami’s “Fifth Avenue,” this project was one of the
few bright spots in the late 1920s. Today the Sears
Tower [1929] and the Mahi Shrine Temple
Headquarters [Boulevard Shops-1930] are the
most important remaining buildings of this
development. Other notable Art Deco buildings
in Downtown Miami include the beautiful Alfred
I. Dupont Building [1938], Walgreens (now
Sports Authority) [1936] and Burdine’s [1936].
The ultimate flowering of local Art Deco,
however, occurred on Miami Beach.
Despite the Depression, the 1930s brought
new life to Miami Beach. No more ornate excess
of 1920s consumption like the long-gone
Nautilus, Flamingo and Roney Plaza; the new
style was spare, sleek, inexpensive and thor -
oughly modern. Most of all, Miami Beach’s
CHAPTER II ✧ 13

tropical answer to Art Deco was fun. Glass
block and murals, cavorting mermaids, danc -
ing dolphins and smiling seahorses etched into
glass with jig-saw puzzle floors in sleek terrazzo
were all wrapped up in undulating facades
pierced by a thousand portholes. Swaying palm
fronds, rolling surf, and the famous Miami
moon completed the scene and made it seem
like Art Deco had been created especially for
Miami Beach. Until World War II brought an
end to the fun, Miami Beach was issuing building
permits for new hotels at the rate of one
every three days. Today, these small South
Beach hotels and apartments make up Miami
Beach’s famed Art Deco District.
After the war, Miami Beach took on a new
style (now called Miami Modern or MiMo) that
reached its peak with the work of Morris
Lapidus in the 1950s. For a while, the grandiose
Fontainebleau, Eden Roc, Doral and Americana
hotels as well as the fantasy motels on North
Beach kept the tourists coming to Miami Beach.
The beginning of what we call sprawl also
came at war’s end as hundreds of thousands
of GI’s came to Miami to start a new life.
These post-war subdivisions are now reach -
ing historic status along with other commercial
buildings from that era. Hoping to avoid
what happened in the past, preservationists
are currently looking carefully at these
resources to help make thoughtful decisions
for their future.
The 1960s brought even more change to
Greater Miami. But then Miamians had always
been accustomed to change. The city’s entire
history had been written in short paragraphs.
No one, however, was prepared for the
changes the ’60s would bring.
After Fidel Castro took over Cuba in 1959, a
continuous stream of exiles flowed into Miami.
When Castro announced his Communist leanings,
the stream became a flood as hundreds of
thousands of Cubans fled their homeland. The
Cubans, often destitute, had to start their lives
over again in a foreign land. They moved into the
low-rent, older, declining neighborhoods of
Riverside and Shenandoah, breathing in new life.
Before long, the old Tamiami Trail became Calle
The road from Miami to Cocoanut Grove was once a verdant, but lonely, trail. (COURTESY OF THE FLORIDA STATE ARCHIVES)
Ocho, “Little Havana’s” Main Street. The Tower
Theater [1926] was the gathering place and
became the first theater in Miami to have Spanish
sub-titles. Neighboring stores sported Spanish
signs, yet the businesses remained remarkably
similar to the pre-Cuban days and the whole area
kept its strong historic Mom-and-Pop flavor.
As “Little Havana” becomes a diverse “Latin
Quarter,” and fast food and other chain “any -
place” businesses move in, the visual landmarks,
no matter how humble, of where the Cuban
transformation of Miami began are disappearing.
Like Henry Flagler’s Miami that vanished during
the Boom, Little Havana will also pass into oblivion
unless effort is made to preserve at least part
of it as it was when the Cubans arrived. How well
we know from past experience that once we can
no longer see our history, we quickly forget it.
We can learn about the past in history
books or meet it face to place in historic buildings,
schools, churches, homes and neighborhoods.
Sadly, we will never really appreciate
our history and become “placed people” if
there is no place left to remember.
Arva Moore Parks is a native Miamian who has spent more than 25 years researching and writing about her favorite city. But more than an historian, Parks is a
leader, participating in many different arenas, learning firsthand what Miami and its people are all about. She is known as an indefatigable advocate for historic
preservation, and her leadership has helped save many important landmarks. She has held both local and national preservation offices, and in 1995 President Bill
Clinton appointed her to the Federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.
She is author of numerous award-winning books, films and articles on Miami, including Miami: The Magic City, which was named the official history of the City of Miami,
and Our Miami: The Magic City, a 60-minute video which won a Florida Emmy. Through Arva Parks & Company she is also known for her historical research and interpretive
design, which includes Coral Gables’ Colonnade Hotel and the Harry Truman Little White House in Key West.
She has been widely honored for her activism and her writing. The Coral Gables Chamber of Commerce named her their Robert B. Knight Outstanding Citizen in
1983, and in 1985 she was inducted into the Florida Women’s Hall of Fame. In 1996, she was listed in the City of Miami Centennial Women’s Hall of Fame, and Barry
University awarded her an Honorary Doctor of Laws. In 1997, the University of Florida named her one of 47 Women of Achievement honored at the fall celebration
of 50 years of co-education.
14 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

The Brickell family, early pioneers who played key roles in shaping Miami’s future, pose on the porch of their stately home. William B. Brickell is seated on the veranda, so the photograph was
taken before 1908, the year he died. The Brickell mansion was located on the south bank of the Miami River, where the Sheraton Biscayne Bay Hotel is today, and the grounds included what is
now Brickell Park and the Miami Circle Archeological Site. (COURTESY OF THE FLORIDA STATE ARCHIVES)
VOICES FROM THE PAST
B Y H ELEN M UIR
On the doorstep of the 21st century, we
pause in Miami-Dade to consider how we
arrived here. Voices from the Past ring in
our ears.
Certainly Mary Brickell and her husband,
William Barnwell Brickell, left the family
mark on South Florida. The story of all the
Brickell daughters, none of whom married,
holds elements of drama. Perhaps surprisingly,
it is the words of their last offspring, known
as Miss Maude, that linger in my mind.
Miss Maude was christened Maudenella.
“You know lawyers,” she explained. “Can’t
tell them anything. They changed it to
Maude E.” In any case, as Maudenella or
Maude E., it was she who took over the care
of the rose garden at the Royal Palm Hotel
during the long hot summers because she
fell in love with the roses and was rewarded
with blooms for her own bedroom.
Early in the 1950s I sat with Miss
Maude on the wide porch of the house
which has been described as a mansion. In
my sense, the house fell short of the term
except for the exterior view. In any case, I
was questioning her as to accurate names
of the Brickell “girls.” She gave them to me:
Alice Amy, Edith Mary Kate and Belle
Gertrude (Emma died in childhood of
spinal meningitis).
None of these Brickell daughters enjoyed
anything like a social life as the term is
understood today. The men in the family
were sent away to school, but Mary Brickell
once declared it was neither necessary nor
appropriate for “the girls” to be so endowed.
In our conversations we never touched on
the body of myth that grew up about The
Brickells, but one day I was permitted to enter
the old place. Our small son, who accompanied
me on these visits, was refused admittance
to the interior of the house and was relegated
to wait in the garden. Toby was advised
to amuse himself by watching the monkeys in
the vine covered trees. Meanwhile, the house
CHAPTER III ✧ 15

enter the old place. Our small son, who
accompanied me on these visits, was refused
admittance to the interior of the house and
was relegated to wait in the garden. Toby was
advised to amuse himself by watching the
monkeys in the vine covered trees.
Meanwhile, the house was filled with dogs
and cats and was a welter of confusion.
Difficult to envision were “lavish parties” as
described in earlier reports. The restrained
words of Commodore Ralph M. Munroe,
commenting on the glamorous history of the
Brickells as described by Brickell himself,
come to mind: “Brickell could not resist dramatic
exaggeration.”
Left to us is the image of Miss Belle carrying
home heavy sacks of groceries on a
scorching hot day all the way from Buena
Vista because “a fellow owed her money” and
she “was taking it out in trade.” Of course, we
also have the picture of Miss Edith with a
satchel of cash, doling it out to those in need.
One day when Miss Maude went to sit
on a neighbor’s porch a fire engine came
charging into the area. “Wasting the taxpayer’s
money,” Miss Maude said. A man
came running down the street, swinging his
arms in excitement. “One of the Brickell
girls stepped on a live wire and got cut
spang in two” he exclaimed. That was the
end of Miss Alice, the only one with an
education because she got it in Cleveland
before the move to the Bay country.
Miss Alice had organized Sunday School
out under the orange trees to which
Seminoles often came, had taught school at
Lemon City and had been the official postmistress
attached to the family trading post.
It was during the Boom that Miss
Maude suffered a disillusionment of substance
when a fine looking, smooth-talking
fellow to whom she rented a house swindled
her out of $320,000 (in cash!) in
order to “corner the market on copper.”
The fellow had two names, it turned out,
after the county solicitor’s office heard
about the matter and investigated.
Miss Maude’s final years as the sole
occupant of the old Brickell house were
fully occupied with her own funeral
arrangements and before that with arranging
burial places for others in the family.
The funeral director reported that for fifteen
years she concerned herself with how
her hair should be arranged.
When she died in 1960, the body lay in
state at a Coral Gables funeral parlor in the
bronze casket she selected, before being
removed to Woodlawn Cemetery. Her official
age at death was 89, three years older than her
age as she gave it to me back in the 1950s.
✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧
Eunice Merrick said that when she and
her husband, George Edgar Merrick, decided
to build their own residence in the City
of Coral Gables, which he was creating, her
mother showed concern. “Won’t you be terribly
lonely out there all by yourself?” was
the way the wife of Alfred Peacock put it.
It held an echo of the Charles and Isabella
Peacock decision, after their first glimpse of
what would be called Coconut Grove, to
move up to the mouth of the Miami River
where there would be the Brickells, the Duke
of Dade and the Lovelace family. Of course,
they did later move to Coconut Grove where
the brother of Charles, “Jolly Jack” Peacock,
preceded them, and Isabella earned the title
of “the Mother of Coconut Grove.”
The day we chatted about pioneering
experiences with Mrs. Alfred Peacock she
was in her eighties, keeping a low-key
appearance and preparing to celebrate
Thanksgiving with daughter Eunice
Merrick. The conversation turned to early
Thanksgiving celebrations in Coconut
Grove and, in particular, the 1887 occasion
when the early settlers gathered for a program
in the log cabin schoolhouse on the
bluff looking down over Dinner Key.
They were there because Euphemia
Frow had threatened to leave the Grove if a
school was not provided for the children.
Lillian Frow Peacock recalled that she recited
“the First Thanksgiving.” The Joseph
Frows beamed at their offspring, and her
sister, Grace, and brothers, Charlie and Joe,
clapped their hands politely.
They had walked over “the trail” to the
thatch-covered cabin in the late afternoon.
There were no refreshments because everyone
had sat down to a hearty midday dinner.
There were ten pupils in the cabin
schoolhouse that day: the Frows, Anne
Tavernier and Beverly, who were the children
of John Thomas (“Jolly Jack”)
Peacock, and Eddie, John, James (“Tiny”)
and Renie Pent.
✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧
The voice of one of the most colorful
characters to be identified with Miami Beach
has been all but stilled despite the splash he
made in the spring and summer of 1935.
Floyd Gibbons was a legendary figure long
before he appeared on a visit to the Beach.
As a war correspondent for the Chicago
Tribune in Europe during World War I,
Floyd Gibbons was awarded the Croix de
Guerre and was made a chevalier of the
Legion of Honor. He wore an eye patch
after losing an eye in the Battle of Château
Thierry, and,in the 1930s, when he arrived
in Florida, he was a radio performer billed
as the “Headline Hunter.”
He was a star, even for those ignorant of
his background, which included riding with
Pancho Villa in 1915 in the Mexican
Revolution and with General Pershing the
following year and writing The Red Knight of
Germany, the popular biography of German
fighter ace Baron Manfred von Richthofen,
and a successful novel, The Red Napoleon.
Gibbons’ entrance on the Miami scene
was applauded by everyone from Mayor
Red Snedigar to newsmen reaching for stories,
and the Headline Hunter did not fail.
He fell in love with Miami and almost at
once purchased a North Bay Road home,
sending word to his sister, Zelda, to leave
Boston and the popular dress shop she and
her husband, Theodore Mayer, ran, to
come help furnish it. When it was completed,
he gave a big party for all those who
had been knocking on his door.
The next day as he sat under a palm tree
recuperating, his eye flew open at the
sound of a bullhorn pointing out his presence
from a passing boat. A tourist guide
was telling the world that “Here is the
house purchased by Floyd Gibbons—and
there he sits!”
A cherished memory of mine is of a small
dinner party on top of the Deauville Hotel. It
brought together Eddie Rickenbacker, among
other friends. There was no air conditioning at
that time, but natural breezes from the ocean
helped make it an unforgettable evening.
Gibbons’ presence had brought Ernest
Hemingway up from Key West for fishing
expeditions, with Jed Kiley making it a trio.
Once upon a time the three had fraternized
in Paris. They were reunited in South
Florida at a time gone but not forgotten by
those who lived through it.
A call to return to the earlier role of war
correspondent put an end to this idyllic
period. Gibbons’ death in 1939 at his
Pennsylvania farm wrote finis to the life of
this legendary man.
✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧
Mrs. Jack Peacock offered a large dinner
bell to Mrs. Stephen van Rensselaer
Carpenter, the president of the Housekeeper’s
Club, when the railroad extension began
pushing in the direction of Coconut Grove.
There were five daughters dwelling with their
mother in the large house overlooking
Biscayne Bay. Del, the son in the family, was
off working on the railroad supply boat.
People had begun to lock their doors,
16 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

and a warning bell could well prove to be a
needed protective device. One daughter,
Miss Hattie, had her own ideas for self protection.
This schoolteacher, on her way to
becoming the second principal of Miami
High School, placed a pistol in the basket
of her bicycle.
One morning as she pedaled through
the Punch Bowl District, a number of tough
looking workmen blocked her way. Miss
Hattie described how she dealt with the situation:
“I lifted the pistol from the basket in
one hand, and greeted the men. I smiled
and said ‘Good morning boys.’” Laughter
broke out among the line of extension
workers and Miss Hattie continued on her
way. No hesitation, ever, in the way Miss
Hattie would proceed.
She loved Miami High School. But
when the School Board took steps she considered
detrimental to the standards she
held, she up and quit. But she wasn’t finished
by any means. She moved over to
Miami’s first newspaper, The Metropolis, to
write editorials.
Miss Hattie offered a wealth of insight
and information to me in writing Miami
USA, and, when it was brought out in 1953,
I quite properly signed one of the first copies
to her. Her response was characteristic. She
sat down and wrote a two-page review of the
book and sent it off to Henry Holt in New
York, which had published the volume.
The death of Miss Hattie Carpenter was
a personal sorrow to me. It occurred one
day as she bent over a garden bed attending
to necessary weeding.
✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧
During the first half of the 20th century, a
man named Ben J. Fisher applied himself to
the building of rock walls in Coconut Grove.
Today, gazing at these lovely monuments to
Ben, I recall the man and his many sides.
Ben was black in a time when the word
used was “colored.” He came into our family’s
life when he built one of his walls for us.
He was meticulous about the shape of each
piece placed into the structure and won our
admiration for his workmanlike precision
and artistry.
Our two small daughters formed an
admiring audience for his efforts and the
building of that wall constituted a happy
time for all of us. One day when he heard
that we were having a party he came to ask
Floyd Gibbons, a dashing war correspondent, author and radio announcer, made headlines happen when he visited
Miami in 1935. (COURTESY OF HELEN MUIR)
if he could come and “help.” I said “yes,”
not knowing what to expect, but when he
arrived he presented a dazzling appearance.
He was dressed in black trousers and a
spanking white jacket and black necktie.
He did more than “help.” He was an elegant
addition to the event. He asked to
serve the drinks and I ended up teaching
him how to mix a proper dry martini. His
eyes shone as he assured me “I get it. It’s
just like mixing cement.”
One evening toward dusk I received an
unexpected telephone call from Ben. “Mrs.
Muir, go get yourself a little drink and we’ll
talk,” he urged. He continued to keep in
touch and, several days following the 1944
sudden death of our second daughter, he
came to the house and made his presence
known in a particular way.
While my husband and I sat on the
back porch overlooking the garden, Ben
went to the garage and brought out a manual
lawn mower. Understand, this was not
a tool with which Ben associated himself,
having advanced into an artisan role. We
watched him slowly move the lawn mower
back and forth. Finally, he stopped, and
leaning against the pine tree under which
our little girls had played, he said these
words: “You can’t see her but she’s present
in the Lord.”
Life moved along and the day came
when Ben was dying in his little house in
Coconut Grove. I took our son and his
Helen Muir is a longtime resident of Coconut Grove. She came to Miami in 1934 from the New York Journal to direct publicity at the Roney Plaza Hotel on Miami
Beach. She was a columnist for both The Miami Herald and the Miami News and wrote for the Saturday Evening Post, Nation’s Business, Woman’s Day and This
Week magazine. She is the author of numerous books, including MIAMI USA, The Biltmore: Beacon for Miami; and Frost in Florida. A leading supporter of public
libraries, she has been honored with the Spirit of Excellence Award and has been named to the Florida Women’s Hall of Fame.
CHAPTER III ✧ 17

The Halycon Hotel, built in 1905, was designed by Stanford White and constructed of native oolitic limestone. It was demolished in 1938,
and the Alfred I. Dupont Building was built on its site. (COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
MIAMI
B Y A RISTIDES J. MILLAS
In 1870, William Brickell and his family
arrived at Fort Dallas. He had decided to settle
in this new country and bought two tracts of
land south of the Miami River, of 640 acres
each. The land was originally acquired under
the Settlement Act of Congress. Mr. Brickell, a
former resident of Cleveland, Ohio, built and
operated on the south side of the river Miami’s
first store, the only one in this vicinity until
after the city was incorporated. He also built his
home on what is now known as Brickell Point.
In 1880, Mrs. Julia Tuttle and her ailing
husband paid a visit to her father, Ephriam T.
Sturtevant, who was then living near what is
now Little River. Shortly afterwards Mrs. Tuttle
returned to her home in Cleveland. After the
death of her husband, she returned to Fort
Dallas. She decided that this was the ideal
place in which to live. She purchased 644 acres
on the north side of the river at a cost of
$12.40 per acre.
By 1890, a small settlement had mush -
roomed around Fort Dallas near the mouth of
the Miami River. Mrs. Tuttle, hearing of the
railroad Flagler was building as far south as
West Palm Beach, made a trip up to see him
and promised to hand over half of her exten -
sive acreage if he would extend his railroad this
far. His first answer was a refusal. Then came
the “Big Freeze” of 1894-1895 when the ice
was reported to be an inch thick in some parts
of northern Florida. She again contacted
Flagler, sending him flowers to prove that
Miami was below the Freeze Line. This time,
Flagler agreed to bring his railroad to Miami.
Mr. Brickell also donated his share of the property;
thus Flager’s property included half of the
original townsite, 640 acres of the best land
from what is now Flagler Street to the river,
except the Dallas Park site. Work was immediately
launched on extending the railroad,
which arrived on April 15, 1896.
A small town sprang up like a mushroom
almost overnight. On July 28, 1896, Miami
was incorporated as a city. Up until this time it
had been named Fort Dallas.
Naming the city created quite a discussion
among the 480 inhabitants. Flagler and the railroad
group wanted to call the city “Flagler.” Mrs.
Tuttle and Mr. Brickell wanted it named “Miami,”
an Indian word meaning “sweet water” after the
Miami River. The name Miami was chosen.
The “Magic City” was a phrase coined by
pioneer journalist E. V. Blackman as he wrote
for, and later edited, The Home Seeker, a magazine
that Mr. Flagler was beginning to publish
for the purpose of attracting people to the city
his railway had placed on the map.
Early Miami was an innocent city of houses
and luxurious foliage amidst the church spires
from six Christian denominations on lands
donated by Mr. Flagler (with the exception of
the Episcopal Church). The following was
written by Mrs. J. N. Lummus in 1903: “I have
been all over Florida and in no other town are
the streets as clean and attractive as are found
here. The sidewalks are made of the soft, white
rock and are considered more enduring than
asphalt. There are two newspapers published
here, several large hotels besides Mr. Flagler’s
palace hotel, the Royal Palm, built amid rich
tropical flowers, beautiful palms and graceful
coconut trees.”
Dr. William Davenport, a dentist, would
write in his recollections from 1909, “In spite
of its cozy small-town appearance with ‘everyone
knows everybody else’ connotations,
Miami in its adolescent days under the coconut
trees was largely a collection of strangers,
strangers to the town and to each other. We
had all come from someplace else….”
A map of Miami in 1899 (three years after
incorporation) which was compiled by the
author from the fire insurance maps produced
by the Sanborn Map Company shows the first
buildings erected in early Miami. One hundred
and ninety four structures can be counted.
This included the Miami Hotel, which housed
the workers for Flagler’s railroad, and the grand
Royal Palm Hotel.
18 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

The remarkable Julia Tuttle, a visionary pioneer and real
estate developer, is known as the “mother of Miami” for
persuading Henry Flagler in 1895 to bring his railroad
to the small settlement on the banks of the Miami River.
(COURTESY OF FLORIDA STATE ARCHIVES)
The first hardware store in Miami was built in 1899 by Frank T. Budge on Flagler Street and Miami Avenue.
(COURTESY OF CAROLYN JUNKIN)
The Royal Palm officially opened on January
16, 1897 with much fanfare. It was sited at the
confluence of the Miami River and Biscayne Bay to
provide good air circulation for the nearly 600
guests sitting there in their rocking chairs (hence
the term “Rocking Chair Tourism”). This was a
unique feature for the seventh hotel of the Flagler
East Coast system, which many pronounced as the
most beautiful hotel of all because of its splendid
setting. It was painted in a bright ‘Flagler’ yellow
with white trim, as were the Palm Beach hotels.
The typical day for the guests at the Royal Palm
would be one of continuous, almost exhausting,
activity with a great deal of clothes changing.
Clearly noted on the map are the rows of
cottages Flagler constructed for his employees
on present-day SE 1st and SE 2nd Streets, a
swimming pool constructed in 1889, and the
Dr. James Jackson, Miami’s pioneer doctor for whom Jackson Memorial Hospital is named, with his family on the porch of
his early Miami home. (COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
Henry Flagler, the “father of Miami,” made millions as
John D. Rockefeller’s partner in Standard Oil, then started
building a railroad and grand hotels down the east coast
of Florida in the 1880s and 1890s. In 1896 he brought
the Florida East Coast Railroad to Miami, and in 1897 he
opened the magnificent 400-room Royal Palm Hotel at
the mouth of the Miami River.
(COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
CHAPTER IV ✧ 19

Store owner Frank T. Budge with Billy Bowlegs and
Tommy Tigertail in 1897. (COURTESY OF CAROLYN JUNKIN)
Guests teeing off on the lawn of the Royal Palm Hotel, 1899, in Downtown Miami. (COURTESY OF THE FLORIDA STATE ARCHIVES)
First Presbyterian Church and manse con -
structed on the original hotel grounds north of
the hotel. The 200-room Miami Hotel and
adjacent buildings shown on the map, including
the Miami Metropolis’ News, did not last
long. They were burned in the second major
fire of early Miami in November 1899 (the first
was in December of 1896). The Royal Palm,
which was the cornerstone for Miami’s growth,
also had a short life. It was demolished in 1930
and is still a parking lot today, 70 years later.
In late 1899 Dr. James M. Jackson, Jr., Miami’s
pioneer physician who came with Henry Flagler,
built a house on the northeast corner of 2nd
Avenue (then called Avenue B). He lived there
until 1916 when the house was moved by barge
to its present location at 186 SE 12th Terrace
along with his old office, built in 1905. The office
now serves as the headquarters for Dade Heritage
Trust and is a National Register site.
Also in 1899, the Dade County seat of government
was moved from Juno, Florida to Miami.
The growth of the City of Miami can essentially
be described as occurring in three stages.
The first stage would be the original platting of
streets (the “Miami” subdivision) on the north
side of the river on Julia Tuttle’s lands, and on
the south side on William Brickell’s lands, covering
approximately a two-square-mile area.
This was the extent of the village at the time of
incorporation on July 28, 1896.
The second stage of growth occurred in
1913, when the city expanded northwest and
southward to cover an area of sixteen square
miles. The southward expansion would
include the James Deering estate, which would
soon be constructed, eventually employing
one thousand persons, including many
The Dade County Courthouse, seen in this 1930 photo,
was built between 1925 and 1929 by architect A. Ten
Eyck Brown with August Geiger as associate.
(COURTESY OF ARISTIDES MILLAS)
When downtown Miami had a trolley… 1st Avenue and SE 1st Street in 1930. (COURTESY OF THE FLORIDA STATE ARCHIVES)
20 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

Gesu Catholic Church, built in 1922 at 140 NE 2nd
Street, is the successor to Miami’s first religious
congregation. The first church was a small wooden
chapel constructed by William Wagner on his homestead
in 1874. (COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
A policeman stands on a Downtown Miami street made of wooden blocks in front of the old post office, at 100 NE lst Street,
which was built in 1912. (COURTESY OF THE FLORIDA STATE ARCHIVES)
imported craftsmen. In the 1915 promotional
booklet “Lure of the Southland, Miami and
Miami Beach Florida” all the virtues and
accomplishments of the “Magic City,” now at
20,000 population and growing faster than any
city in the South, would be stated.
Especially noteworthy are photos of the
early homes in the new residential sections of
“Miramar” in the north, developed by
Frederick H. Rand Jr., and “Pointview” in the
south, developed by L. T. Highleyman. Both
sections featured bulkheaded shorelines with a
curving drive and walkway at the water’s edge.
In Miramar, a concrete dock was constructed
for use by all the residents. In 1912 the area on
the bay north to 36th Street (the new city limits)
would be platted and known as Edgewater,
with some early structures still standing today.
Beyond the new city limits would be the
large Charles Deering estate, known as Bay
Point today, and the “Buena Vista” neighbor -
hood immediately to the west. In 1915 this
was the terminus for the Dixie Highway with a
large archway welcoming visitors to Miami.
The final stage of growth for Miami would
naturally occur in 1925 at the height of the
“Boom.” Wrote Frederick Lewis Allen in Only
Yesterday as he described the 1920s preceding
the crash of 1929, “The whole city had become
one frenzied real estate exchange. There were
said to be 2000 real estate offices and 25,000
agents marketing house lots or acreage.”
In this stage of growth the city limits would
expand to 43 squares and would include
Miami Shores, Biscayne Park, El Portal, and
North Bay Village. All of these later disannexed
and became independent municipalities,
giving Miami its present boundaries.
In his Memories of Old Miami, Hoyt Frasure
wrote of the Florida Boom at its height in
1925, saying “packed trains brought hundreds
of new people to Miami daily. The Florida East
Coast unloaded up to 75 Pullmans a day at its
depot near where a new skyscraper court -
Carl Fisher created the concept of Dixie Highway to connect the Midwest to Miami. In October 1915, the Dixie Highway
Pathfinders crossed the Buena Vista Arch near NE 40th Street and 2nd Avenue. (COURTESY OF ARVA PARKS & COMPANY)
Students pose on the steps of Miss Harris’ School, located on Brickell Avenue, in 1922. (COURTESY OF THE FLORIDA STATE ARCHIVES)
CHAPTER IV ✧ 21

To the north of the Miami River, in the
bustling city center, the Wolpert Realty and
Improvement Company was established in
1923. Recalls young George Wolpert, whose
family relocated here from Brooklyn, “The real
estate boom was already in full swing and
almost everyone in town was either buying,
selling, or acting as a broker on lots, acreage or
buildings…. That walk down Flagler Street
became one of the most memorable days of my
life. Walking east I passed the Hippodrome
Theater and the Halcyon Hotel until I reached
the end of Flagler Street. Built out over
Biscayne Bay stood Elser Pier where they had a
huge room for dancing and special events, souvenir
shops, food stands, tourist information
booth and stores.”
The colorful tourist brochures of those boom
days advertised, “Miami in a Coconut, the Land
of Palms and Sunshine” and offered a “Seven
Days in Miami” program. The first day would be
getting acquainted with Miami, the “wonder city
of America” or “America’s fastest growing city.”
Offered would be three enchanting vistas in
every direction. Northward on Bay Shore Drive
(as it was called before Biscayne Boulevard was
created), tourists would pass the panorama of
yachts anchored in the bay and the municipal
docks with the great steamships, going north to
the exclusive “Miramar” subdivision or crossing
over the county “cruiseway” to see luxurious
homes on Miami Beach. Or tourists would be
taken across the Miami River to stately Brickell
Avenue, seeing the lovely homes of “Pointview”
The Miami Daily News/Freedom Tower was built in 1925 by James M. Cox for his newspaper. It was designed by Schultze
and Weaver and inspired by the Giralda Bell Tower in Seville, Spain. It became known as the Freedom Tower when it was
used as a Cuban Refugee Center from 1962 to 1974. The Tower is now owned by the Mas family who are planning to turn it
into a museum. (PHOTO BY DAN FORER, COURTESY OF R.J. HEISENBOTTLE ARCHITECTS, P.A.)
house was being erected (over the existing
1904 courthouse). People were pouring in at
the rate of 2000 a day.” He continued,
“Miami’s skyline looked like a whole city
under construction—and it was. The first skyscraper,
the 10-story McAllister Hotel, had
just been completed in 1919. Now the steel
frameworks of new skyscrapers were rising all
over the downtown section.”
The 28-story Dade County Courthouse was
advertised in Atlantic Terra Cotta brochures as
the tallest building south of Baltimore,
Maryland. Its height would eclipse that of
Miami’s architectural landmark, the 15-story
Miami News building, patterned after the
Giralda tower in Seville, Spain and completed in
1925. However, all of this high-rise downtown
activity was occurring north of the Miami River.
To the south, the Brickell additions were
receiving luxurious estate homes as
“Millionaires’ Row” was being created in the
vicinity of James Deering’s Villa Vizcaya. In
1924, in the midst of the boom, the J. B.
Forbes Plumbing and Heating company was
established, having arrived from Columbus,
Georgia, where it is still in business. James
Forbes Jr. recalls vividly how he and other
young boys would go quail and dove hunting,
fishing and swimming in the canals in those
Deering and Brickell area estates.
Cuban refugees fleeing from the dictatorship of Fidel
Castro received food, health care and financial assistance
at the Freedom Tower, which became Miami’s Statue of
Liberty and Ellis Island. (COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
22 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church was built in 1948 along
Coral Way in The Roads, an area once owned by William
and Mary Brickell that is just west of Brickell Avenue.
(PHOTO BY BECKY ROPER MATKOV)
and “Millionaires’ Row” and visiting shady
Coconut Grove, the home of celebrities. The second
day would offer excursions on the water,
ocean, and bay or up the Miami River to the
Tropical Garden and Indian villages. The third
day was devoted to the great outdoors, with
every variety of sport, including golf, tennis,
polo, bowling on the green, bridle paths for
horse lovers, horseback and greyhound racing
and the Basque game of Jai alai. The fourth day
would be bathing under tropical skies at the
many casinos and beaches. The fifth day would
be deep-sea fishing. The sixth day featured a trip
to the mysterious Everglades, and the seventh
day—the “Aesthetic side of Miami.” This included
religious services in the many churches, a visit
to the estate of the late James Deering (deceased
in 1925) which was open to the public on
Sunday afternoons, or listening to music played
by Arthur Pryor’s band under the palms in Royal
Palm Park downtown.
Of course the “Boom” ended, followed by
the devastating Hurricane of 1926 (they did
not name storms in those days) and the stock
market crash of 1929.
But as the rest of the country was sinking
deeper into the Great Depression of the 1930s,
Miami began to make a comeback. Tourists
continued coming, and some new building was
occurring. In 1931, the second U.S. Post Office
and Courthouse was constructed, as well as the
outstanding Alfred I. DuPont Building (1938)
where the Halcyon Hotel had stood on Flagler
Street. The 1939 WPA guide to Florida
described Miami as having a “Manhattanish
touch to the gleaming white and buff skyscrapers…and
the effect of the skyline rising abruptly
from the waterfront and flood lighted at
night, is heightened by the flatness of the ter -
rain.” It also describes Miami’s showcase street
The lobby of the News Tower reflected the ornate interior of the Spanish Renaissance Revival style popular in the 1920s.
(COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
Gusman Cultural Center was built in 1926 as the Olympia Theater. It was designed by Chicago architect John Eberson as the
first of his many “atmospheric” theaters, with an interior resembling the walled garden of a Venetian palazzo, with twinkling
stars in the ceiling. Gusman remains one of Downtown Miami’s architectural gems.
(PHOTO BY DAN FORER, COURTESY OF R.J. HEISENBOTTLE ARCHITECTS, P.A.)
CHAPTER IV ✧ 23

The Sears Roebuck Building, built in 1929, is the earliest known Art Deco building in the Miami area. It was the focal point
for the traffic circle on Biscayne Boulevard at 13th Street, marking one of the most important intersections in the city at that
time. Preservationists fought for years to prevent the demolition of the Sears Tower in the 1980s and 1990s. Plans now call
for the Tower to be incorporated into the new Performing Arts Center complex. (COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
Biscayne Boulevard adorned with royal palms
and fronting the beautifully landscaped
Bayfront Park overlooking the Bay. These were
the most significant civic improvements created
during the peak of the Boom years.
The 1957, 14th Edition of Highlights of
Greater Miami devoted its 94 pages to all of
Miami’s features and its history over the more
than half century of the city’s existence. The
creation of Bayfront Park is told in great
detail. “Thirty-nine acres studded with trees,
flowers and shrubs from tropical countries
around the globe; 10,000 individual plants
and trees…designed by Warren Henry
Manning (world famous landscape artist) of
Cambridge, Massachusetts.”
World famous Biscayne Boulevard and the
modernistic hotel row fronting it are carefully
described. These hotels housed U.S. Naval personnel
during the war. The 1957 guide continues,
“On all sides building is soaring…new
hotels, apartments, homes and commercial
structures greet the eye in all sections of the
city. Thousands of Latin Americans, finding
Miami their most convenient shopping and
play center, have joined the city’s annual pil -
grimage of millions, thus giving a distinctive
Latin note to its colorful cosmopolitan life.”
In January 1957 Dade County metropolitan
government established a home rule charter
for the 20 existing municipalities. In 1943 during
World War II, Miami, the central city, had
63 percent of the county population. By 1960
the city would have only 31 percent of the
metropolitan population of 935,000, then one
of the fastest growing regions in the nation.
Today, the picture is problematical.
Metropolitan government is struggling, and its
accomplishments are marred by corruption
and inefficiency. New breakaway communities
have incorporated, with others waiting to do
so. The traditional central city of Miami has
recently tottered near bankruptcy, containing
approximately 14 percent of the regional population.
Still there is a great deal of activity in
the downtown area.
“Downtown Miami” today is defined more
or less by the tax increment district that provides
funding for the Downtown Development
Authority (DDA), which coordinates and oversees
development activity in the area. It is a
very large area which includes a “core” area on
the north side of the river, the Brickell area to
the south, the Overtown/Park West area and
the Omni area to the north. In 1987, the DDA
announced the building of nearly 7 million
square feet of new commercial office space, 1.3
million square feet of new government office
space and 1.4 million square feet of new retail
space in addition to renovated office and retail
space. Also announced were 3342 “new” hotel
rooms and 2380 “new” dwelling units as a tenyear
summary of Miami’s most intense period
of new development, a decade of progress!
The present skyline of Miami is the resulting
achievement. The most dominant buildings are
the 55-story original Southeast Financial Center
(1984) by Skidmore Owings and Merrill (now
First Union Building) and the 47-story original
Centrust Tower(1987) by the renowned I. M. Pei
Associates (now Bank of America). The romantic
vernacular architecture, which dominated early
Miami, has now been replaced by corporate banking
icons, which boldly light up the Miami skyline
at night. Most visible is the tower designed by Pei,
which is ablaze nightly with different colored
lights located on different levels, creating changing
designs throughout the year for civic events.
The Atlantis Condominium on Brickell Avenue, designed
by the internationally renowned architectural firm
Arquitectonica, was seen regularly by a national audience
in the opening scenes of the 1980s TV series Miami Vice.
(PHOTO ©NORMAN MCGRATH, COURTESY OF ARQUITECTONICA)
24 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

The mysterious Miami Circle archeological site on the Miami River in Downtown Miami is at least 2000 years old.
(PHOTO BY BECKY ROPER MATKOV)
The frenzy of new skyscraper construction is
still rampant as cranes and skeleton structures
fill the skyline and shoreline of Miami. The areas
being transformed now are the Brickell
Financial District, where new apartment build -
ings, luxury condominiums, and new hotels
join with the office buildings there. At the end of
the century, the tallest residential building outside
of New York City, the Santa Maria, will soon
be eclipsed by the “Millennium” and other
planned developments.
Across the river, Flagler Street is still
Miami’s “Main Street.” The Downtown Miami
Main Street Program, a partnership of Miami’s
Downtown Development Authority, Dade
Heritage Trust, the Downtown Miami
Partnership, and the City of Miami, has
embarked on a series of major programs to
provide marketing and a much-needed face-lift
for the downtown. Recently the Congress
Building was retrofitted for 128 residential
dwelling units, with other residential projects
planned. Storefronts and facades are also
scheduled for improvement.
Not much of the nineteenth century
remains in Miami in the way of structures. Most
of what does is now in Lummus Park, west of
the Miami River. Located there is Miami’s first
historic preservation project, the 1849 Fort
Dallas Barracks, which was originally built near
the mouth of the Miami River by pioneer
William English. It was first used as slave quarters
for his plantation, and then as an Army barracks
during the Second and Third Seminole
Wars. Julia Tuttle acquired all of the plantation
in 1891, making it her home. The Daughters of
the American Revolution saved the barracks
from demolition in 1925, moving it to Lummus
Park. Also in Lummus Park is the oldest house
in Miami-Dade County, the 1858 homestead of
William Wagner. It was moved in 1979 to the
park and restored by Dade Heritage Trust.
The oldest Florida East Coast building in
downtown Miami was located at 134 SE 2nd
Street but was moved in the 1980s to Fort Dallas
Park and restored. It was built in 1897 and was
part of a housing project of structures Flagler
erected for his workers. The wood frame structure
became known as the Butler Building after
Raymond Butler, who later operated his insur -
ance company there. It is now Bijan’s Restaurant.
But the most amazing thing that has hap -
pened in Miami’s traditional core at the beginning
of the new millennium is the discovery,
during excavations for a new high-rise development,
of the “Miami Circle.” This intriguing
archeological ruin, located on the south bank
of the Miami River in downtown Miami, has
drawn international attention. Proven by scientific
testing to be at least 2000 years old, the
Circle is a series of holes 37 feet in diameter
carved four-feet deep into the limestone
bedrock, with an east-west alignment to the
equinox. It was probably used for ceremonial
or astronomical purposes and displays a
sophisticated understanding of geometry and
astronomy. Some speculated that the mysterious
relic was created by Mayans or other people
from afar; other experts felt it to be the
work of the now-extinct Tequesta Indians. But
whatever the ultimate answer, the entire treasure
would have been bulldozed into oblivion
if Dade Heritage Trust had not led a fight to
preserve it. Advocacy efforts on many fronts
paid off with political and financial support
from the State of Florida and Miami-Dade
County, helped by a loan from the Trust for
Public Land and private donations. The developer
received $26.7 million for his prime real
estate, and the State of Florida now owns the
2.2 acre-site at the exact point where Miami’s
history began. Plans are underway to preserve
and showcase this very special place, which
has been at the heart of human settlement for
so long. It is truly Miami’s first neighborhood.
Aristides J. Millas has been an associate professor at the University of Miami School of Architecture since 1974. He holds a bachelor’s degree of architecture from Carnegie-
Mellon University and a master’s degree of architecture in urban design from Harvard University. He has also taught at Princeton University, the University of Pittsburgh and
Carnegie-Mellon University. He has participated in numerous architectural and planning projects in Florida, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Arizona and Athens, Greece, which included
new towns, sports stadiums, inner city renewal projects, historic districts, university master plans and Greek Orthodox churches. He has served on the boards of Miami Design
Preservation League and Dade Heritage Trust. Since 1986 Professor Millas has developed and taught “The Architectural History of South Florida,” and with university sponsored
research has given many public seminars, presentations, and tours focusing on architectural history and development issues.
CHAPTER IV ✧ 25

Flags fly along the riverfront during a Dade Heritage Days’ RiverDay event, held annually in early April. (PHOTO BY BECKY ROPER MATKOV)
THE MIAMI RIVER
B Y R OBERT S. CARR
When Marjory Stoneman Douglas was
asked in 1945 to write about the Miami River
for the American River Series, she balked.
Instead, she brilliantly suggested the Everglades
as the South Florida book topic. Her book,
Everglades: River of Grass , became a literary
milestone that helped raise public support for
creating Everglades National Park. However,
the Miami River suffered from a community
amnesia as Miami’s population moved away
from downtown and into the suburbs.
Perhaps the river’s relatively short length,
only seven miles, was the reason for its low visibility.
Perhaps it was the completion of the
dredging of the Miami Canal in 1909, which
poured tons of brown silt into the river when the
dredge broke through the rocky ridge, plunging
the river into darkness and filling it with acrid,
dead sediments. The river, subdued by chan -
neled canals, became the county’s toilet for toxic
waste, sewage and rain run-off, generously tainted
with oil and heavy metal pollutants.
Looking today at what is largely a working
river, crowded with boats and ships from
across the Caribbean, one sees docks, lobster
traps stacked high, and scrap metal yards, as
well as parks and neighborhoods. It is a quilt
of a crowded city pushing against the river. It
is hard to imagine its pristine state of 100 years
ago when only marsh, pineland and tropical
hammock skirted its banks. The human sound
was confined then to the plunk of a canoe paddle
and human voices muffled by the soft buzz
of birds and water gently rushing eastward.
For at least 500 years the river had been the
lifeline of Native people who used it to move
between the Everglades and Biscayne Bay. The
Miami River, or “Mayami” as it was known to the
Tequesta Indians, meant “sweet water.” It poured
millions of gallons of fresh water into Biscayne Bay
for thousands of years. By the sixteenth century,
the Tequesta was the dominant tribe in ancient
Miami. Their villages and camps extended over
300 miles along the coast from the present-day
Broward County—Palm Beach County line
southward to Key West, and westward across the
Everglades. Hardly a high ridge, riverbank, or tree
island existed that didn’t reflect either their com -
merce or the refuse of earlier generations that had
fished, laughed, prayed, and died in the Tequesta’s
world of land and water.
To the Tequesta, everything had its own
spirit. Everything was alive. The Miami River
was like the rattlesnake, with serpentine curves
that cut their way to a depth of 15 feet into
oolitic limestone. The snake’s mouth opens to
the sea facing east. Its tail is at the rapids; you
can hear its rattle within the roar of the water
across the rocks. It faces west, towards the
Everglades, where the waterworld of death,
symbolized by the setting sun, goes on for eternity,
and where Tequesta ghosts paddle their
canoes in a world of plentiful fish and turtle.
For the Tequesta, a canoe trip from the mouth
of the Miami River to the Everglades takes about
one and a half hours. The journey begins at the
mouth of the river where the water is cool and
fresh. The town of Tequesta lies on both sides of
the river. The largest part of the town is pulled up
along the river, leaving slippery troughs along the
banks. The smell of rotting fish singes the nostril
from the food refuse thrown into the river and the
fish gruel strewn across the ground after midday
meals. Two rows of circular thatched huts lie parallel
to the riverbank 100 feet from the river.
Clouds of acrid smoke curl into the humid morning
air from cooking fires outside the huts.
Dominating the town is a large mound looming
25 feet above the village huts. On top of the
mound is a rectangular structure facing a stairway
of wooden trunks. This is the charnel house,
where only priest and chief are allowed to enter.
There they conduct prayers and ceremonies to
sanctify the dead, whose bones are placed within
26 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

ornately carved wooden boxes placed on top of
wooden shelves. The bones of the last dead
cacique are with the others, and there is a beautiful
porpoise carved and painted on two sides of
this box. Inside the box are also two whale ear
bones, each the size of a human hand. They symbolize
power and an eternal supply of whale meat
for the afterlife. Outside the charnel house, a large
wooden buzzard sculpture adorns the top of a
pole next to two smaller fish totems, the guardians
of the dead. After one year the bones are placed
inside a pit within this mound or any of the two
mounds used for interring the dead on the south
side of the Miami River.
In contrast to the north bank, where dozens of
people are busy with their daily tasks, the south
bank is quiet, void of people. Only several round
circular structures lie vacant near the bank, their
thatched walls and roof stretching upward to a
conical point. These structures are used for
important council meetings and ceremonies at
different times of the year when other caciques
visit, and for the turtle feast that welcomes back
the sea turtle’s annual egg-laying pilgrimage.
Cut deep into the rock are the foundation
holes to support the council house’s wooden
posts. The structure’s footprint is a perfect 37 foot
diameter. Each of the cardinal directions are
marked by ritual rocks and other offerings that
are placed within the holes. The council house
represents the perfect balance between the river,
land, sea and sky—a fulcrum for the natural
forces to harmonize the human spirit. These cut
holes and thousands of others would someday be
uncovered by archaeologists at the end of the
twentieth century, and the council house basin
holes would become known as the Miami Circle.
Although the Tequesta became extinct as a
tribe in 1763, victims of European-introduced diseases
and the enslavement by other tribes, the
mouth of the river would not remain vacant of
human activity for long. Bahamian seamen and
British adventurers rendezvoused there. The
Lewis and Hagan families were among the first of
the English settlers. After the American acquisition
of Florida in 1819, the first American pioneers
began to settle at the river’s mouth, squeezing a
livelihood from fishing and planting fruit trees.
Here in 1836, at the outbreak of the Second
Seminole War, the U.S. military built a fort and
encampment called Ft. Dallas. But the Seminoles
never really threatened the fort, and, in fact, never
lived on the river until a commercial village near
Musa Isle was opened in 1917 to satisfy tourist
demands and curiosity to see real Seminoles.
The American pioneers who settled at the
mouth of the Miami River were a tough, oppor -
tunistic lot, making money from the manufacture
of arrowroot flour from the native coontie plant
and salvaging the occasional shipwreck. Miami,
The pristine beauty of the Miami River can be seen in this 1904 postcard showing visitors in a canoe near the rapids of the
Miami River. The rapids were dynamited in 1909, changing forever the natural flow of fresh water from the Everglades.
(COURTESY OF THE BOB CARR COLLECTION)
Musa Isle,the first commercial Seminole village, opened in 1917 and became a popular tourist attraction, as seen in this
vintage post card. It was located at NW 25th Avenue and l6th Street.
(COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
The Frank T. Budge Home was built in 1905 on the Miami River, near Fort Dallas and the Royal Palm Hotel.
(COURTESY OF CAROLYN JUNKIN)
CHAPTER V ✧ 27

The Fort Dallas Barracks, originally located near the mouth of the Miami River, was built in 1849 as slave quarters
by William English and was used by the U.S. military during the Seminole War. Constructed of native oolitic limestone,
the building was moved in the 1920s up the river to Lummus Park by the Daughters of the American Revolution.
It was Miami's first historic preservation project. (PHOTO BY THORN GRAFTON)
Mrs. Charles Mann and daugher Louise with Seminole Indians in front of the Mann house in 1902. The Manns built the
first house up the Miami River beyond Flagler Street (then 12th Street), about where the present curve is in the river at NW
road that someday would cover the foot trail that
connected the river to Coconut Grove. William
Brickell leveled the sand burial mound on top of
the bluff and built his home there. The Tequesta
had become dust beneath their feet.
Heading westward, the river bends to the
right, leaving the town of Tequesta behind.
Here a border of marsh skirts the right bank,
and 100 feet behind the marsh, tall pine trees
cut a soft green line against the sky. On the left
the pines come up to the river’s edge, and a
thick palmetto understory deters any inland
trek. Someday the Miami Avenue Bridge will
cross the river at Flagler’s railroad to capture a
marketplace all the way to Key West.
As the river bends again, this time to the left,
we pass the opening and marsh at the mouth of a
small creek on the river’s right bank. This creek
drains the ridge northward from Allapatah Flats.
An Indian canoe trail breaks through the marsh
grass, undoubtedly leading to small camps up the
creek. Someday the creek will have the namesake
of the Wagner family, pioneers in the 1850s who
will build a mill and Miami’s first Catholic Church.
Eventually, the Wagners and their homestead will
disappear beneath the Spring Garden sub-division.
The creek will be dredged and the Wagner
house will be wrapped in modern stucco and
wood, preserved, until Metro-rail comes to the
creek, and the time capsule Wagner house will be
moved by Dade Heritage Trust to Lummus Park.
As we paddle westward to present day 12th
Avenue, the upland pine looms high above the
left bank. There, a mysterious circular earthwork
200 feet in diameter is cut into the bedrock. An
earthen ridge in the form of a cross bisects the
circle. What purpose this circle served is shrouded
in mystery, and so ancient is it that large
climax pine trees grow from on top of the earthwork,
with thick palmetto clumps obscuring
much of the elevated ridges and surrounding
ditch. The Tequesta talk about old people, the
ancient ones who built it and return there on certain
nights. They hear the drum and no one goes
there anymore. Someday a new road, present-
4th Street. They operated a yacht basin there at least until 1915. (COURTESY OF THE FLORIDA STATE ARCHIVES)
the frontier town, offered only two government
positions, one being the postmaster charged with
delivering the mail twice a month by way of Key
West, and the other being the keeper for the Cape
Florida Key Biscayne Lighthouse.
In 1896 the City of Miami would be born.
The town of Tequesta became the grounds for the
Royal Palm Hotel and Dallas Park subdivision.
The large mound would be leveled by workers to
make way for the veranda of the Royal Palm, and
hundreds of human bones would be collected in
wooden barrels to be reburied. Thousands of
tourists would sit in rocking chairs on that veranda,
never knowing that their vacation in paradise
was on one of the city’s most sacred sites.
When William Brickell arrived from
Cleveland, Ohio with his wife Mary and two children
in 1871, he purchased the Hagan Donation,
which encompassed all the land from the south
bank of the Miami River to Coconut Grove. He
built a house and a store, and the family name
became the namesake for the broad commercial
Built in 1922 by architects Kiehnel and Elliot, the
Scottish Rite Masonic Temple overlooks Lummus Park
and the Miami River. Its Egyptian-inspired features show
early Art Deco influences. (PHOTO BY THORN GRAFTON)
28 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

narrow creek. Someday these white men also
will leave when they discover that their mill
and buildings are owned by another white
man, and when they fear a Seminole attack.
The military will arrive in 1849, and paradise
will be dubbed “Fort Desolation” by one sol -
dier. He will maintain watch from the mill’s
loft, but he will never hear the dynamiting of
the rapids by the dredgemen in 1909, nor see
A tug pulls a ship heading for the Caribbean on the heavily trafficked Miami River. (PHOTO BY BECKY ROPER MATKOV)
day 12th Avenue, will be built and the land will
be cleared. The circle will disappear beneath the
roar of the bulldozer. The Orange Bowl will
become the new circle for sacred Sunday chants.
The journey westward continues as the
southern riverbank rises high, crowned with
beautiful oak and tropical hammock. A Tequesta
camp is on top of the ridge. In 1850, George
Ferguson will build a homestead here, terracing
the ridge to plant his gardens. His wooden house
with a brick chimney is located about where
Robert King High Senior Center now stands. A
large ficus tree will someday grow up from the
ruins of the brick chimney. In 1996, the center
director will have the tree removed and destroy
the Ferguson chimney foundation.
The hot midday sun is uncompromising.
The air is still and suffocating. Dragonflies
skim the river surface as a crescendo of cicada
burst chirping through the air. The sound of
the chorus retreats into a lull as our canoe violates
their territory.
We are well past the halfway point of our journey,
at about present-day 26th Avenue. We pull
our canoe onto the left bank under an overhanging
oak branch through a marsh for 20 feet and
find a foot trail that leads to the top of the high
ridge. There is a thatched hut where a Tequesta
family is napping. Their shell tools lie upon the
ground, and a rack covered with cut meat and
fish is smoking from an adjacent fire. This beautiful
rise will later be known as Musa Isle, home
of the first commercial Seminole village.
The Seminoles will be the new immigrants.
Their Creek and Yamessee ancestors will first
reach the Miami River in 1704, where they will
attack the Tequesta, capturing hundreds of
prisoners to sell as slaves for indigo plantations
in South Carolina. The Seminoles will someday
be a familiar sight on the river, after they too
are victims of aggression, pushed southward
by U.S. troops into the Everglades.
We slide our canoe back into the river.
Although still hot, the shadows are longer and it
is easy to skirt beneath the shadows of the riverbank
canopy. The water pushes against the bow
as we get closer to the river’s source. Suddenly,
we hear the dull roar of the rushing water and
human voices. A chorus of women’s and chil -
dren’s voices stirs the heavy air as an ever-increasing
current pushes against our bow. As we round
the bend, the water is running hard across outcrops
of rock, the western shelf of the Atlantic
Coastal Ridge, forming a rapids of churning
water. At its foot a small creek converges into the
river from the right where a deep slash has been
cut into the bedrock from milennia of water flow.
Three Tequesta women are standing at the
creek’s mouth with a large net pulled from one
bank to the other. Five boys and girls stand in the
torrent of rushing water smacking the water with
the wooden clubs as silvery fish leap towards the
net. Their song wails above the roar.
The net is woven from palmetto fibers by the
women and their daughters. Each opening is
about two inches, woven after carefully using a
sea turtle shell net gauge. The net holds back the
largest fish, allowing the smaller immature fish
to swim through with the powerful current. The
net is the contract between the Tequesta and the
sea. It assures food for the village but also allows
the survival of the smallest fish to reach maturity.
The net bonds families and communities and
its yield will be a story for each campfire meal.
Someday the Tequesta will be gone, and the
white men will build a coontie mill across the
Students at a Dade Heritage Days’ RiverDay festival in
Lummus Park enjoy the animals and historic re-enactments
in front of the Wagner Homestead, Miami’s oldest house. The
Wagner Homestead, built circa 1858, was moved by Dade
Heritage Trust to the park and restored in the early 1980s.
(PHOTO BY BECKY ROPER MATKOV)
the trailer park nor the bar that will be built on
top of the village.
The river’s rapids, once the showpiece of
Miami’s tourism in the early 1900s, today is a silted,
deadened ditch. Where the Everglades began
at the rapid’s edge, a telephone transmission tower
now looms. A small city park is on the south bank
and a paved parking lot hugs the north bank.
The river is still and silent as we contemplate
the next piece of the river’s surgery. Metro-rail will
cross the rapids to add another layer of concrete
and urban decibels. The few city parks along the
river will tempt some city leaders to expand
Miami’s tax rolls by selling them. Medium to high
rise apartment boxes will be built close to the
river, a testimony to a lack of planning vision.
Someday, perhaps, the Miami River will be rediscovered
by urban explorers who will restore old
neighborhoods instead of bulldozing them, who
will build bridges at a human scale instead of to
engineering ideals, and who will treat the river as
a lifeline and the city’s soul instead of as an economic
opportunity. We hold the net. We are the
fishermen, and we have the power to harvest our
heritage instead of diminishing it.
Robert S. Carr is a graduate of Florida State University with a master’s degree in science with a major in anthropology. He began directing archaeological projects
in 1974, when he worked as an archaeologist for the State of Florida and searched for the remains of Fort Tonyn, Florida’s only Revolutionary War fort. While working
for the National Park Service he participated in the archaeological survey of the Big Cypress National Preserve. In 1978 he began working for Miami-Dade County’s
Historic Preservation Division, becoming the first County archaeologist and eventually the agency director. During that period, he excavated the 11,000-year-old Cutler
Fossil Site, which produced some of the earliest evidence of human habitation in eastern North America. He also discovered and documented over 300 sites across
Florida, discovered remains of the earliest English settlement in the Bahamas, and investigated the nation’s most southerly prehistoric site in Key West. Most recently,
he was the co-discoverer of the Miami Circle and is directing the analysis of its artifacts and data. He has achieved numerous milestones within his professional community,
including acting as editor of the Florida Anthropologist Council, and he was the recipient of Florida archaeology’s prestigious Bullen Award.
CHAPTER V ✧ 29

John Seybold widened Wagner Creek, a tributary of the Miami River, turning it into the Seybold Canal for his Spring Garden development. (PHOTO BY THORN GRAFTON)
SPRING GARDEN
B Y J AMES G. BROTON
It’s easy to overlook Spring Garden. People
usually first drive through it by mistake while
trying to take a shortcut, and then they find
that the road they’re on doesn’t go straight
through because the Miami River or the
Seybold Canal gets in the way. And Spring
Garden isn’t what you usually think of when
considering historic neighborhoods in Miami.
It’s not noted for having blocks of wellgroomed,
well-maintained houses. Yet it does
have fine examples of Mission Revival, Pueblo
and Vernacular style homes dating from the
late 1910s and early 1920s… and a few surprises.
And it has a history to rival that of any
other historic neighborhood in Miami.
As a tree-lined residential area near downtown
Miami, Spring Garden stands in sharp
contrast to the office buildings and businesses
around it. It exists as an oasis of greenery surrounded
by water and concrete.
The area that would be called Spring
Garden can be seen on survey maps from the
1840s. It is known that William English had a
mill near the junction of the Miami River and
the creek, where he made starch from coontie
roots, as the cycad Zamia floridiana (Florida
arrowroot) was called. Fresh water was needed
to extract the poison from the mashed
roots, and the creek was also located far
enough from the river to hide the stench given
off by the drying starch. By the 1880s,
English’s mill was replaced by a steam-pow -
ered mill owned by William Wagner, and the
creek bears his name.
As the supply of coontie roots dwindled by
the turn of the twentieth century, Miami was
led by the efforts of Henry Flagler to turn to
tourism. Flagler had opened his Royal Palm
Hotel at the mouth of the river in 1898 and
had golf links built upriver.
Entrepreneur Warren Frazee (“Alligator
Joe”) took advantage of the situation, opening
an attraction catering to Flagler’s winter visitors.
Frazee’s alligator farm on Wagner Creek
near the golf link was probably similar to one
he had in Palm Beach, where he sold stuffed
and live baby alligators and “captured” live
adult ones with his bare hands. He alternated
appearances at the two attractions, and a 1911
Miami Herald article stated that “more visitors
see Joe’s performances in Florida each winter
than go to any other single attraction.” Frazee
ventured to San Francisco in 1915 to display
his saurians at the Panama-Pacific Exposition
there. Not accustomed to the cold March
weather, he contracted pneumonia and died.
Around that time, the site of the alligator farm
and the land around it were purchased by John
Seybold. Seybold had made a name for himself
in Miami as a baker, and after what he described
as the most successful year of his career, he ventured
into real estate. Seybold worked for five
years to make Spring Garden a subdivision that
would be something special. He widened
Wagner Creek and made a turning basin at what
is now NW 11th Street. He paved a road leading
to it, and built a concrete bridge over the creek,
now the Seybold Canal, to get to it. He planted
royal palms and made stone benches at a
then–divided street called Spring Garden Drive
(NW 9th Court). And he installed water, elec -
tricity and gas lines throughout Spring Garden
before he sold any lots. He was hoping that these
improvements, along with the nearness to the
Miami River and the golf links just north, would
attract the well-to-do to settle in the area. For
himself, he built a house and a sales office in
Spring Garden on the Seybold Canal Bridge on
Seybold Drive (NW 7th Street Rd.).
A major source of publicity for the as-yetunopened
subdivision came with the shooting
of scenes of a Fox film in January, 1919. Silent
film actor William Farnum starred in The Lucky
Charm (later released as The Jungle Trail). For
the shooting, a Hindu Village set was con -
structed on the canal at NW 8th Street Road.
This included a Hindu Temple set at the turning
basin of the Seybold Canal. During filming,
Seybold invited onlookers to witness “this rare
and interesting performance…. Before leaving
the grounds, we would be pleased to have you
drive through the various avenues of Spring
Garden and view the building sites…. The
opening of this high class residential section
will take place in the future.”
After the film crew left and the set was
struck, Seybold opened the subdivision with
much fanfare on Wednesday, February 5, 1919
with a public auction of 20 lots and a raffle for
$100 in gold. He also had a permanent resi -
dence built in the style of the Hindu Temple.
He commissioned well-known Miami architect
30 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

August Geiger to design it, and it was shown
under construction in early advertisements for
Spring Garden. When finished, the house was
sold to the owner of Musa Isle fruit grove, an
attraction upriver. Like the film set, this resi -
dence is still known as the Hindu Temple.
For a few years, it seemed like the promise
in early advertisements for “Miami’s newest
high-class subdivision” was beginning to come
true. Spring Garden was attracting doctors,
lawyers, and businessmen to settle among its
shady oak and mahogany trees. In 1924,
Seybold felt confident enough in his investment
to expand Spring Garden westward to include
more land on the Miami River and land which
was within walking distance of the newlyopened
Miami Country Club. Again, this
“Country Club Addition” attracted several businessmen
and professionals to Spring Garden.
Then the hurricane came in 1926, and that was
followed by the Great Depression. People who
had purchased lots in Spring Garden were
unable to build, and people with houses
already built struggled to survive, or left.
Spring Garden was rediscovered when the
Miami area was used to train soldiers during
World War II. Distinctively-designed houses
sprung up, especially along Seybold Canal and in
the Country Club Addition, reflecting post-war
optimism with whimsical and creative designs.
Residents raised families here, some sending their
children to Highland Park Elementary School
over the Seybold Bridge (affectionately called the
Humpback Bridge). They found Spring Garden
to be centrally located near their work.
Now in its 80th year of existence as a subdivision,
generations of resident “river rats” have
reveled in the unique atmosphere of Spring
Garden and have contributed to it. However,
through the years there have been threats to its
character, if not its very existence. As early as
1924, a petition was circulated to turn NW 7th
Street into a four-lane, sixty-foot road with a
bridge crossing the Miami River. That idea was
rejected in favor of a bridge over NW 5th Street.
Most recently, in the 1990s, plans were drawn
for an east-west extension of the Metrorail which
would have run through Spring Garden. That
plan was defeated, due in large part to neighborhood
activism in Overtown and Spring Garden.
Since 1997, Spring Garden has been a City
of Miami Historic Neighborhood. This was due
in large part to the effort of Spring Garden resident
Dr. Ernest Martin and an active Spring
Garden Civic Association. Martin first
approached the residents with the idea of his -
toric designation in 1986. But it took the intrusion
of high-rise development on the edge of
Spring Garden in1996 to spur the neighbor -
hood to action. Now when such a develop -
A resident leads visitors on a house tour of Spring Garden for Dade Heritage Days’ RiverDay. (PHOTO BY BECKY ROPER MATKOV)
ment is proposed it must first be approved by
the City of Miami Historic Preservation Board.
The status of historic district designation has
assisted neighborhood efforts to beautify and
preserve the riverfront, Spring Garden’s most
threatened asset. Working with the City of Miami
and Miami-Dade County, the first result of that
effort has been the recently opened Greenfield
Garden, a heavily landscaped public area with
beaches, a birdbath and a path to the river.
Miami-Dade County and state efforts have also
secured land on the Miami River at the site of
Alligator Joe’s attraction, to be used as a park and
educational center. A State of Florida Bureau of
Historic Preservation grant has also been given to
the Spring Garden Civic Association to create a
walking tour brochure of Spring Garden. And
Spring Garden has figured into plans for a new
bridge at NW12th Avenue, slated for construction
in 2003. Finally, incorporating all these
efforts, Dr. Martin, Brenda Marshall and the Trust
for Public Land are working to create a greenway
along the Miami River, including an area running
along NW North River Drive, through Spring
Garden. Spring Garden is using its history to
build its future.
Dr. James G. Broton is a clinical neurophysiologist at The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, located near
Jackson Hospital. He has lived in the Spring Garden neighborhood for almost five years and is active in its
Civic Association. His hobby is the study of Spring Garden and its surrounding area, and he has written the
text for a walking tour brochure of Spring Garden. He believes that “if people who work in the Civic Center
knew how nice it is to live so close to work, they’d see the benefit of living here. And they would have great
old houses to live in.”
“The Hindu Temple” house in Spring Garden is so named as its design was inspired by a Hindu Village movie set for The
Jungle Trail, which was filmed in Spring Garden in 1919. Developer John Seybold commissioned architect August Geiger to
design the house as an advertisement for Spring Garden. It is now undergoing restoration by its current owner, Krassi Ivanov.
(PHOTO BY BECKY ROPER MATKOV)
CHAPTER VI ✧ 31

This Colonial style residence was built in 1923 by Dr. William A. Chapman, Sr., the first African American medical doctor hired by the State Board of Health as a consultant for disease
control. Located on the campus of Booker T. Washington High School, it is Miami-Dade County Public Schools’ Ethnic Heritage Children’s Folklife Center. (COURTESY OF THE BLACK ARCHIVES)
OVERTOWN
B Y D OROTHY J ENKINS F IELDS
Over time, the natural environment was the
common denominator for all who migrated to
Miami-Dade County. The same brilliant sun
greeted Indians, explorers, runaway slaves and
colonists. Each group fought armies of mos -
quitoes. Some of the groups returned to their
homelands. Those who remained adapted to
the dry season and hurricane winds. Survival
in the wilderness, in concert with the natural
environment, was a concern that was shared
by those who first settled in Dade County.
In the 1890s Coconut Grove became the
first black settlement. The first arrivals worked
and lived at the Peacock Inn, the first hotel on
the South Florida mainland. Most of the early
black settlers in Coconut Grove were
Bahamians. They acquired land near the
Peacock Inn on what later became Charles
Avenue. Native black Americans from the
Carolinas and other Southern states joined the
black Bahamians in clearing land. E.W.F
Stirrup, one of several black pioneers, acquired
a sizable amount of land. By the 1920s it is
believed that Stirrup owned much of what is
now downtown Coconut Grove. He and other
black pioneers built their homes themselves
with the help of neighbors and friends. At least
twelve black families were among the original
settlers in this area. Most of those families
remain in the houses that their ancestors built.
Prior to the turn of the twentieth century,
another community, Lemon City, developed.
Located north of Coconut Grove near Biscayne
Bay, this pioneer community divided itself into
several subcommunities, including Knightsville,
Bolestown and Nazarene. In the 1920s many of
the pioneer families relocated either to Liberty
City or to Colored Town/Overtown. As pioneer
settlements, Coconut Grove and Lemon City
were primarily residential.
In addition to these areas, there were other
black settlements scattered throughout Dade
County. Alike in many ways, these areas were
populated by black laborers from Southern
states who followed the Florida East Coast railroad
and black workers from the Bahamas and
other islands in the West Indies. Each settle -
ment had at least one church and several
“mom and pop” stores. All of the settlements
depended on the goods and services of the
community located adjacent to downtown
Miami, Colored Town/Overtown.
Over time, black migrants settled in Miami’s
Overtown from north Florida and other
Southern states. Emigrants arrived from the
Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad and
Tobago, Barbados and other countries throughout
the Western Hemisphere. Their common
heritage: slave foreparents forced from Africa
and left as cargo in various ports throughout
the Americas. Different cultures developed in
the various ports and some languages changed,
but the common ground for all was race.
Skilled, the migrants and emigrants arrived
with determination to improve the economic
conditions for their families. In turn, they
helped build a tourist mecca for others to enjoy.
The community that the migrants and emigrants
built for themselves was geared toward
tourism, too. It was self-sufficient, alive and
well and busy every day. Around the clock
business and cultural activities kept the lights
32 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

on and people involved. White tourists and
white residents frequented this dynamic area
to enjoy the entertainment, to partake of the
exotic foods and to listen to music, especially
jazz and gospel singing. At least one national
convention was held annually in Overtown,
when sufficient hotel rooms, restaurants and
entertainment were in full supply. The repeat
business brought by visitors helped stabilize
the economy in this community, which in turn
promoted pride in a people who were selfmotivated
and self-sustaining.
From the 1940s until the early 1960s the
residents of Overtown continued to draw on
their own resources, creating a “sense of place.”
In addition to regular goods and services, there
were several fine restaurants, a privately owned
tennis court and several first class hotels in
Overtown. One, the Mary Elizabeth, was a
favorite retreat for such well-known personalities
as United States Supreme Court Justice
Thurgood Marshall, Congressman Adam
Clayton Powell, labor leader A. Phillip
Randolph, educator Dr. Mary McLeod
Bethune, then president of Bethune Cookman
College and the National Council of Negro
Women, Dr. Carter G. Woodson, “the father of
Negro History,” and W.E.B. DuBois, an internationally
known intellectual and author.
Like Broadway, Colored Town was aglow
twenty-four hours a day. It was the “great black
way.” Nearly all of the arts were available in
Colored Town through touring music, dance
and drama groups. Traveling literary artists
who visited included poet Langston Hughes
and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston. Paul
Robeson and Marian Anderson were among
the featured vocalists. Visitors included worldfamous
Joe Louis and baseball greats Jackie
Robinson and Roy Campanella. Local residents
jammed until daybreak with entertainers like
Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway,
Lena Horne, Josephine Baker, Billie Holiday,
Sammy Davis Jr., the Inkspots, Louie
“Satchmo” Armstrong, Nat “King” Cole, B.B.
King, Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick and
many others. Local resident and entertainment
promoter Clyde Killens was primarily responsible
for bringing the performers exclusively to
Overtown from Miami Beach.
Over the years Overtown lost its magic.
Urban renewal, desegregation and the con -
struction of two expressways destroyed the
community and the once vibrant economic
and cultural center.
But Overtown is alive again, led by the
Overtown Advisory Board, the Community
Development Corporations (CDC’s), and other
agencies. The need for housing is being met by
the local churches, including St. John Baptist, Mt.
Historic Mt. Zion Baptist Church, located at 301 NW 9th Street, was built in 1928 and is listed on the National Register of
Historic Places. (PHOTO BY CHARLIE WILLIAMS, COURTESY OF CALVIN MARKS)
Zion Baptist and Greater Bethel AME. The Black
Archives, History and Research Foundation of
South Florida, Inc., is developing the Historic
Overtown Folklife Village, a two-block area retail,
cultural and entertainment district.
The Folklife Village was designated a Main
Street community in 1999 by Florida’s
Secretary of State. The area will again become
a tourist destination focusing on two themes:
The African Diaspora, the resettlement of people
from ports (countries in the Caribbean)
where blacks were left as cargo, and the
“Harlem Renaissance,” a self-definition of the
black experience through the literary, visual
and performing arts.
Historic sites and new construction, in
keeping with the historic character of the district,
will become mixed-use facilities. Some
housing will have lofts and flexible spaces;
rehearsal and performing spaces for artists,
artisans, craftspeople, inventors and entrepreneurs.
Green spaces and landscaping will be
designed to help promote a safe and creative
environment. Restaurants, bed and breakfast
For decades, Overtown’s nightlife featured stars of all ages, as seen in this billboard for a concert by Aretha Franklin for the
Knight Beat Club in the Sir John Hotel. (COURTESY OF THE BLACK ARCHIVES)
CHAPTER VII ✧ 33

The Lyric Theater, built in 1919 at 819 NW 2nd Avenue,
was a major center of entertainment for the black
community. After having been closed for forty years, the
Lyric underwent a major restoration and re-opened in
2000 as a centerpiece for community revitalization.
(COURTESY OF OVERTOWN MAIN STREET)
sites and a conference/family reunion center
will again host national conventions and be
available as an annual retreat.
Five of the sites in the Village are listed on
the National Register of Historic Places. An
adjacent building is planned for the anchor
site, the Lyric Theater, which opens into the
Ninth Street pedestrian mall, a transportation
corridor that connects Overtown to other historic
sites in Miami-Dade County and the State
of Florida through the Black Heritage Trail.
After having been closed for forty years, the
Lyric Theater re-opened in 2000. Exciting literary,
visual and performing arts events are
now scheduled throughout the year for tourists
and residents at this centerpiece of Overtown.
With a capacity of 400 seats, the Lyric Theater’s
charming scale and plush, architecturally
designed seats guarantee audiences an intimate
and inviting experience.
At the Grand Re-Opening of the Lyric
Theater, John Hope Franklin, the James B.
Duke Professor Emeritus of History at Duke
University, was a special guest. In his lecture at
Florida Memorial College on “The Impact of
the Harlem Renaissance in American Culture,”
Professor Franklin said, “this is a very histori -
cal area. The very history of Miami is incom -
plete without the history of Overtown.”
A marching band leads a procession from St. Agnes Episcopal Church to the Miami City Cemetery along the streets of Overtown. (COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
Dorothy Jenkins Fields is a native Miamian whose maternal grandparents settled in Key West, Florida at the turn of the twentieth century, coming from the Bahamas by way
of Haiti and Sierra Leone, West Africa. An educational specialist with Dade County Public Division of Multicultural Programs, Jenkins Fields is also the founder and archivist
historian of the Black Archives, History and Research Foundation of South Florida, Inc. Other major accomplishments include the creation of Dade County’s Black Heritage Trail,
the designation and restoration of the Lyric Theater and five other sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the establishment of the Historic Overtown Folklife
Village. A graduate of Spelman College and the University of Northern Colorado, she completed doctoral studies in Public History at the Union Institute, Cincinnati, Ohio.
34 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

The neoclassical Belcher mausoleum contains thirty-two crypts. (COURTESY OF LAMBETH & NAGLE COMMUNICATIONS)
MIAMI CITY CEMETERY
B Y P ENNY L AMBETH
Tucked into a corner of downtown Miami is
a window to our city’s past: The Miami City
Cemetery at 1800 NE Second Avenue. Lush
tropical trees shade the rows of headstones and
ornate crypts dating back to 1896 when
Miami’s pioneers settled the wild hardwood
hammocks and pine rocklands that once covered
the area.
They came, these bold men and women, to
a frontier settlement that was hardly more than
an Indian trading post on an Everglades river.
They set up their one-story dry goods stores,
mom-and-pop bakery, feed store, downstairs
doctor’s office, and even raised Miami’s first
skyscraper, a three-story hardware store.
Today their names are enshrined in many
places in the modern metropolis that is their
heritage—on massive department stores, on
high-technology medical centers, on streets
and highways that weave through the area.
But their spirits are still here in a park-like setting
of trees and pathways in the middle of
their city where mausoleums and headstones
mark their final resting place, the historic
Miami City Cemetery.
This 10-acre enclave came into being 103
years ago, in 1897, when the officials of the
new city decided it wasn’t proper to be burying
people in helter-skelter fashion among the
piney woods. They paid a whopping $750 for
the ten acres to pioneer businesswoman Mary
Brickell, who with her neighboring landowner,
Julia Tuttle, was prominent in the early development
of Miami.
Officially, the first person to be buried in the
new cemetery was H. Graham Branscombe, a
feed store owner. Actually, folklore says that the
first burial was that of a black man who died of
dropsy and who rests in an unmarked location.
Today the cemetery has nearly 9,000 graves.
The story of those whose last resting place
is the Miami City Cemetery reads like a Who’s
Who of those pioneers who were symbolic of
the spirit that has enlivened Miami through
the decades.
Julia Tuttle, who first bought land in Miami,
was the 12th person to be buried in the new
cemetery. It is said the whole town shut down
the day of her funeral. Nearby is the grave of
Dr. James M. Jackson, who made house calls in
his horse and buggy starting in 1896 and
whose legacy is today’s giant University of
Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital, one of this
country’s most renowned medical treatment
and research centers.
In another section is the marble mausoleum
of William Burdine, whose original dry goods
store in Miami evolved into Florida’s largest
chain of department stores. Just opposite is the
imposing mausoleum of Sam Belcher, a frus -
trated pineapple farmer who eventually struck
it rich in the oil refinery business.
Much of the history of Miami can be visualized
from names on the headstones. Charles
Peacock, Miami’s first innkeeper, opened his
Peacock Inn long before Flagler’s ornate Royal
Palm Hotel established Miami as a tourist
mecca. Clifford H. Reeder, a three-time Miami
mayor, was instrumental in persuading Pan
American Airways to locate its base in Miami,
establishing Miami as the “Gateway to the
Americas.” John Sewell, an associate of Henry
Flagler, became a mayor of Miami.
John Seybold, a German who emigrated to
Miami by way of France and Belgium, established
CHAPTER VIII ✧ 35

Above: A marching band leads the procession into the Miami City Cemetery for the annual Dade Heritage Days Commemorative
Service held in April. (COURTESY OF LAMBETH & NAGLE COMMUNICATIONS)
body placed on a slab and covered with concrete.
The inscription reads, “The body of Carrie
Barrett Miller was molded in this solid block of
concrete Dec. 4, 1926. After her body has gone
to dust, her sleeping form will remain.”
Those of all faiths have found sanctuary in
Miami City Cemetery. As was the custom at that
time, there is a white section, a black section, a
Catholic section and a Jewish section. Veterans
of the nation’s wars are honored in other quadrants.
A.C. Lightbourne, a black man who was
an educator, a minister and a political activist
made history with his eloquent speech on the
day Miami was incorporated.
For most of Miami City Cemetery’s first 100
years, it was an oasis of peace, solace and beauty
as the city grew up around it. A profusion of
trees and shrubs were planted and shaded
walkways established.
Much of the cemetery’s early enhancement
was credited to Alex Korsakoff, known as “The
Mad Russian,” who was hired as its sexton in
the early 1930s. Korsakoff, a scientist and selftaught
authority on sub-topical trees and
plants, and his friend, David Fairchild, famed
horticulturist, assembled a vast collection of
trees, plants and shrubs. The efforts continued
when he was succeeded as sexton by his friend
and associate, Felix Cornejo.
But toward the end of the twentieth century
things had begun to change for the Miami
City Cemetery, and not for the better. In recent
years the final resting place of Miami’s pioneers
had been the victim of vandalism. Though the
city had maintained the grounds on a basic
level, the outlying neighborhood’s decline had
left its mark on the cemetery.
Now, in a classic example of community
progress that can be achieved through a partnership
of dedicated volunteers and aware
municipal officials, preservationists have
begun to bring Miami City Cemetery back to
its former glory. Work began with Enid
Pinkney and the Dade Heritage Trust African-
American Committee’s Commemorative
Service at the cemetery and evolved into the
vigorous Miami City Cemetery Task Force.
This group is headed by Penny Lambeth, who
created a plan to make this landmark one of
the most beautiful in Miami, a place where
Community leaders at the tombstone of Julia Tuttle pay
respect to the memory of a visionary pioneer who helped
change Miami’s history. (COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
a bakery business in 1897 that was a Miami fixture
until well into the mid-1950s. John B.
Reilly was the first mayor of Miami in 1896 and
was thrice re-elected. William Mark Brown in
1896 was Miami’s first banker as president of
the Bank of Biscayne Bay. The Rev. Theodore
Gibson was a renowned civil rights leader, as
was Judge Lawson Thomas, the first black
judge in south Florida, and Richard Toomey,
Miami’s first black attorney. The roster goes on
and on.
One of the most unusual burials was that of
Carrie Miller. Her husband, William, had her
Cemetery Task Force Chairman Penny Lambeth and Dade Heritage Trust African American Committee Chairman Enid
Pinkney at the Cemetery Commemorative Service. (PHOTO BY BECKY ROPER MATKOV)
36 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

160 native and flowering trees. Since that time,
several more trees have been planted along
with flowering bushes to attract butterflies and
add color.
So far, there have been more than a dozen
volunteer clean-up days. The Task Force
arranged an Eagle Scout project in which 535
war veterans’ markers were hand-scrubbed
with toothbrushes and other soft brushes to
remove decades of grime that had collected.
Another Eagle Scout project involved raking,
fertilizing and mulching every tree in the
cemetery. One of the Task Force Committee
members has repaired more than 60 broken
headstones. Police patrols around the ceme -
tery’s neighborhood were activated. The Parks
Department has installed a large functional and
decorative lighting system. Business interests
were contacted to provide support for the volunteers.
Neighboring property owners have
been encouraged improve their appearances.
The transformation continues, making this site
a sparkling gem in downtown Miami.
Somewhere the spirits of Miami’s pioneer
founders are smiling.
Penny Lambeth of Lambeth & Nagle
Communications is a specialist in public relations
and marketing. She is on the executive committee of
Dade Heritage Trust and chairs the Miami City
Cemetery Task Force. She serves on the board of
The City of Miami Beautification Committee and on
the executive committee of TREEmendous Miami.
She is a former board member of the Greater Miami
Chamber of Commerce where she chaired an economic
development committee. A member of The
Villagers and The Miami Lakes Business
Association, she was a finalist in the PaineWebber
“Women of Influence” award competition.
Temple Israel, the cornerstone of which was laid in 1922,
is adjacent to the City Cemetery and has been very
supportive of Task Force efforts to protect Miami’s most
historic burial ground.
(COURTESY OF TEMPLE ISRAEL OF GREATER MIAMI)
residents, students and tourists can come to
learn about Miami’s rich, diverse history and
enjoy the beauty of a sub-tropical garden with
all the trees identified with botanical and
common names.
The Task Force partnered with the City of
Miami Parks Department to obtain $110,000
in HUD funding for a new eight-foot security
fence. The group rallied organizations such as
the City of Miami Beautification Committee,
led by Steve Pearson, the Flowering Tree
Society, Trees for Dade and Hands On Miami.
On a sunny September morning in 1997 more
than 100 volunteers began planting more than
Volunteers plant flowering trees in the City Cemetery during one of many beautification days.
(COURTESY OF LAMBETH & NAGLE COMMUNICATIONS)
CHAPTER VIII ✧ 37

A Morningside residence is decorated for Christmas, a time for frequent parties in the neighborhood. (COURTESY OF MICHAEL CONWAY)
MORNINGSIDE AND BAY POINT
B Y G AIL M EADOWS AND W ILLIAM E. HOPPER J R .
Morningside dates back to Miami’s pioneer
days, when the family of John Saunders, a
Bahamas-born, Keys-reared entrepreneur,
became squatters in what was to become
Lemon City.
Along with Coconut Grove to the south,
Lemon City became the focal point of life on
the swamp’s frontier, far more populous than
Miami, with merchants, a library and a school.
The community grew from a curve in the
shoreline at Northeast 61st Street (Lemon
Avenue) and Biscayne Bay that formed a bight
and made 61st Street one of the few spots
accessible through the dense mangroves that
protected the shoreline.
Saunders filed for homestead rights on 148
acres on Sept. 17, 1883. He worked as a sailor,
farmer and laborer in a starch mill until
October 1889, when he began to sell portions
of his property.
By the 1920s, entrepreneurs were leaving
their imprint on South Florida. Henry Flagler
had brought the railroad south to Miami and
Key West. James Deering had built Vizcaya, an
Italian Renaissance villa, immediately south of
what was to become downtown Miami. His
half-brother Charles Deering had abandoned
his vast acreage in Bay Point, immediately
south of Morningside, for a settlement called
Cutler, far south at today’s S.W. 168th Street.
George Merrick was carving Coral Gables out
of oolitic limestone.
James H. Nunnally, a candy baron, founded
the Bay Shore Investment Co. and began to
plat Morningside from what is now Northeast
55th Terrace to Northeast 60th Street, bounded
on the east by Biscayne Bay. The “Bay Shore”
subdivision, launched in 1922, was to be superior
to any other being offered in South
Florida. It was to have paved roads, sidewalks,
swales, medians, underground wiring for telephones
and electric lights, storm sewers, sanitary
sewers, gas lines, street lights and fresh
water through underground conduits from its
wells and pumping station.
Building plans had to be approved by the
developer before construction could begin.
Most homes were built out of what was called
three-hole concrete, which weighs 46 pounds,
as opposed to today’s two-hole concrete, which
weighs 32 pounds. All had stucco, stone or
ornamental cement exteriors and roofs of tile.
Interior walls were made of two-coat plaster
over cypress lath over studs of Dade County
pine. Any proposals for structures out of wood
only were rejected. These exacting standards
were responsible for keeping many structures
intact during hurricanes over the years.
Before the first home was sold, Nunnally’s
company planted 4,000 trees and lined the
parkways with bougainvillea, palms, colea and
St. Augustine grass. “An individual irrigation
system keeps them constantly supplied with
water,” one advertisement read. A master landscape
architect drew up a plan that called for
specific setbacks and lot frontage, which
framed the house on each lot.
Streets were given such names as Hibiscus
Avenue (Northeast 58th Street), Albemarle
Street (Northeast Fifth Avenue) and Toxaway
Drive (Northeast Sixth Court). Lots were laid
out with irregular lines to maximize breezes
from the bay.
By 1923, Nunnally had enlisted the real
estate firm of Junkin & Erdmans to sell his
homesites. In his sales brochure, he guaranteed
superb settings, distinctive architecture and an
unobstructed view of the bay.
By February 1924, 3,500 people a day were
visiting “model homes,” according to an extensive
advertising campaign in the Miami Daily
News and Metropolis. Some were transported
via boat from downtown Miami; others were
met by chauffeured cars. No house could be
built that cost less than $7,000. “This restriction
is an insurance to every purchaser that he
will be as proud of his neighbor’s fine home as
38 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

High ceilings, arched passageways, wooden windows, hardwood floors, working fireplaces, cracked-tile stoops, and porches
are architectural elements found in many of the homes in Morningside. (PHOTO BY DR. WILLIAM HOPPER)
he is of his own,” one advertisement said. Deep
lots fronting Biscayne Bay had to have houses
costing at least $17,000. By January 12, 1925,
sales reached $152,300 in one day.
Early prominent architects included Robert
Law Weed, who designed part of the Sears
building that opened in 1929 north of downtown
Miami; L. Murray Dixon, who worked
extensively in Miami Beach; H. George Fink,
who worked with Merrick in the Gables; the
Pittsburgh firm of Kiehnel and Elliott, which
designed Miami’s Scottish Rite Temple, the
Beach’s Carlyle Hotel and the Gables’
Congregational Church; V.H. Nellenbogen,
who designed the Savoy Plaza and the redo of
the Sterling Building in Miami Beach; and
Marion Manley, Florida’s first woman to
become a registered architect.
Each home had high ceilings, arched pas -
sageways, wooden windows, ceiling moldings,
hardwood floors, working fireplaces, pushbutton
light switches, cracked-tile stoops and
porches and was built high off the flood plain.
One house even had a basement.
A 1925 map reveals that 27 houses had
been built east of Flagler’s railroad tracks.
Several were spec houses, and seven were west
of what would become, in the next three
decades, the “road to Miami Shores,” an everwidening
“Dixie Boulevard.” The road, of
course, became U.S. 1 (Biscayne Boulevard),
which split a neighborhood that had been
carefully envisioned. West of it today, one sees
restoration underway on the sturdy craftsmanship
that Nunnally so emphasized.
The stellar work attracted any number of
prominent citizens, including Miami Mayor
Perrine Palmer and City Public Works Directors
Frank Wharton and John Mays. Other notables
who lived there were Sidney Meyer, who cofounded
Wometco with Col. Mitchell Wolfson,
Tilyou Christopher, who raced thoroughbreds
at Hialeah Race Track, William Lehman, who
became a U.S. congressman, and Paul Scott,
president of the New Miami Shores Corp. and
the Biscayne Boulevard Co.. Morningside resident
Laura Cushman, whose father built an
Italian Mediterranean Revival mansion on
Northeast. 57th Street, founded the private
Cushman School in 1924.
In addition, more than half a dozen of the
Morningside homes became parsonages—for
the ministers of First United Methodist in
downtown Miami, Church of the Incarnation
in Liberty City, Westminster Presbyterian in
Buena Vista and the Archbishop of the Roman
Catholic Diocese, who, in 1987, hosted Pope
John Paul II for an overnight visit to Miami..
By 1926, about 41 houses had been built.
After September 17-18, when a Category 4
hurricane struck in the middle of the night,
some were condemned and sat vacant for some
time. But between 1927 and 1935, another 27
houses went up. Nunnally kept his company
moving despite the Depression and the bust in
Miami real estate.
In 1936, the neighborhood was enlarged;
the blocks along present-day Northeast 55th
Street and the south side of Northeast 55th
Terrace were subdivided as Bay Shore Plaza by
the company of Islands, Inc. Between 1936
and December 1941, when the U.S. declared
war, the area experienced its greatest building
expansion. Deed restrictions similar to those of
Bay Shore guaranteed a continuity in architectural
integrity.
Construction ground to a halt during the war,
but picked up again in 1946. Since then, 71
houses, representing Art Deco, Colonial Revival,
Mission, Spanish Mediterranean, Vernacular
Bungalow, Federal Revival, Streamline Moderne,
Moorish Mediterranean, Masonry Vernacular,
Italian Mediterranean and Classical Revival styles
of design have been built.
In 1951, Perrine Palmer engineered
$300,000 from city coffers to launch the build -
ing of Morningside Park, a 43-acre expanse on
Biscayne Bay that now boasts tennis courts, soccer
fields, baseball diamonds, a boat ramp and
an Olympic-sized swimming pool. In the 1950s,
it also had the world’s largest hibiscus garden.
Friendships in the neighborhood were
formed along the route families followed to
the park. One couple, Delia and Abraham
Barkett, reared six sons at 5550 N. Bayshore
Dr., near the park’s main entrance. The boys
refused to attend summer camp out of state
because they had so many activities at their
fingertips in the park.
In the 1960s and 1970s, as expressways,
malls and suburban subdivisions encouraged
residents to flee city living, Morningside, like
all urban areas, suffered. Spacious homes were
neglected; grotesque alterations made.
But the neighborhood was lucky. A handful
of noisy, scrappy community activists led by
Norah Schaefer, who later became president of
Dade Heritage Trust, fought any attempt to
“down-zone” the area into rooming houses and
day-care centers. Their dogged determination
paid off on December 20, 1984, when city
fathers declared Morningside Miami’s first historic
district. In 1992, additional recognition
followed when the district won a spot on the
National Register of Historic Places.
Exotic flowers add tropical charm to an antique brick patio.
(PHOTO BY DR. WILLIAM HOPPER)
CHAPTER IX ✧ 39

First developed in the 1920s, the residential area of Morningside was landscaped with 4000 trees, bougainvillea, palms,
colea and St. Augustine grass to create a lush setting still present today. (PHOTO BY CARL ROMER)
An active civic association now sponsors an
annual house tour, as well as numerous events
that foster neighborhood pride and a deeper
sense of community.
Immediately south of Morningside, the
neighborhood of Bay Point began to become a
reality in the 1940s. Like Lemon City, Bay
Point began with a bulge in the coastline just
north of what is now 36th Street and the Julia
Tuttle Causeway.
The first settler in the “Point” was an immigrant
from Alsace-Lorraine, on the border of
France and Germany, named Michael Sears
(sometimes called Zahr or Zair.) “French
Mike,” as he was called, arrived with his family
in 1858. He built a house, a dock and a
small mill to grind “coontie,” a root starch that
was a staple in all households. Like many
squatters, though, he probably never learned
of the federal Homestead Act of 1862 that
offered 160 acres to any citizen who would
stay on land for five years and develop it.
In early 1866, the Freedman’s Bureau in
Washington sent two men to Miami to determine
whether the land could be turned into a colony
for 50,000 former slaves. One of them was
William H. Gleason, 36, who had already made
and lost fortunes in New York and Wisconsin.
Gleason knew how to read surveyors’
reports and gauge improvements to land. He
was educated, greedy and clever. In no time, he
got himself appointed county clerk, county
surveyor, tax assessor and school board member
(even though there were no schools.) The
area that included Bay Point—Section
Nineteen on the plat books—had grown considerably
since the previous survey in 1845.
Mangroves had pushed new trees into place
and hurricanes had brought fill that added to
the land mass.
Gleason homesteaded 160 acres and got an
extra 40 in mangroves that hadn’t been sur -
veyed. In 1870, he made a deal with Sears to let
him continue living on the land, and in 1878,
for $2, actually sold Sears 10 acres that he had
been cultivating for 20 years. At the time, it was
the largest cleared area along the bay.
Until the early 1900s, Dade County
stretched from the northern Keys to the northern
reaches of Palm Beach County. It had only
three voting precincts—in Juno, Hypoluxo,
and—you guessed it—Sears.
On election day, voters would sail to the
polls and spend the day catching up with the
news. Gleason got himself elected lieutenant
governor, and then, unable to leave well
enough alone, engineered impeachment proceedings
against the governor and named himself
governor. Even the boat that brought the
mail was named the Governor Gleason.
Eventually, the tide turned, and Gleason himself
was impeached. The last elections held at
Sears were in 1872 and 1876.
Henry Flagler had a huge impact on Bay Point
when he brought the railroad to Miami in 1896.
By this time, Charles Deering, part of the family
that owned the farm equipment giant,
International Harvester, in Chicago, owned a vast
amount of acreage in Bay Point that extended
west past what is now the Sabal Palm Apartments
at Northeast 53rd Street and Second Avenue.
But the building boom that was to come left
Deering cold. Unable to tolerate the noise the
railroad brought, he sold his acreage and fled
for the settlement of Cutler, far south, and
began to build what’s now the Deering Estate
along Biscayne Bay at S.W. 168th Street.
In the 1920s, the Shoreland Company that
planned Miami Shores wanted to build a grand
boulevard to connect the property with Miami
and wanted to locate it right through what had
been Deering’s estate.
After the 1926 hurricane, these plans were
up in the air. Shoreland, like many other businesses,
needed financial assistance to complete
their projects. Bessemer Properties, a company
owned by the wealthy Phipps family, took over.
An aerial photograph in 1927 shows Bay
Point as a bulkheaded shoreline with two
canals connecting Sabal Lake with Biscayne
Bay. Most of the streets are in a grid fashion,
which changed, in later years, to the gently
curving streets we see today. Plans called for a
fine, walled community to be named Miami
Plaza. It was not until 1940, however, that
homes began to rise; Bessemer gave the development
the name Bay Point.
Today, the area is home to some of Miami’s
most prominent citizens, who enjoy the convenient
location and quiet streets. Though it is
a far cry from Charles Deering’s day, Bay Point
still has a feeling of a quaint, small town in the
middle of a teeming metropolis.
Gail Meadows and William Edward Hopper, Jr., have been activists in Morningside, the City of Miami’s first historic district, since the mid-1980s.
Together, they have helped organize the annual tour of historic homes, produced a monthly neighborhood newsletter and served as officers in the
Morningside Civic Association. Each owns a house designed by the renowned Pittsburgh architectural firm of Kiehnel and Elliott. Meadows and her husband,
Bill Robertson, live in a 1925 Italian Mediterranean Revival manse, and Hopper owns an Art Deco house built in 1934.
Hopper, a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, is a chemistry professor at Florida Memorial College and choirmaster and organist at Trinity Episcopal
Cathedral. He graduated from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater and earned a master’s and a Ph.D. degree in chemistry from the University of
South Carolina. He is currently pursuing a second master’s degree, in environmental studies, at Florida International University.
Meadows, who hails from Knoxville, Tennessee, is a reporter for The Miami Herald, covering the arts and philanthropy. She has a master’s degree in journalism from
the University of Missouri in Columbia and began her career at the Democrat & Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y. From there, she became the first woman to be a city editor
at Newsday, the Long Island daily.
The late architect Keith Edward Soto, who died in 1996, compiled much of the information used in the Morningside segment. Longtime Bay Point
resident Patricia F. Keen supplied the bulk of the information on Bay Point.
40 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

Visitors enjoy the oceanfront Roney Plaza Hotel in this photo from the mid-1950s. The design of the 1925-built hotel was influenced by the Giralda Bell Tower, as
was the design of the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables and the Miami News Tower in Downtown Miami. Once considered the grande dame of Miami Beach, the
elegant Roney Plaza Hotel was demolished in 1970. (COURTESY OF THE FLORIDA STATE ARCHIVES)
MIAMI BEACH
B Y H OWARD K LEINBERG
“Meet me in Miami instead of Jacksonville.
Nice little town.”
Those words, wired in 1910 by engineer
and friend John Levi to Carl Fisher in
Indianapolis, led to the creation of Miami
Beach. In less than two decades after Fisher
joined Levi in Miami, the narrow strip of land
had become America’s vacation land. Now,
almost nine decades later, its South Beach
ambience places it on a par with the shimmer
of the most chic centers of Europe.
Miami Beach is, perhaps, the most famous
city in the world that still lacks an airport, a
train station or a cemetery. Miami Beach is a
mutation. It and its neighbors, Surfside and Bal
Harbor, sit on what appears to be an island but
really isn’t. The island part of it was manmade,
as late as 1926, when the cut from the bay to
the ocean was made at Haulover.
Not only has it evolved through natural and
development forces, but so has it architecturally
and in the people who inhabit the place. From
the indigenous Tequestas to the coconut planters
to the opulent visitors of the 1920s, to the World
War II GI’s in more than 300 of its hotels, to the
Jewish migration from the northeast, to the
Hispanics from the south, and to the trendy people
of South Beach, this narrow strip of land has
been both a playground and a workplace.
Until three New Jersey investors decided, in
1882, that what would become Miami Beach
was a great place to grow coconuts commer -
cially, the strip of land—a peninsula—was
rarely visited. Tequestas had come there sea -
sonally, as well as sponge-fisherman.
Mainlanders, what few there were then, might
take their boats across the bay, past the jungle of
mangrove trees on the west, to loll in the sand
and surf on the lower east side of the peninsula.
By and large, however, it was ignored.
Would-be coconut farmers Henry Lum, Ezra
Osborn and Elnathan Field purchased almost all
of the oceanfront land between Key Biscayne
and Pompano Beach for no more than $1.25 an
acre. In Miami Beach, they planted thousands of
coconuts in neat rows on the beach side.
Rabbits—long accustomed to settling for a diet
of sea oats—found great flavor in the succulent,
young coconut tree shoots, and consumed
them. In time, all three abandoned the coconut
planting business, leaving another New
Jerseyite, John Collins, trying to protect what
was a small investment he had in the group.
Collins, a horticulturist, saw the futility of
coconuts but sensed the soil would be good for
avocados. In 1907, he planted 2,945 avocado
trees on the east side of today’s Lake Pancoast
CHAPTER X ✧ 41

Making money out of muck: Developers in the 1920s began
building on manmade islands in Biscayne Bay between
Miami Beach and the mainland. Looking east in this 1926
photo one can see Biscayne Island in the foreground and
San Marino and DiLido Islands in the distance.
(COURTESY OF ARVA PARKS & COMPANY)
Thousands of soldiers studied and drilled on Miami Beach during World War II, as can be seen in this 1943 postcard.
(COURTESY OF JOHN WITTY, III)
and Indian Creek. The trees were fruitful but
Collins’ next problem was getting them to market;
i.e., across the bay to the Miami train station.
In 1911, he cut a canal from Lake Pancoast to the
bay alongside what today is Dade Boulevard, the
boulevard actually having its roots in the spoil
banks created by digging the canal.
Low on money, Collins soon turned to his
New Jersey family for support. Their decision:
while it’s nice to have a better way to get to
market, that’s not our future. We’ll advance
you money to finish the canal but we want to
build a bridge all the way to Miami to open this
land to development beyond farming.
Having no real choice in the matter, Collins
acquiesced. His son-in-law, Thomas Pancoast,
took personal charge of the situation.
Construction of the Collins Bridge began in
1912 and was completed the following year. In
the midst of the construction, however, a fate -
ful encounter took place. Carl Fisher, coaxed
by Levi’s telegram, adopted Miami as a winter
home. His background was in development of
automobile headlamps and the creation of the
Indianapolis Speedway. When he visited
Collins and Pancoast, he learned of the huge
cost overruns they were experiencing on the
Collins Bridge. To complete the job, Fisher
loaned them $50,000 and, in turn, was given
200 acres of land on the still-unnamed peninsula.
(Early charts referred to it as “The Tongue
of the Mainland.”)
Carl Fisher’s foot was in the door and he
would push the door further open in the years
to come.
The two-and-one-half-mile wooden Collins
Bridge completed, the area generically called
Ocean Beach now was open to a rush of lot
sales and investment. Even before the bridge
42 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS
was built, the Lummus Brothers—J.E. and
J.N.—both presidents of banks in Miami,
established the Ocean Beach Realty Company
on the most southerly portion, down to the
1905-carved Government Cut. The
Lummuses, who later would find need for cash
from Fisher and, thus, would surrender some
of their land in return, filed the first plat in
today’s Miami Beach, on July 9, 1912. Fisher
was not to file one until December.
Simultaneously, three development companies—the
Lummuses, Fisher’s midland Alton
Beach Realty Company and Collins’ and
Pancoast’s more northerly Miami Beach
Improvement Company—were selling lots.
Fisher took quick advantage of his property
acquisitions by clearing land and extending the
Collins Bridge terminus from Bull (Belle)
Island to Miami Beach proper. The Lummus
project to the south had 21 houses under construction
by June, 1914. Fisher and Lummus
both began dredging bay bottom to fill in the
western side of their properties. Fisher was
particularly interested in developing that portion
as that is where he saw his hotels being
built, as well as a boat-race course that would
entice well-to-do visitors from the north.
In March 1915, the three organizations,
despite their land sales competitiveness, got
together and incorporated their properties into
the Town of Miami Beach. J.N. Lummus was
elected first mayor by the 33 registered voters.
Despite the land sales, no hotel had been built
at the time of incorporation. A month later, a
plumber announced that he would build one
of less than 40 rooms, in the 100 block of
Ocean Drive. William J. Brown, who was to go
on to be a prominent Miami banker, opened
the Atlantic Beach Hotel for the season of
1915-1916. It later became known as Brown’s
Hotel and survives to this day. Built of wood, it
was later covered with stucco. During
The Ziff Jewish Museum of Florida, home of the MOSAIC exhibit, is located in a former synagogue at 301 Washington
Avenue on South Beach. (COURTESY OF THE ZIFF JEWISH MUSEUM)

Hurricane Andrew in 1992, some of the stuc -
co was torn away to expose the wood. Its most
recent name was the Star Apartments.
Fisher built his first hotel two years later. It
was the Lincoln Hotel and Apartments on the
southwest corner of what now is Lincoln Road
and Washington Avenue. The architect was
August Geiger, who also designed Fisher’s Italian
Renaissance home at the foot of Lincoln Road
and the ocean. The Lincoln opened in 1917 and
had two additions built in subsequent years
before being purchased in 1940, torn down and
replaced by the Mercantile Building. This first of
four Fisher hotels in Miami Beach “restricted”
their clientele, as did all of them.
The Lummus Brothers, at the southern tip of
the beach, their properties not as easily accessible,
began a drive in 1916 to build a second
bridge to Miami; a causeway from Fifth Street
on the Beach to NE 13th Street in Miami. They
convinced the voters of Dade County to
approve, by a 2-1 margin, a $600,000 bond
issue to build the County Causeway, renamed in
1942 as the MacArthur Causeway. Work on the
causeway began in January, 1917, but was interrupted
by World War I and was not completed
until February 1920. The raising of bay bottom
also accidentally created two islands: Flagler
Island and Star Island. That inspired others to
create more islands in the bay, Palm and
Hibiscus Island and the Venetian Islands, the
latter the foundation for Venetian Way, a causeway
that replaced the Collins Bridge in 1926.
Miami Beach was beginning to look more
like a town than the jungle it was carved from.
Further north, in what would be Surfside, the
Tatum Brothers began selling lots as the Ocean
Park Company. Among their projects on the
narrow strip of land was Altos del Mar.
Meanwhile, Fisher was fulfilling another of his
dreams in the construction of his first luxury
hotel, the Flamingo, on the bayside at 10th
Street. To design it, he went to Indianapolis
and hired the firm of Rubbish and Hunter.
What made the hotel unique was the dome at
the top of its 11-story high central tower. Lit at
night, with changing colors, it was a landmark
that created a new image of opulence for
Miami Beach, where just several years earlier,
the ocean beat was a rabbit-infested jungle.
The Flamingo opened on Dec. 31, 1920.
All was not a bed of roses, however, not
with the developers, not with the workers.
Daily, blacks working on construction projects
were having to be transported back and forth
across the Collins Bridge from Miami. Fisher
saw this as costly and ineffective; he
announced that a community to house and
provide services for his black laborers would
be built. Cottages for black workers were built
The 1930 Amsterdam Palace, at 1116 Ocean Drive, was a rundown apartment complex in 1992 when internationally
famous fashion designer Gianni Versace purchased the building for $2.9 million. He enlarged the property and transformed
it all into a dazzling palazzo named “Casa Casuarina.” Versace was murdered by a serial killer on the front steps in 1997.
The mansion was sold for $l9 million in the summer of 2000. (PHOTO BY DEBORAH TACKETT)
in the vicinity of 41st Street and Pine Tree
Drive but were torn down several years later to
make room for white development. What few
blacks there were living on the beach were not
living independently but in servants’ quarters.
Unlike blacks, Jews were not totally excluded
from Miami Beach facilities. They were able
to buy property and to rent in the areas developed
by Lummus, and there was no significant
effort to keep them from bathing. Hungarianborn
Joe and Rose Weiss arrived in Miami
Beach in 1913. Shortly after arriving, Joe
obtained work at Smith’s Casino at the tip of
Miami Beach, ostensibly the first Jew to obtain
employment or live there. The Weisses saved
their money and eventually opened their own
restaurant across the street: Joe’s Restaurant,
later to be known as Joe’s Stone Crab. By 1921,
there were an estimated 25 Jews living in the
Lummus section of Miami Beach. This was not
the case further north.
One could try to say Fisher was a selective
anti-Semite but that would just be muddling
the issue. Fisher’s attitude toward Jews was
dependent upon who they were, how much
money they had in the bank and how they
looked more than anything else. If they were
what he considered “upper crust,” special considerations
were given to them at his golf
courses and hotels.
The area north of Fifth Street, meanwhile,
continued to be more attuned to the Christian
Ocean Drive on South Beach features popular sidewalk cafes, clubs and trendy hotels. Decaying in the 1980s, the area
was revitalized by historic preservationists who promoted and restored Art Deco and Streamline Moderne structures built
in the 1930s and 1940s. (PHOTO BY ANTOINETTE NATURALE)
CHAPTER X ✧ 43

Joe and Jennie Weiss stand in front of their Biscayne Street restaurant in 1918. In 1921, a visiting scientist asked Joe to cook
a stone crab, a crustacean scorned by natives because of its odd taste. Joe cooked it, then chilled it, and that made all the
difference. Joe’s Stone Crab is now a landmark on South Beach and an internationally known business enterprise.
(COURTESY OF ARVA PARKS & COMPANY)
affluent. Wealthy people were buying lots and
building estates. Hotels, catering to a more
restricted audience, were being constructed,
and the Fisher and Pancoast interests contin -
ued to promote their portions of Miami Beach
as a mecca for a higher social stratum than they
were seeing in South Beach. As 1923 dawned,
there were signs that an economic depression
that embraced the nation was rapidly lifting.
The Tatums, who were developing Altos Del
Mar in the northern portion of Miami Beach,
advertised “The Boom Is On” and had 30 salesmen
occupied by February. Building permits
for January 1923 reached $198,000, compared
to $41,000 for the same month the year before.
A lawyer from New Jersey, N.B.T. Roney,
became a South Florida real estate and development
entrepreneur and, in 1925, began
building the oceanfront Roney Plaza Hotel on
Collins Avenue at 23rd Street. He also started
Espanola Way off Washington Avenue, which
he envisioned as an artists’ colony. It did not
reach his expectation.
In contrast, when determining where to
build his latest hotel, Fisher again chose the
bay side of Miami Beach. It was his idea to
build hotels in places that were unlikely to be
developed. The oceanside was seen as prime
land for estates. The Nautilus opened its doors
on Jan. 10, 1924.
As the 1923-24 winter season approached,
the Boom was in full bloom. Lots were selling
quicker than you could say N.B.T. Roney, and
new hotels were springing up. In addition to the
Nautilus, another new hotel for the 1923-24 season
was the Pancoast, a 122-room resort located
on the ocean at 29th Street, built by J. Arthur
Pancoast, grandson of John Collins. This was the
pride of the Pancoast family. Restricted like
Fisher’s hotels, it catered much to the wealthy and
genteel. A Spanish theme was carried through -
out, the idea of architect Martin L. Hampton, who
Ocean Beach Realty Company employees and J.N. Lummus’ daughter Helen pose before raising the American flag in front
of the company’s South Beach office on March l7, 1913. (COURTESY OF ARVA PARKS & COMPANY)
had gone to Spain specifically to study designs he
might incorporate into the hotel.
With the Tatum Brothers succeeding at
Altos del Mar, another real estate syndicate
bought a mangrove patch called Mead Island,
which ultimately turned into Normandy Isle.
There was hardly a section of the peninsula
that was not under construction. Retired realtor
J. Perry Stolz came to Miami Beach on his
yacht simply for a vacation and wound up
building the Fleetwood Hotel at the bay and
Eighth Street. With so much work going on,
there was great need for building supplies. So
overwhelmed was the Florida East Coast railroad
by all this cargo that it put an embargo on
such materials. The builders turned to ocean
schooners, but that ended when one capsized
in the Miami harbor in January 1926, effec -
tively blocking all ships coming into or out of
the harbor and marking the point at which the
Boom became a Bust.
The coup de grace came on the night of
September 17-18 when, with little warning, a
cataclysmic hurricane smashed into Miami
Beach, downtown Miami and outlying Hialeah.
Gusts in Miami Beach were recorded as peaking
at 132 miles an hour. Since the start of its development,
Miami Beach had not been visited by a
hurricane. In its immediate aftermath, Miami
Beach was isolated from the mainland, its streets
filled with blown sand, water, rubble and abandoned
automobiles, and many residents were
dead or injured. An intense publicity campaign
was waged soon afterwards to show that Miami
Beach was recovering from the storm.
Having sold $6 million worth of lots in
1924 and quadrupling that in 1925, Fisher
made a fatal misstep. He took his Miami Beach
largess and began to create another major project
in Montauk, N.Y., on the eastern end of
Long Island. It was to prove a financial disaster
and, with it, Fisher’s influence on Miami Beach
began to wane. By mid-1938, he was running
out of money, steam and time. Overwhelmed
by a series of illnesses, Fisher died in July 1939.
Between 1934 and 1940, hundreds of new
hotels and apartment buildings, large and small,
were built, most designed by relatively unknown
architects who would remain obscure until they
were posthumously discovered in the late 1970s.
On the periphery of that group were already-recognized
Florida architects such as August Geiger
and Lester Pancoast. What developed from this
new breed of architect were a variety of styles
that now have come to be known, generically, as
Art Deco. The full range included Zig Zag,
Moderne, Streamline and Depression Moderne.
Significant to these buildings was the muted pastel
colors that graced their exteriors. Hundreds of
buildings that still stand in Miami Beach, includ-
44 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

ing most apartment houses and hotels south of
Lincoln Road and a few north of it, came from
those schools of architecture.
At the forefront of the new movements were
men such as Roy France, Henry Hohauser, and L.
Murray Dixon. France’s first noteworthy Miami
Beach project was the 1936 Cavalier Hotel at 1320
Ocean Drive. He would be responsible for at least
four other Streamline hotels in Miami Beach: the
St. Moritz (1939) at 1565 Collins Avenue, the
Sands (1939) at 1601 Collins Avenue, the
National (1940) at 1677 Collins Avenue and the
Versailles (1940) at 3425 Collins Avenue.
Hohauser’s firm is credited with designing
more than 300 buildings in the Miami area.
Among his Miami Beach accomplishments were
the Edison Hotel (1935) at 960 Ocean Drive, the
Essex House (1938) at 1001 Collins Avenue, the
Century (1939) at 140 Ocean Drive, the Cardozo
(1939) at 1300 Ocean Drive, the New Yorker
(1940) at 1360 Collins Avenue, and the Warsaw
Ballroom (1940) at 1450 Collins Avenue.
Dixon, like Hohauser, was tremendously prolific.
He is credited with at least 11 significant
Miami Beach works, beginning with the Tides
Hotel in 1936 at 1220 Ocean Drive. He also
designed the Victor (1937) at 1144 Ocean Drive,
and five 1939 hotels, all on Collins Avenue: the
Marlin at 1200 Collins Avenue, the Nash at 1201
Collins Avenue, the Tiffany at 801 Collins
Avenue, the Tudor at 1111 Collins Avenue and
the Palmer House at 1119 Collins Avenue.
The demographics of Miami Beach were
changing. The more southerly section of Miami
Beach, whose properties, initiated by Lummus,
had no restrictions on who might live there,
Miami Beach developer Carl Fisher, wife Jane and son
Jackie pose for a December 24, 1923 issue of the Miami
Beach Register, which noted they were spending Christmas
“at their beautiful Miami Beach home, The Shadows,”
preferring poinsettias to the snows of Long Island.
(COURTESY OF ARVA PARKS & COMPANY)
A polo team of Cuban army officers came to Miami Beach to play an American team on February 23, 1921. The two
squads are shown lined up before the match. (COURTESY OF ARVA PARKS & COMPANY)
were fast becoming a tourist and residential
haven for Jewish people. By 1940, most of the
residences south of Lincoln Road were inhabited
by Jews. The dominance reached almost but
not quite to Lincoln Road. Two blocks south of
it, an office building was occupied by people
with last names such as Cohen, Schwartz, Blum
and Epstein, while closer to the famed boulevard,
within what was considered Fisher territory,
people with names such as Gallagher,
Kaiser, Mitchell, Beatty and Clifford held forth.
Hardly could a day pass without an
announcement in the local newspapers that a
new hotel, apartment building or restaurant
was being constructed. By November 1941, it
was evident that Miami Beach was a runaway
success; perhaps not the way Carl Fisher or
Thomas Pancoast had planned it, but successful
it was. In 1936, Miami Beach had 100
hotels and other accommodations for about
40,000 people. By late 1941, there were more
than 300 hotels, making the city capable of
accommodating 85,000 people. That availability
of rooms was to prove to be a tremendous
resource in the days just ahead—when
America was plunged into World War II.
The war filled Miami Beach’s hotels and apartment
houses. First word of a major military presence
in Miami Beach came in February 1942
when it was announced that 4,000 men, in training
to become administrative Army Air Corps officers,
would soon arrive in Miami Beach. Miami
Beach’s city council leased the municipal golf
course—now known as Bayshore golf course—
for $1 a year as the school’s headquarters and drill
grounds. By February 23, the Army had taken
over six hotels and, with the city commission’s
approval, closed off certain streets in the vicinity of
the school and training course. A strip of beach
between Collins Avenue and the ocean north of
Miami Beach was the site of the rifle practice
range. Troops stood on the avenue side and fired
at targets on an embankment just ashore of the
ocean. Bullets flew in just one direction: seaward.
By 1943, no less than 188 Miami Beach hotels
had been taken over by the U.S. government. In
addition to that, 109 apartment houses and 18
private homes were requisitioned. Every hotel
built by Fisher was among those taken over. The
Nautilus, turned into a military hospital, never
again would serve as a hotel; its total lifespan in
that capacity was but 18 years. Immediately after
the war, it became a veteran’s hospital. Ironically,
this once-restricted hotel eventually became Mt.
Sinai Hospital, a non-sectarian institution organized
and financed by Jews.
Even before the war ended, it became obvious
that a boom similar to that which burst
Miami Beach onto the national scene in the
early ’20s could happen again. Many of the
men who served here were returning to live.
This led to housing projects springing up all
along the southeast Florida coast. For the
wealthy, Bal Harbour was being built.
The city of Miami Beach, its population
increasingly Jewish and incensed by “Gentiles
Only” or “Restricted Clientele” signs posted on
buildings, unanimously enacted an ordinance on
April 17, 1947 which banned such signs as being
discriminatory. It still would be all right to discriminate
in actual rentals, but you just couldn’t
put up a sign saying that’s what you were doing.
Still, Miami Beach’s lifestyle was seasonal.
Many of the hotels and restaurants continued to
close for the summer months and homeowners
either returned to their Northern homes, or
went to the mountains of North Carolina until
the summer heat and mosquitoes had subsided.
But ways to beat the summer heat soon arrived;
it would be revolutionary to the tourist industry.
The first complete hotel air-conditioning system
on Miami Beach was installed in 1946. Between
then and 1955, every major hotel in Miami
Beach converted to air conditioning.
The war had not done much damage to the
area’s criminal underbelly. In fact, it was during
the war years that the S&G Syndicate, a local
cartel of bookmakers, was formed. In 1944, five
CHAPTER X ✧ 45

Residents and visitors alike enjoy exercising on the paths
in Lummus Park along Ocean Drive.
(PHOTO BY ANTOINETTE NATURALE)
Miami Beach bookmakers agreed to eliminate
competition among themselves and make the
financing of other bookmakers their business.
By 1948, this business, according to its own
books, controlled concessions at 200 hotels and
grossed over $26,500,000 in bets. In addition
to the local syndicate, big-time racketeers made
their headquarters in Miami Beach. Gambling
flourished almost everywhere in South Florida:
Sunny Isles, Miami, Surfside and Hallandale.
Their downfall began with the famed
Kefauver Committee, which came to Miami in
the spring of 1950. Chaired by Sen. Estes
Kefauver of Tennessee, who was building a
crime-fighter reputation en route to two failed
runs at the Democratic nomination for the
presidency, the committee flushed out both
racketeers and public officials who were being
paid off. The upshot was that the big-time
hoods from around the country laid low for a
while, but the S&G was crushed.
Already on the scene and owning small
hotels in Miami Beach was a brash ex-New
Yorker, Ben Novack. It was his ambition to cre -
ate a grand hotel, a desire shared with a young,
unheralded architect named Morris Lapidus,
Russian-born and New York raised. Novack
used Lapidus to design the interior of his new
Sans Souci Hotel in 1949. Lapidus’ contribu -
tion to the American scene is not so much
measured in height as it is in sweeping curves,
in poles disappearing into so-called “cheese
holes” in the ceiling. After winning court battles
to buy the old Firestone Estate on 43rd Street
and Collins, Novack brought Lapidus to design
the Fontainebleau Hotel. They fought often,
with Lapidus saying he got what he wanted by
making Novack believe it was Novack’s idea.
The $15 million, 565-room hotel opened
on Dec. 20, 1954 with pomp and ceremony.
The Fontainebleau achieved immediate worldwide
status and became Miami Beach’s signa -
ture building. So well known was the
Fontainebleau that until Steve Muss and the
Hilton people took over the hotel, there was
not even a sign in front showing its name.
In 1960, Lapidus was to leave another mark
on Miami Beach. It was the Lincoln Road Mall,
a switchover from a two-way street for automobiles
and pricey shops to a pedestrian mall in
which the times, more likely than the design,
spelled gloom for the historic boulevard.
Ironically, it was a hotel not in Miami Beach
but in two municipalities north—past Surfside,
in Bal Harbour—that brought immense publicity
to Miami Beach. It came in the form of radio
and television broadcasts by Arthur Godfrey
from Tom Raffington’s 1946-built Kenilworth
Hotel near Baker’s Haulover Cut. In addition to
the high visibility success Miami Beach publicity
guru Hank Meyer reaped when he got Harry
Truman to pose for photographers wearing one
A yacht beckons in front of the Eden Roc Hotel. (PHOTO BY RANDALL ROBINSON)
of his client’s loud cabana shirts, this was one of
the publicist’s earliest giant successes.
What Godfrey began, others began to
duplicate. Other television shows started emanating
from Miami Beach, always at the time of
year when it was pleasant there and fiercely
unfortunate elsewhere. Among them were Ed
Sullivan, host of CBS’ “Talk of the Town”
Sunday night variety show, and Jack Paar,
whose NBC “Tonight” show was popular.
National telecasts reached their peak a decade
after Godfrey had begun his, highlighted by
the appearance at Miami Beach’s Deauville
Hotel of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show,
and the move of Jackie Gleason’s comedy show
from New York to Miami Beach.
The area south of Lincoln Road always
catered to moderate to lower income people,
and it continued that way, not so much impacted
by the Cubans, but by retired people who
had come south, principally from New York, to
live out their days in sunshine and warmth.
The unique hotels on Ocean Drive had been
taken over by the elderly. On any day, from the
’50s to the ’80s, the sight of hundreds of
retirees sitting on webbed chairs on the porches
of these hotels was a familiar one. Derisively,
the younger generation referred to those hotel
porches as “God’s Waiting Room.”
Transformation was becoming a prevailing
word in the Miami Beach lexicon. The icons of
early Miami Beach were coming down, being
replaced by the new: not necessarily better but
new. N.B.T. Roney’s magnificent hotel came
down for an apartment house; Carl Fisher’s first
Beach home gave way to a restaurant; Smith’s
Casino was demolished for apartment houses;
even Joe’s Stone Crab knocked down the Weiss
family’s original house for parking space alongside
the newer restaurant and living quarters.
Like targets in a shooting gallery, early hotels
such as the Flamingo, Fleetwood, Pancoast,
Whitman-Robert Richter were knocked off in
the name of progress. Almost miraculously,
because the Art Deco movement had not yet
begun, the small hotels of Ocean Drive remained
relatively intact, awaiting their Renaissance.
“Life’s a beach” on South Beach with sun, sand and
colorful architecture. (PHOTO BY ANTOINETTE NATURALE)
46 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

On Jan. 1, 1959, Cuba’s Fulgencio Batista
fled Havana ahead of a popular advancing
rebel army headed by Fidel Castro. What followed
was to forever change the history and
lifestyle of South Florida. Much of professional
Cuba was the first element of that island to
seek sanctuary in South Florida. In those earliest
years of the Cuban Diaspora, Miami Beach
was far less affected than Miami until the
Mariel Boatlift in 1980. At the time, South
Beach was decaying, and the new refugees—
far less financially-braced than the first wave in
1960—drifted in to fill the vacancies of the
declining South Beach hotels. With it came
crime problems and, as a result, the elderly
Jewish community began to emigrate from the
area. Southern Miami Beach now would hear
the strains of Latin rather than Yiddish music.
At the same time, another remarkable transformation
was taking place under the forceful
prose of a former New York magazine writer,
Barbara Baer Capitman. She and designer
Leonard Horowitz spoke of their fondness for
the 1930s-era hotel on the ocean front. Meetings
were held, groups were organized and, voila!, the
Art Deco Movement was formed with the purpose
of saving and restoring the decaying hotels.
Barbara Capitman led a revolution on
Miami Beach that today is represented by the
first registered historic district in Miami Beach.
And Art Deco, a heretofore vague idiom created
subsequent to the construction of buildings
now described as being that, became a stock
term among travel agents and tourists. In 1963,
not only was Art Deco a non-existent term, but
the myriad designs that came to be known by
that name were so lightly regarded that a booklet
published that year by the South Florida
Chapter of the American Institute of Architects
ran photographs of 80 examples of architecture
in the Greater Miami area—and not one of
them portrayed any of the buildings that later
would be lumped together as Art Deco.
Capitman’s Miami Design Preservation
League pressured politicians and developers to
see the latent value of the small hotels. At a
hearing on Dec. 13, 1978, a state review board
heard Capitman’s plea proposing National
Register of Historic Places designation for the
roughly 1,200-building district, which was
bordered on the east by the ocean, on the
south by Sixth Street, on the west by a line
slightly east of Alton Road and by Washington
Avenue north of Lincoln Road, and on the
north roughly by the Collins Canal and 23rd
A Miami Beach mansion provides impressive scenery for boaters. (PHOTO BY RANDALL ROBINSON)
Street. The meeting turned out to be an Art
Deco love-in. It opened with a City of Miami
Beach proclamation honoring Capitman, then
settled down as government officials, businessmen
and architectural and artistic types
praised Art Deco. On May 15, 1979, a photo of
Barbara Capitman appeared in the Miami
Herald. It showed her jubilant, with her face
turned toward the heavens and her arms raised
in joy. Behind her was the 1939 Hohauserdesigned
Cardozo Hotel on Ocean Drive.
Despite the powerful opposition, she won. The
National Register of Historic Places designated
the neighborhood as “Old Miami Beach.”
Capitman and her son Andrew made a personal
investment in the new district, purchasing
the Victor Hotel at 1144 Ocean Drive and
beginning a $75,000 restoration project in
September 1980. The Victor, designed by L.
Murray Dixon in 1937, reopened in December,
with guests adorned in 1930s attire thus set -
ting a style mood that was to become standard
in the district. Despite this euphoria, several
other buildings in the district were torn down
for new projects. Despite those losses, her crusade
was largely successful. Capitman died on
March 29, 1990 at the age of 69.
As a result of her persistence, the fact of the
Cuban migration and a movement of young
people to the city, Miami Beach’s demographics
were turned topsy-turvy. Elderly people were
forced out of their previously rental apartments
by the high cost of the same apartment as a condominium.
For all its pain and agony, for its
internecine warfare, Miami Beach nevertheless
was not only surviving its civic ordeals, but was
prospering in spite of it. Throughout the world,
it was being linked to the chic destinations of
the rich and famous, utilized as a fashion-photo
center by international houses and publications.
Miami Beach has been a city driven by
powerful people, not always powerful as in
rich, but powerful, who have made great
impacts in their day. And with each passing
announcement or construction of a new hotel,
towering apartment house or condominium,
Miami Beach’s physical image rotates just a little
more. When John Collins came to the ocean
beach shortly after the turn of the century and
wondered what to do about all the property he
had obtained, he believed the answer was in
avocados. At the time, he was right. What
evolved from that, in such a relatively short
time of the planet’s history, would have
stunned him to his Quaker roots.
The Shops of Bal Harbour, built on the the northern half
of Miami Beach at 9700 Collins, was developed in the
1960s by Stanley Whitman, who was “consumed with the
idea of a location with the most beautiful shops in the
world.” They offer a tranquil setting for upscale shopping.
(COURTESY OF BAL HARBOUR SHOPS)
Howard Kleinberg is a Miami historian and the author of three books, Miami: The Way We Were, The Florida Hurricane and Disaster/1992, and Miami Beach:
A History. For 38 years he was with The Miami News, beginning as a sports writer and working his way up to editor, a post he held for the last twelve years of the
newspaper’s existence. He is a national columnist for Cox Newspapers and also writes a weekly column for The Miami Herald based on his perspective of Miami history.
He and his wife of 47 years live in South Dade. Their four children and nine grandchildren all live in South Florida.
CHAPTER X ✧ 47

The Grand Concourse Apartments, completed in 1926, just before the real estate boom collapsed, were the first—and last—of a series of apartments and hotels planned for Miami Shores. The
Mediterranean Revival structure was designed by noted architect Robert Law Weed. (COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
MIAMI SHORES AND EL PORTAL
B Y S ETH B RAMSON
While Miami Shores Village was incorporated
on January 2, 1932, the community actually
goes back to William Gleason, a New York entrepreneur
who showed up in the area in the late
1870s. He established his business and a post
office at approximately what was to become NE
12th Avenue and 99th Street.
Gleason held a great deal of power in those
days and seemed to control the county commission
at the time. However, others were moving
into the area, and farming was becoming both a
cash crop and a subsistence issue. One of the
major crops was the coontie, which, after substantial
cooking, could be converted to starch. In
fact, in 1904, coontie gave the area, by now
known as Biscayne, one of its few industries
when A.B. Hurst opened a starch factory and
sawmill at what is now NE Second Avenue and
103rd Street.
When the first county road was built into the
area in 1892, the Biscayne post office was
opened, or re-opened, depending on the source.
Old postmarks indicate that the name was in use
in 1923. The post office was serviced by trains of
the Florida East Coast Railway, which reached
Miami in April of 1896. The FEC station was
located at 103rd Street, and the tracks are now
the site of the Miami Shores golf course.
In 1901, Major Hugh Gordon, the son of
Confederate General John B. Gordon, moved
into the area and began planting large crops of
tomato and pineapple and laying out what
would become an extensive grapefruit grove. In
1905, Miami furniture leader T.V. Moore bought
the property owned by William and Mary
Brooks and began planting grapefruit and
pineapple on a large scale.
By 1917, Lee T. Cooper, formerly of Dayton,
Ohio, had quietly purchased much of the Moore
property, and, along with other acreage, owned
some 1300 acres in the area. Cooper would
found the town of El Portal and would name part
of his property Bay View Estates. It was Bay View
Estates that, essentially, became Miami Shores.
By 1923, just in time for what would become
one of the greatest land selling booms in United
States history, Cooper and his associate, Dayton
druggist Harry Tressler, had platted 127 acres,
mostly on both sides of West Dixie Highway
(N.E. Second Avenue) between Little River and
N.E. 95th Street.
It was in this time frame that Hugh Anderson
appeared on the scene. Though little has been
written about him, Anderson was one of South
Florida’s most unique characters and was a prime
force in the development of what would become
Miami Shores.
Anderson had developed the Venetian Islands
Company and was the builder of the Venetian
Causeway, so he was intimately familiar with the
Miami area. It was his belief in the future that led
him to offer Cooper $2 million for his acreage.
Cooper agreed, but kept what would become El
Portal. Anderson, with his associates Roy C.
Wright, Mrs. Ellen S. Harris, and J.B. Jeffries,
formed the Miami Shores and Shoreland
Companies. They believed that if George Merrick
could do what he was doing with Coral Gables,
creating “The City Beautiful,” they could develop
“America’s Mediterranean” in Miami Shores.
With millions of dollars in real estate sales in
the mid-1920s, the future looked secure for the
Shoreland Company. In fact, Anderson and his
partners were so sure that the boom would continue
indefinitely, that they committed to building
a series of islands in Biscayne Bay, extending
from the Venetian Islands north and connected
by what was to be known as “The Mid Bay
Causeway.” The plan was never executed.
The Shoreland Company owned not only
what was to become the Village of Miami Shores,
but also extensive acreage in what is now North
Miami. In fact, the original Shoreland Company
property included what, years later, would
become the Broad Causeway, as well as what was
to become Indian Creek Island. Millions and
millions of dollars were spent by the Shoreland
Company, but it would all soon come to a crashing
end.
On February 5, 1925, the residents of what was
then known as Arch Creek incorporated the area
north of N.E. 121st Street as Miami Shores. That
name in that area would last only seven years.
On September 17th and 18th 1926, Miami’s
most devastating hurricane put an end to the
great boom, bringing down dozens, if not hundreds,
of real estate schemes and developments,
eventually including the Shoreland Company. By
1928 Bessemer properties had taken control of
the defaulted properties of the Miami Shores
development.
With Roy Hawkins (credited as the founder of
today’s Miami Shores) at the helm, the Miami
Shores area, which had actually been part of the
City of Miami, petitioned the state legislature for
de-annexation, as near-bankrupt Miami was simply
unable to provide municipal services to the
area north of N.E. 87th Street. In 1931, the legislature
granted the petition of the Bessemer properties
to become independent. Although a town of
Miami Shores existed north of 121st Street, the
48 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

Designed by Kiehnel and Elliott, this Mediterranean Revival
home was built in 1925-26 for Roy C. Wright, vice president
of the Shoreland Development Company. Original antique
Cuban roof tiles added to its Old World charm. The house is
now being restored by its present owner, Perry Alexander.
The Miami Shores Theater, erected in 1946, hosted many movie premieres. The theater was designed by Miami architect Harold P. Stewart.
(COURTESY OF THE SETH BRAMSON COLLECTION)
(PHOTO BY MARK GREENE)
Hawkins petition for his community to become
Miami Shores carried the day, with the argument
that it had a prior claim to the name. With
Hawkins’ clout, the Miami Shores name was given
to the community now known as Miami Shores.
The former town of Miami Shores became the
Town, and later the City, of North Miami.
The Story of Miami Shores, is of course,
replete with tales, fables and anecdotes, but the
success of the Village (the community has never
This elegant Colonial-Revival style home graces NE 95th
Street in Miami Shores. (COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
used any name but Village of Miami Shores) has
been based as much on good fortune as on
strong and strict enforcement of zoning codes.
For many years, Lawton McCall served as the village
manager, and, with only two exceptions, the
management of the Village has been in strong
and capable hands.
Another facet of Village life was the Country
Club. During the depression, in 1936, Bessemer
donated 20 acres to the Village for use as a park.
Built with the help of the WPA, this park would
eventually become Miami Shores Country Club,
for many years a fine and elegant private club,
and the only municipally owned private club in
the state of Florida. The club is now leased out
and is no longer considered “private.”
Today, Miami Shores is a “Village” of over
10,000 people. It is the home of two highly regarded
educational institutions: Miami Country Day
School , started by the Miami Shores Presbyterian
Church, and the co-educational Barry University,
founded in 1940 as a Catholic college for women.
Miami Shores prides itself on its “small town”
feeling. Its streets are lined with many beautiful
homes, no small number of them being meticulously
maintained from the original Shoreland
Company construction. Miami Shores, which
refers to itself as “The Village Beautiful” retains a
charm and grace that, sadly, has been lost in far
too many other areas of Miami-Dade County.
EL PORTAL
Located adjacent to Miami Shores is the
Village of El Portal, a charming residential neighborhood
incorporated in 1938. It was originally
a twenty-six acre estate purchased from Julia
Tuttle for $l30,000 in 1898 by Ferney McVeigh,
a botanist who transformed the property into a
lush garden. In 1925, the land was purchased by
D.C. Clarke, who envisioned turning it into
“Miami’s most beautiful and picturesque subdivision.”
The development originally was to have
had an English theme, and was called Sherwood
Forest. One English Tudor style home was constructed
before the boom ended. The handsome
house still survives, at 301 NE 86th Street, with
a gabled roof, textured stucco exterior and halftimber
detailing.
El Portal stretches from 86th Street and
Biscayne Boulevard, where it has footage for
one block, west to NW 2nd Avenue. Its southern
boundary is NE-NW 85th Street at Little
River, and on the north it borders Miami Shores
just north of 90th Street. Although the only
business section of El Portal is the block that
fronts on Biscayne Boulevard, El Portal does
allow offices on NE 2nd Avenue that are compatible
with the municipality.
The Village of El Portal boasts the first archeological
site to be preserved by Dade County.
The El Portal Archeological Zone and Burial
Mound is located on the northern bank of the
Little River, situated on an elevated ridge at 370
NE 86th Street to 500 NE 87th Street.
It includes a prehistoric Indian burial
mound, a prehistoric Indian village, a mid-nineteenth
century pioneer homesite and a midnineteenth
century coontie mill. The burial
mound, an oval about fifty feet in diameter and
four feet in height, represents nearly 1800 years
of Indian habitation. The zone was dedicated as
a public park in the 1920s and commemorated
with a plaque originally placed by the Daughters
of the American Revolution. It is still a well
maintained public green space.
The lights of Miami Shores Presbyterian Church, which
founded Miami Country Day School, shine in the darkness.
(COURTESY OF THE SETH BRAMSON COLLECTION)
Seth Bramson came to Miami with his parents in 1946. The Miami Herald refers to him as “near-native,” and many refer to him as “Mr. Miami Memorabilia.” A professor
at Johnson & Wales University, he is founder and current president of the Miami Memorabilia Collector’s Club and is the Company Historian of the Florida East Coast
Railway. His book Speedway to Sunshine: The Story of the Florida East Coast Railway is the official history of the railroad. In addition to the book, he has written more
than 70 articles on Florida local and transportation history, and his collections of FEC Railway memorabilia, Floridiana and Miamiana are legendary.
CHAPTER XI ✧ 49

Students stand outside the Arch Creek School in 1906. (COURTESY OF THE WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN LIBRARY ARCHIVES)
NORTHEAST DADE:
BISCAYNE PARK, FULFORD-BY-THE-SEA, NORTH MIAMI AND AVENTURA
B Y M ALINDA C LEARY
In the America of the 1800s agriculture was
dominant. Florida was blessed with cheap and
abundant land and a ten-month growing sea -
son. The adventurous hearty souls seeking new
beginnings were welcomed to this Edenic environment.
Isolated clusters of settlements began
to increase in size and number. By the end of
the 19th century, Henry Flagler’s Florida East
Coast Railroad was the fertilizer for the sturdy
settlement roots that blossomed into the
uncontrolled land boom years of the 1920s.
The F.E.C. enabled unprecedented population
growth into South Florida and continuous
shipment of the produce from the fruitful subtropical
land to the north.
As Flagler extended his railroad south of
St. Augustine to the Florida extremities, the
stations strategically located in northern Dade
County began with Ojus; the Fulford station
was a mile to the south. Arch Creek, Biscayne,
Little River, Lemon City and Buena Vista completed
the southern route for railroad stops.
Though the areas around these station loca -
tions had been settled by homesteaders long
before the arrival of the railroad, at the beginning
of the century the farmland was trans -
formed by the railroad into the present dis -
tinct areas of Biscayne Park, Fulford and
North Miami.
The most visual references to our past are the
buildings created for specific purposes at relevant
times. Miami’s architectural environment is
relatively new to the span of its history, but it has
emerged from a natural landscape to one of
urban complexity. Historical landmarks have
materialized to become either venerated or
destroyed from the often confusing and com -
plex converging of the natural and the man -
made. The survivors remain as symbols not only
of their creators but also of the times in which
they were created. While perhaps they are not
necessarily tidings of antiquity, the isolated remnants
do vitalize a memory of past struggles as
well as grandeur. Biscayne Park, Fulford, and
North Miami make their architectural contributions
to the passing of time and the animation of
Miami’s varied distinctive local histories.
BISCAYNE PARK
In the intricate composition that embodies
Greater Miami, the small, triangular, residential
area of Biscayne Park survives very much as it
was originally created nearly seventy-five years
ago. The “Park,” as it is more commonly called,
is two-thirds of a square mile. It is bordered by
the City of North Miami on the north, the
Florida East Coast Railroad tracks on the east,
and the Biscayne Canal on the west. The grid
of thoroughfares is designed with numerous
parkways and extensive medians, their green
lawns and large trees giving the geometrically
defined Village of Biscayne Park its distinctive
park-like character.
The Village is protected by its own police
force and the watchful eyes of its citizens. It is a
strictly residential community of a little more
than 3,000 and is zoned for single family residences
and duplexes. Its occasional apartment
houses were built before the town was created
in 1931 and before the 1945 zoning ordinances.
In 1921, when Miami was preparing for the
soon-to-arrive flood of land speculators, the area
that was to become Biscayne Park was unincorporated,
undeveloped and for the most part
fields of tomatoes belonging to Arthur Mertlow
Griffing. Griffing was originally from Norwich,
New York and had settled in Florida in 1903 to
manage the Little River nursery. He built a large
home and established Griffing Tropical
Nurseries and Groves in and around a sevenacre
site that today is the Colonial Shopping
Center along Dixie Highway and 125th Street in
North Miami. Griffing was a landscaper for Carl
Fisher’s Miami Beach projects. By 1917 the horticulturist
changed hats to become a developer.
By the 1920s, Griffing had acquired and
began developing land along the Dixie
50 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

Highway north of Miami. The nursery was sold
and the land subdivided and named Griffing
Biscayne Park Estates. Griffing continued his
love of landscaping by carefully planting the
area with shrubs and trees so that Biscayne Park
Estates resembled a huge botanical garden.
Early in January 1923, Griffing began
advertising in the Miami Daily Metropolis and
set up a miniature of the Park on the grounds
of the Halcyon Hotel on Flagler Street.
Prospective buyers were shuttled from downtown
Miami to the new “Gateway to Miami.”
Griffing combined his land sales enthusiasm
with his nursery promotions by offering free
strawberry shortcake to potential buyers. They
were promised a 100 to 300 per cent return on
their investments as had those who bought
only a few years before.
One of Griffin’s earliest advertisements
appearing in the Metropolis beckoned potential
residents with the lure of “splendid rich soil
almost free of rock.” Additional enticements
promised that “a big kitchen garden and a yard
full of clean healthy chickens are luxuries you
can have at Biscayne Park.” Looking for young
families to live in his new development,
Griffing also provided a safe environment for
children to play near their homes by creating
many culs-de-sac. Today these same spaces
continue as mini parks that inhibit a speedway
for a volume of traffic Griffing could never
have foreseen.
The well-landscaped streets, medians and
park areas laid out by Griffing set the stage for
the first homes erected in the development,
costing between $4,000 and $4,500. The
Village homes were described in a Miami
Herald advertisement in March 1923 as having
“distinctividuality.” Within a year the firm
The accents of Mission-style homes throughout Biscayne Park are easily recognized today by their simplicity of form, stuccoed walls
and flat roofs fronted with parapets. (PHOTO BY MALINDA CLEARY)
The Works Progress Administration built a log cabin for the Biscayne Park Village Hall , a reference to the Depression as well as
to the simplicity of American frontier days. It officially opened in January, 1935 and is still used today. (PHOTO BY MALINDA CLEARY)
reported three-fourths of the original development
had been sold, and those interested in
the remaining lots were urged to come before
it was too late and prices increased. The strawberry
shortcake incentive was upgraded to a
mixed box of grapefruit and oranges.
By 1929, the Park contained 62 homes, and
through the 1930s, sixty more were built. In
the Park, as well as in the greater Miami area,
the years following the World War II were the
most expansive. More than two hundred
homes were added to the residential register
during this period. The Park’s comfortable
modest homes are a varied architectural mixture
that reflects the decades in which they
were created. The “distinctividuality” homes of
the 1920s and 1930s are today a major contribution
to the enchantment of Biscayne Park.
Individualized Mission Revival Style homes are
scattered throughout the Park, and one or
more of these attractive, well-built homes can
be found within any square block.
The Mission/Mediterranean style was a natural
for south Florida’s climate, which is similar
to the areas around the Mediterranean Sea.
The style was ideal for boom time conditions
existing in south Florida in the 1920s. Homes
as well as businesses could be built quickly at
a minimum construction cost with the application
of concrete and plaster applied to a wood
frame and a few decorations and finishing
touches. The accents of Mission—style homes
throughout Biscayne Park are easily recognized
by their simplicity of form, stuccoed surfaces
and flat roofs fronted with parapets.
By a vote of its 113 citizens, the Town of
Biscayne Park was incorporated on December
31, 1931, and, on June 16, 1933, a state charter
was granted, changing the name to the Village of
Biscayne Park. The Mission/Mediterranean style
of the homes, which reflected America’s historical
European connections, was not chosen for
the Biscayne Park Village Hall. Rather, the
Works Progress Administration built a log cabin,
a clear and distinct reference to the Depression
as well as to the simplicity of the American frontier
days. On February 1, 1933, at the height of
the Depression, the Federal Emergency Relief
Program provided the labor for the Dade
County pine construction. William Green, a resident
of the Park, as well as a Councilperson,
was a Regional Administrator for the Federal
program and was certainly instrumental in the
creation of the Park’s singular and distinctive
public building.
The charm and simplicity of the Log Cabin
is matched with the economic austerity with
which it was constructed. The major expenses
of materials and labor were provided by the
donations of Dade County pine logs by the
county and of labor compliments of the Works
Progress Administration. Actual expenses
incurred were a grand total of $247.00, met by
individual donations of $5-$20 and gifts from
the Card Club that ranged from $10 to $22.
The balance sheet of donations and expenditures
begins February 1, 1933 and ends with
the building’s completion in January of 1935. In
light of today’s multiple million dollar projects,
CHAPTER XII ✧ 51

The Florida East Coast Railroad opened up development of South Florida by hauling produce north and tourists south, as
can be seen in this 1920s photo of the FEC loading platform at the Alabama Hotel in North Dade.
(THELMA RIDDLE PHOTO, COURTESY OF THE SETH BRAMSON COLLECTION)
these modest sums seem very quaint, but when
held in the light of the circumstances in which
they occurred during the national depression,
they reflect generous and caring residents and a
community project that was conscientious and
carefully controlled.
At a special ceremony on January 24, 1935
the finished Log Cabin was officially turned
over to the Village, and to this day has been a
center for the daily operations of the Park.
Since its creation in the Thirties, the Village
Hall has been the prized symbol of Biscayne
Park. Forty years after its creation the rever -
ence for the cabin was assured by the Civic,
Garden, and Women’s clubs seeking and
obtaining historic designation for the building
as a Dade County Landmark.
As homeowners carry on the traditions of
keeping Biscayne Park green and clean, Arthur
Griffing’s Botanical Garden continues to thrive.
All the residents, especially the younger families,
appreciate the safe environment found
within the confines of the triangular community.
A walk in the park is possible for any resi -
dent night and day, and it is not unusual to see
a neighbor at 6:00 a.m. or 8:00 p.m. out for a
daily constitutional.
FULFORD-BY-THE-SEA
In the early 1920s the city of North Miami
Beach was better known as Fulford-by-the-Sea,
an area west of the railroad tracks and Dixie
Highway and in no way near the sea. Locally,
and more truthfully, Fulford-by-the-Sea was
named “Fulford-by-the-FEC” (Florida East
Coast Railroad).
The site was named after the popular
Captain William Hawkins Fulford, the keeper
of the House of Refuge, which had been created
in 1876 at the New River inlet. The House
of Refuge was one of five that the government
had created to aid and support shipwrecked
mariners. By the 1890s, due to improvements
in navigational guides as well as ship construction,
the purpose of the Houses of Refuge
segued into one of hospitality. The genial and
hospitable Captain Fulford and his wife had
repeat customers who were subjects for newspaper
articles appearing in the Metropolis
social sections.
Fulford-by-the-Sea was in no way by the sea, being west of the railroad tracks, but it was imaginatively promoted in the
1920s, as can be seen by this bus for potential customers. (COURTESY OF THE HISTORICAL MUSEUM OF SOUTHERN FLORIDA)
The town of Fulford was originally the hundred
acres located near Snake Creek (presently
the Oleta River area) which Captain William
Hawkins Fulford had claimed for a homestead
in October 1891. By 1900 Fulford was a thriving
farm center with a railway depot, and by
the early 1920s Lafe Allen and Joshua
Reynolds began the 557-acre subdivision
Fulford-By-The-Sea.
Wide streets were a priority for the new
boom-time city, with some of the streets in the
business section to be 125 feet wide. Lots for
Fulford-by-the-Sea began selling in 1922. Two
years later the original development was
bought out by Merle C. Tebbetts and his
Florida Cities Finance Company. Tebbetts
This eclectic neoclassical monument at NE 172 Street and 23
Avenue is the only lasting memorial to Fulford by the Sea.
(COURTESY OF THE HISTORICAL MUSEUM OF SOUTHERN FLORIDA)
added a water plant, a community social hall,
imposing stone gateways and a memorial fountain
to the nascent development.
Stiff competition for land sales created originality
in promotions, and Merle Tebbetts was
among the best of the dream merchants of the
boom years. Tebbetts’ development began its
1924 advertising campaign by boasting of a
million-dollar improvement program. By the
summer, additional improvements would
make the development into a “High Class” residential
subdivision. The sales offices at 145
East Flagler Street included a lecture room and
concert stage for a ten-piece orchestra to play
two daily concerts.
Tebbetts’ unbridled enthusiasm and magnanimity
also made for an interesting footnote in
the history of the University of Miami. As soon
as the City of Miami obtained a charter for
its university in 1925, four sites were under
52 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

consideration for its construction: Miami Beach,
the northern section of Miami, the southeast
section, and the southwest area where Florida
International University is presently located. It
seems likely that Tebbetts, as president of
Florida Cities Finance Company, made an
offer to the city fathers to sell them property to
locate the new university in north Miami. When
Coral Gables’ George Merrick’s more than gen -
erous offer was quickly accepted, Tebbetts’ offer
of land for the University of Miami quickly
became his own design for a university in
North Miami which he then boasted of as a
potential recreational center of unparalleled
beauty and wholesomeness.
Tebbetts declared Fulford-By-The-Sea was
not a “paper city,” and advertisements pro -
claimed the development consisted of large
parks, facilities for recreation and sports, broad
landscaped streets, wide sidewalks, water service,
and an adequate storm sewage system.
Additionally, an electrical lighting system and
all city services and facilities would be provid -
ed. In reality, there were few if any of the amenities
listed that were actually provided, and, following
the 1926 disaster, postal authorities
began legal proceeding against M.C. Tebbetts
and the Florida Cities Finance Company for
fraudulent use of the mails. The following April
after he was arrested on the mail fraud charges,
Tebbetts’ subdivision went bankrupt.
Tebbetts’ one claim to fame is a North
Miami Beach footnote known as “Fulford’s
Folly.” Early in 1926 plans were announced for
a 12,000-seat, wooden-banked auto track for a
$30,000 race. Even though Fulford-By-The-
Sea claimed a perfect zoning system that permanently
protected residential property from
business encroachment, the track was con -
structed. Despite the rail embargo and scarce
building supplies throughout Dade County,
construction began August 24, 1925. The first
300-mile race was on Washington’s Birthday
February 22, 1926. Again, imagination and
enthusiasm collided with reality, and prize
money and crowd estimates were less than
originally envisioned. In the one and only race,
Peter De Paolo set a world average speed
record of 129.29 miles per hour, and the fastest
lap ever turned on a closed course, 142.91
mph, was set by Bob McDonough.
The new world records set that day rightly
had witnesses believing that the new speedway
would bring big-time auto-racing to South
Florida. Plans were made for the new season
and other racing events were projected for the
fabulous Fulford oval. The high winds of the
September 17th hurricane totally devastated
the wooden structure. An incredible amount of
time, talent and treasure had been spent for the
The William Jennings Bryan Elementary School, built in 1930, stands on the site of the original 1905 Arch Creek School.
(COURTESY OF THE WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN LIBRARY ARCHIVES)
one and only event to be held at the racetrack.
These plans also coincided with the demise
of the Florida Cities Finance Company and the
grand ambitions of M.C. Tebbetts: No race -
track, no university, no beautiful modern city.
The subdivision reverted to its previous owners,
Lafe Allen and Joshua Reynolds, and in
October 1926 the people voted to incorporate
the area and name it simply Fulford. In 1931
Fulford was renamed North Miami Beach. The
only remaining sign of grandeur of the
Fulford-By-The-Sea development is the eclectic
neo-classical monument at NE 172 Street
and 23 Avenue. The monument, marking the
entrance of the subdivision, and the wide
boulevard on which it stands are the lasting
memorials to one of the more colorful cre -
ations of the Florida boom years.
NORTH MIAMI
Today’s City of North Miami began as the
general area around Arch Creek. The natural
and abundant resources of the Arch Creek
region had been available to mankind for thousands
of years. Archeological digs have pointed
to Indian habitation here from 500 B.C.
through 1300 A.D. A military path cleared
between Fort Lauderdale and Fort Dallas in
Miami during the Seminole War of 1855-1858
used the natural bridge over Arch Creek.
The first settlers to claim the territory for
any duration were Charles J. Ihle and his friend
Henry John Burkhardt in the late 1880s.
Newly discharged from the Marine Corps, they
decided to return to the enjoyable environs of
Florida. Burkhardt continued his wanderings,
but Ihle called home the 80 acres of land he
purchased from the State of Florida for one
dollar an acre in the Arch Creek region.
Ihle sold 40 acres and planted the other
forty in tropical fruits and tomatoes, his pri -
mary income crop. Surpluses were sent by
schooner to Key West and then on to the
north. As Flagler moved his railroad south in
1896, he decided to place a station at Arch
Creek. The station, built in 1903, was located
where the present 125th Street crosses the railroad
track. The FEC station additionally served
as a community center for parties and gettogethers.
For the most part the area remained
farmland settled by men who saw the beauty
and bounty of the land. Land speculation and
development emerged twenty years later.
By the 1920s, more families had moved into
the Arch Creek area and to the newly created
suburbs of Fulford-by-the-Sea and Griffing’s
Biscayne Park Estates. In the midst of the
Florida Boom years, the residents of the northern
end of the county decided to incorporate. A
meeting was held at Irons Manor, which had
been a brief and unsuccessful development in
the present 135th Street area. Thirty-eight voters
decided to name the newly incorporated area
Miami Shores. Its claim to the shore was its eastern
border that went from the bay to the ocean.
The southern limit was the city of Miami and
the northern was Golden Glades Boulevard,
three miles south of the Broward County line.
Optimistically, the founders believed that Miami
Shores would become one of the triple Miami
cities—Miami, Miami Beach, Miami Shores.
At the same time, about a mile south of the
town of Miami Shores, the Shoreland Company
named its newly created subdivision Miami
Shores. Quite naturally there was much confusion
between the town of Miami Shores and the
subdivision also named Miami Shores. By 1931,
the state legislature settled the conflict by pass -
ing an act changing the name of the town of
Miami Shores to North Miami and reserving the
name Miami Shores for the subdivision, which
would vote to incorporate on January 2, 1932.
CHAPTER XII ✧ 53

The Natural Bridge at Arch Creek was used by the military during the Seminole War of 1855-58 and was a popular tourist
destination in the early twentieth century. (COURTESY OF THE SETH BRAMSON COLLECTION)
The James Matthews home, at 12615 Arch Creek Road, was built at the turn of the century of Dade County pine. It
withstood the killer hurricane of 1926 while homes built of lath and plaster were destroyed and is well maintained today.
(PHOTO BY MALINDA CLEARY)
Goats, chickens, emus and sheep are part of the barn-yard attractions for school children at the “Little Farm” in the historic
Lemon City area, now known as Little Haiti. (PHOTO BY BECKY ROPER MATKOV)
The hurricane of 1926 was no less devas -
tating in north Miami than the rest of the county.
Many of the homes, especially those built of
lath and plaster, were hard hit. The older
homes, built of solid South Florida pine, withstood
the brutal assault. The little home that
remains today at 12615 Arch Creek Road is
visible proof of Dade County pine’s durability.
The home was built just at the turn of the century,
one of four for the employees of a large
fertilizer and packing plant that was located
nearby. The Matthews family purchased the
home in 1929, and it remains in the family
today, lovingly maintained as a visual legacy of
North Miami’s beginnings.
By 1927 the city recognized a need for an
official city hall. It was designed in the popular
Mediterranean style and housed not only offices
for city business but an area for two fire engines.
The superintendent of construction was the
then mayor, and the architect was W.P. Shappell.
North Miami City Hall was dedicated in 1928.
It fronted the only paved street in town at that
time (125th Street) and could additionally boast
of having the only telephone in town.
In an 1959 interview for the Miami News,
J.H. Gribble, a resident since 1908, recalled
that when the phone rang a big gong was heard
throughout the hall. It served the police and
fire departments, the offices of the city and the
700 residents. The public utility was as good as
any reason to gather and chat with city officials
and neighbors. Sadly, the two-storied medieval
confection complete with a bell tower was
replaced in 1964 with a new building. The
telephone gong as well as the nest of white
owls that called the cupola home were erased
from the daily routine of North Miamians.
A lasting landmark for North Miami has
been William Jennings Bryan Elementary
School. It stands on the site of the original
1905 Arch Creek District School. The original
12’ x 20’ classroom expanded to accommodate
the growing student body, and in 1916 a larger
structure was built for children from 79th street
to the Broward Line on an eleven-and-a-halfacre
site. A fire in 1928 destroyed that building.
On January 13, 1930 the new school was dedicated
and named in honor of a nationally prominent
citizen and former resident of Miami,
William Jennings Bryan, who had died in 1925.
Mr. Bryan’s daughter, The Honorable Ruth Bryan
Owens, a Florida Congressional representative,
donated a painting of her father to the school at
the dedication. The $l25,000 school was
designed by E.L. Robertson and constructed by
Henry Sprista. The Mediterranean design with
an open courtyard provided excellent ventilation
and modern equipment. A recent addition complements
the historical style.
54 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

The Spanish Monastery, located at 16711 West Dixie Highway in North Miami, was originally built in Sacramenia, Spain in 1141. The abandoned structure was bought by William Randolph Hearst
for his San Simeon, California estate but collected dust at a Brooklyn warehouse for 26 years. In 1952 it was shipped stone by stone to Miami and reassembled. It is now an Episopal Church.
(COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
The 1926 hurricane narrowed the bound -
aries of North Miami. The bridge from the
mainland to the Haulover Surfside beach had
been destroyed, and the residents withdrew to
form their own city. Others set up their own
municipalities, including the Village of
Biscayne Park, Biscayne Gardens, North Miami
Beach and the Graves tract (Interama).
North Miami’s growth and development
was slow and did not move forward with any
momentum until after World War II, when all
of Miami was again booming. From the end of
the 1940s through the 1950s building permits
were issued for more than $24 million and the
population increased by nearly nine thousand.
The “City of Progress” continues to grow
today as innovations in civic and cultural entities
boast of new and modern facilities. The city’s
120 officers recently moved into their new
39,000-square-foot, four-story complex that is a
model for new station designs throughout the
United States. In the area where the
Mediterranean City Hall once stood is the
impressive Joan Lehman Museum of
Contemporary Art, an institution for major
exhibitions and collections. The building was
created by the renowned New York architect
Charles Gawathmey with Miami’s Jose Gelabert-
Navia Architects. The $3.5 million, 23,000-
square-foot structure brings international recognition
to North Miami as a focal point for cutting
edge exhibitions, in contrast to the sur -
rounding traditional main street storefronts.
The historically rich and culturally diverse
“City of Progress” is the fourth largest city in
Miami -Dade County. If Mr. Ihle could return,
he would be amazed at a population of 52,000
and over 20,000 homes, as well as two major
universities—Florida International University’s
North Miami Campus and Johnson and Wales
University for culinary arts. The one-room
school house has grown to five elementary
schools, three middle schools and one senior
high school. The packing house and general
store have been superseded by over 3,000
businesses that are located within the city’s four
business districts and industrial areas offering a
varied spectrum of goods and services. Firmly
rooted in the past, North Miami looks toward
a bright and sunny future.
AVENTURA
When one speaks of Miami’s historic neighborhoods,
Aventura does not immediately leap
to the forefront of a list of distinguished and
long established communities. Yet as earlier
visionaries projected their ideals for a community
onto undeveloped areas, so too did Donald
Soffer, the creator and developer of Aventura.
To most of the Miami-Dade County resi -
dents living south of Flagler Street, Aventura
simply means a shopping center. For the
20,000 citizens living in the four square-mile
area of Aventura, it is home. One of Miami-
Dade County’s newest municipalities,
Aventura’s borders are Broward County on the
north, North Miami Beach on the south, the
Intracoastal Waterway on the east and the
Florida East Coast Railroad on the west.
Aventura was officially incorporated as a city
on November 7, 1995, when the residents
unanimously approved the city’s charter. The
incorporated City’s short history was preceded
by a thirty-year work in progress.
A man of action as well as vision saw the
four-square-mile chunk of swampland in
Northeast Dade County as a blank slate for the
creation of an enclave of exclusive communities.
Don Soffer came, saw and developed, just
as some sixty years earlier Carl Fisher had
Miami Edison Senior High School, alma mater for many
Miami leaders, is now Miami Edison Middle School.
Located in the Little Haiti area, the school has received a
National Trust Award for its beautiful restoration.
(PHOTO BY DAN FORER, COURTESY OF R.J. HEISENBOTTLE ARCHITECTS)
CHAPTER XII ✧ 55

The Aventura Mall opened in 1983 and is one of the largest shopping centers in South Florida. A contemporary
Mediterranean façade encloses a multi-level entertainment center. (COURTESY OF AVENTURA MALL)
developed a mangrove swamp east of the city of
Miami into a “Million Dollar Sandbar” called
Miami Beach.
Don Soffer and his father Harry had suc -
cessfully created shopping centers in the
Pittsburgh area. Their initial vision for the
North Miami area was a shopping center in a
tropical setting. The area at that time was designated
Biscayne Village. Soffer thought his
new development should convey a livelier,
fun-filled designation, one of adventure.
Biscayne Village became Aventura. By the early
1970s the 785 acres initially purchased were
morphed into a planned community that welcomed
all ages and provided amenities that
would attract those who were seeking the best
in living conditions.
The Soffers had to prepare their site as Carl
Fisher and George Merrick had both done
when they created Miami Beach and Coral
Gables. Carl Fisher’s preparations involved
moving six million cubic yards of bay bottom
onto the land to create Miami Beach. George
Merrick dug a twenty-mile canal connecting
Coral Gables to the Bay area, thus giving him
an advertising boast of having forty miles of
waterfront property. The Soffers dredged and
filled nine million cubic yards, creating a working
base for the planned community.
The next order of business, once Aventura’s
foundation had been established, was the
planting of 50,000 coconut trees from Jamaica.
No image of a tropical experience is without
graceful swaying palms and colorful flowers as
icons for warm breezes and sunny skies that
enhance and complement the architecture.
Soffer insured future maintenance for the new
tropical paradise by creating a permanent
nursery on the premises for propagation of the
community’s plants and shrubs.
Don Soffer’s original plan to build a shopping
mall was extended and modified until a
city was created. When the simple vision
became compound, Turnberry Associates was
created and has in the last thirty years developed
thousands of acres of land, more than
fifteen million square feet of retail space and
some 2,000 apartments and residences. The
master plan for this luxury community began
with residential construction to be followed
by retail and commercial development. The
community was built around a 241-acre
“Central Park,” as Frederick Law Olmsted
created for New York City in the 19th
Century. The Central Park for this South
Florida neighborhood featured two championship
golf courses, which serve as a perfect
backdrop for the high-rise buildings and
breathtaking views.
Moderate priced homes, as demanded by the
market of the early 1970s, gave way to the full
extent of the original visions. In the early 1980s,
Turnberry Isle emerged with four high-rise towers
on the Intracoastal Waterway. Newer projects
followed throughout the next decades.
Although Soffer sold property to other
developers, and development continues today,
Turnberry Isle set the initial style for accommodations
of prosperity, combining modernity
with Old World standards of hospitality.
Located on 300 acres in the Aventura enclave,
minutes away from either Ft. Lauderdale’s or
Miami’s airport, Turnberry blends privacy, security
and luxury. The thriving resort of Turnberry
in the south-central area of Scotland holds the
original lure for the best a resort can offer. The
name was translated to equal if not superior
recreation and spa area here in South Florida.
The City of Aventura projects much of the
idealism and excitement of Turnberry Isle.
Development of Aventura continues at a
record-setting pace. Abundant, easily accessible
amenities are available for residents, most
of whom live in mid- and high-rise buildings.
Outdoor activities range from pleasant walking
sites to professional golf and tennis facilities
and indoor recreation. There are nineteen plastic/cosmetic
surgery offices in the immediate
area. Churches and schools are conveniently
located and occupations at the professional
level tip the scales.
Preceding the incorporation of the City of
Aventura, the Aventura Mall was opened in
April 1983. It is a joint venture between the
Simon Property Group, Inc. of Indianapolis
and the Turnberry Associates, who manage the
82.7 acres that the mall encompasses at 19501
Biscayne Boulevard. It is a main street and center
city for the surrounding residents as well as
most of their neighbors in northeast Dade
County. Aventura Mall, offering furs to furni -
ture, soup to nuts and bolts, is one of the
largest shopping centers in South Florida. A
contemporary Mediterranean facade encloses
the multilevel, 2.3. million square-foot mall
with more than 250 specialty stores, six major
department stores, a three-level entertainment
component and a 24-screen AMC Theater.
Nearly 6,000 employees are available to an
estimated 20 million shoppers per year. Newer,
smaller malls have been built to more than satisfy
every need as well as whim. Aventura’s former
identification as a shopping destination
has within the last five years of its incorpora -
tion been revised. It is today known as one of
South Florida’s outstanding areas in which to
live, play, shop, dine and do business.
Malinda Cleary is a native Virginian and a resident of Miami for the past 25 years. A proponent and enthusiastic supporter of Miami’s history and historic preservation,
she earned her master’s degree in art history from the University of Miami, focusing on local art and architecture. She has enjoyed promoting Miami-Dade
County’s architectural and cultural legacies as a member of Dade Heritage Trust for the past twenty years. She is currently teaching art history at Florida International
University and coordinating historically and architecturally-based Elderhostels for Barry University.
56 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

In the 1920s, Aviator Glenn Hammond Curtiss, the developer of Opa-locka, commissioned architect Bernhardt Muller to build a theme city. Inspired by The Arabian Knights, Muller constructed
a Moorish town with streets named after characters in the stories. Costumed horsemen galloped out of the City Administration Building in 1927 to greet visitors and prospective buyers.
(COURTESY OF THE HISTORICAL MUSEUM OF SOUTHERN FLORIDA)
OPA-LOCKA: A VISION OF ARABY
B Y T HORN G RAFTON
The City of Opa-locka, in northwest
Miami-Dade County, is one of the most unusual
places one could encounter in urban
America. Opa-locka is a name shortened from
the original Seminole Indian word
“Opatishawockalocka,” meaning “the high
land north of the little river on which there is
an old camping place.” This community,
whose design was inspired by the Tales of the
Arabian Knights, must really be seen to be
believed. Although much has been written and
documented about the history of the town, it is
the actual experience of visiting Opa-locka that
is so astounding.
Opa-locka came on the radar screen of the
preservation community in the late 1970s, but
it would be the late 1980s before the two largest
buildings were restored, with the assistance of
the County and State. Opa-locka now appears
to be poised for more positive change, and even
the long awaited restoration of the railroad sta -
tion appears to be right around the bend.
Opa-locka was the third South Florida com -
munity developed by aviation pioneer Glenn
Curtiss after an amazing career. His numerous
world records and “firsts” include the title of
“Fastest Man of Earth,” after riding a motorcycle
of his own construction one mile in 26 seconds,
or 136 mph, at Ormond Beach, Florida in 1905.
He built and sold the first commercial aircraft in
the world, the Gold Bug, in 1900, landed an airplane
on water for the first time in 1910, and
received USA Pilot’s License Number One in
1911. His commercial success was ensured in
1917 when he was contracted to build 3,500
airplanes for the US Government. By 1920, at
the age of 42, he was so stressed from his business
responsibilities that he “retired” to Florida,
but soon jumped into real estate and developed
Hialeah and Miami Springs.
In 1925, Curtiss hired two professionals
from his native New York—architect Bernhardt
Muller, to design the buildings, and planner
Clinton MacKenzie, to provide the town plan.
MacKenzie previously worked for John Nolen,
the “Dean of American Land Planners.”
The very successful Opa-locka town plan
was a reaction to the uncontrolled expansion
of Curtiss’ Hialeah nucleus; here, everything
within the borders of the town would appear
on the plan. The streets remain virtually the
same today; only the golf course, on the west
side, was not completed, and the land became
the general aviation airport of today. The
Seaboard Airline Railroad defined the base of a
triangle in the plan, and the rail passenger station
MacKenzie located there was for a time the
last stop before arriving at downtown Miami’s
Flagler Street Station. Today, a Tri-Rail stop
adjoins the historic railroad station. The triangle
is wrapped by the curving Sharazad
Boulevard, and outside the central triangle
streets radiate in gentle spokes. The MacKenzie
plan is a great functional and aesthetic asset to
the community today.
Muller’s thematic architecture is likely the
largest concentrated collection of buildings in
the “Moorish Revival” style in the country.
Today, there are approximately twenty houses
and nine commercial buildings that essentially
retain their original design. Many original
buildings have lost their character-defining
CHAPTER XIII ✧ 57

The City Administration Building, designed with minarets,
portals and shady courtyards, was restored in 1987.
(PHOTO BY THORN GRAFTON)
features. Stucco-covered wood frame domes
that deteriorated were either roofed over or
replaced with pitched roofs. Many metalcapped
minarets (slender towers) toppled and
were not replaced, although some still exist.
Keyhole arches, crennelated parapets, stucco
walls with zigzags, striped banding or coral
rock rubble inserts, accents of polychrome
ceramic tile, and other Moorish-Arabesque features
help identify the original buildings.
The definitive, must-read architectural history
of the town is Dream and Substance: Araby and the
Planning of Opa-locka by Catherine Lynn. Lynn’s
deeply researched account weaves the ancient
middle-eastern folklore through its incorporation
into western culture and eventually into the inspiration
for Muller’s designs of the various buildings.
Like Princess Sheherazede’s (simplified to
Sharazad for Opa-locka) nightly tales told to save
her life at the hands of a brutal, bored king, the
main buildings of the town are like stories within
a story. Exactly how the Arabian Knights inspiration
was transformed into an architectural con -
cept, and who was involved, is described in three
varying historic anecdotes, along with Lynn’s own
perspective of the culture of the 1920s thematic
real estate development in Florida.
Muller appears to have been dissuaded
from his first stylistic choice—a village of
English thatched cottages. This is probably fortunate,
because if the domes had trouble
standing the test of time, imagine the thatched
roofs. One variant on the style, Muller’s stark
“Egyptian Bank,” which resembles an Egyptian
Temple, actually opened as a church and still
serves the needs of a local congregation today.
In 1928, Curtiss had Muller working on
designs for a Chinese-styled hotel, inspired by
the tale of “Aladdin and his Lamp,” as prosperous
times were beginning to wane.
The pinnacle of Architect Muller’s work at
Opa-locka is the City Administration Building,
a whimsical assemblage of rocket-like
minarets, domed volumes and arched portals
revealing shady courtyards complete with
white tiled fountains. Completed in late 1926
after nine months of construction, this architectural
tour-de-force is an apparition, a mirage
at the end of Opa-locka Boulevard. A restoration
designed by Beilinson Architects was completed
in 1987. The building today houses city
government and is the focus for the annual
Arabian Knights Festival.
Muller’s Hurt Building (originally a real
estate office/auto service station/retail store/
hotel) was in such decay that the City sold it to
the Opa-locka Community Development
Corporation (OLCDC) for one dollar. It was
the subject of the second significant restoration
in 1991, designed by my own firm. The
restoration included reconstructing the main
dome with a structure of bent steel pipe. The
26-foot-wide diameter interior volume of the
main dome is the reception area for the offices
of the Opa-locka Community Development
Corp. and State Representative Willie Logan.
The initial construction boom in Opa-locka
was so vibrant that the five-month-old town boasted
30 residences and 60 buildings in mid-1926.
The devastating September 1926 Hurricane was
only a momentary setback (the New York papers
falsely reported that Glenn Curtiss had died in the
storm), with late 1926 a period of intense con -
struction and real estate sales.
By early 1927, Opa-locka had become a
destination for socialites to the point that revelers
in Arabic costumes would travel in open
motorcars between Opa-locka and downtown
or Coral Gables. Perhaps the biggest social
event was the welcoming of Seaboard Airline’s
“Orange Blossom Special” on its inaugural run
from Miami to New York in January of 1927.
As a centerpiece of this event, a horseman costumed
as the “Grand Vizier of the Sheikdom of
Opa-locka” galloped out the main portal of the
City Administration Building, sword drawn
overhead, on his way down to meet the great
“iron horse” at the station. Perhaps the most
famous photograph from Opa-locka’s history is
this dramatic image.
Frank Fitzgerald Bush, in his very personal,
insider’s view of the city’s history called A
Dream of Araby, argues that the spectacles were
not only real estate hokum, but were a kind of
theatrical entertainment greatly enjoyed by the
residents who could participate.
The magic of Opa-locka began to fade by
the midsummer of 1927, as Opa-locka’s
investors began to pull out. When the stock
market crashed in 1928, even the driven
Curtiss ended his spending on construction.
The Dream essentially died when Curtiss did,
in July 1930, in Buffalo, NY, of complications
from appendicitis. Although Opa-locka boosterism
continued during the Great Depression,
Curtiss’ company sold its assets to the City
and, in the late 1930s, to the US Government
for a Naval Air Station.
Recreational facilities already in place for military
use included Curtiss’ Archery Club and an
elaborate swimming pool where Johnny
Weismuller (Tarzan) and “Jackie Ott the Aqua
Tot” (also known as “The World’s Perfect Boy”)
had performed on a regular basis during
Muller’s Hurt Building was originally a real estate office and hotel. It is now the headquarters of the Opa-locka Community
Development Corporation. (PHOTO BY THORN GRAFTON)
58 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

Opa-locka’s heyday. The impending threat of war
brought on hasty changes by the Navy. Several
acres of beautiful oak hammocks were bull -
dozed, though a small remnant adjacent to the
airport survives today. Barracks-style housing
was built which persists today as affordable (subsidized)
but unattractive housing. Modifications
to the historic Archery Club/swimming pool
complex were so heavy handed that in the 1980s
the County Aviation Department staff swore they
had no idea the structures were historic when
they removed them.
The Navy pulled out in 1945, and the economic
tailspin resumed. The Navy built one
remarkable steel frame blimp hangar whose
vast sculptural skeleton lingered until the early
1990s, when the Aviation Department demolished
it for safety reasons.
When I was in college in the early 1970s, I
saw an art film that used the almost surreal and
still declining backdrop of Opa-locka in a story
about a traveling Bible salesman. In 1986, the
late preservationist Barbara Baer Capitman persuaded
me to help in efforts to “Rebuild the
Dream” as they were billing the effort. Barbara
and I joined with community preservation
activists and concerned City and County offi -
cials (particularly Helen Miller of Opa-locka,
and Ernie Martin, of Metro-Dade Community
Development) in several rounds of community
planning and special events. Some of these
activities included meetings at Amador’s
Restaurant (still there), fundraising costume
balls, the painting of artistic murals on con -
struction walls, and geometric Moorish designs
in traffic paint on street crosswalks. More formal
revitalization plans were developed and publicized
to capitalize on the unusual history of the
place. Restoration and sympathetic infill con -
struction were analyzed site by site. This series
of ambitious plans has been slow to implement,
but not for lack of merit. The city, like several
other areas of the county in the 1980s, came
under the siege of drug-related violence.
The drug activity was not centered near
Opa-locka’s historic core, and it created a sense
of urgency for social programs and affordable
housing focused away from the preservation
and strengthening of the core. The city’s limited
resources were stretched to the breaking point.
Meanwhile, in the decade since, the several
blocks of Opa-locka Boulevard downtown
have themselves languished.
Despite some façade treatments, stores have
left. Into the void of several downtown blocks
The Opa-locka Train Station opened in 1927 with the arrival of the “Orange Blossom Special” on its inaugural run from
Miami to New York. (PHOTO BY THORN GRAFTON)
recently cleared, state government agencies will
build new offices incorporating features of
Moorish Revival design. A sympathetic approach
in the low-budget conversion of an existing 7-11
storefront diagonally opposite the City
Administration Building was designed by my
firm, using understated yet whimsical graphic
gestures referencing the Moorish Revival work of
Muller. Unfortunately, the little building has not
been well maintained, and commercial signage
seems to spread like a fungus across the most
well-intentioned facades, if code enforcement is
lax on the issue. The police station on Ali-Baba
Avenue has a new façade referencing the style,
and other area buildings have tried this too. Opalocka
is eclectic, with pieces borrowed from
different contexts, yet still within a geo-cultural
range. Obviously, to emulate an emulator without
being a student of original architectural source
risks trivializing the concept. On the other hand,
the execution of designs at Muller’s level would
raise the issue of confusing historic fabric with
new construction and is not desirable either.
The Arabian fantasy influence is seen in this Opa-locka residence designed by Bernhardt Muller. (PHOTO BY THORN GRAFTON)
Hopefully, current Mayor Alvin Miller’s
earnest beautification effort will begin to
address issues deeper than paint colors. If “The
Dream” is to be rebuilt, the historic core must
have pedestrian scale and amenities; design
character and integrity; retail and food uses on
the sidewalks with viable housing above and
behind; good transit connection; and… a
touch of astonishment.
Thorn Grafton is a third generation Miami architect whose grandfather, Russell Pancoast, established a firm on Miami Beach in 1925. He has been a principal in
his own firms for over twenty years, specializing in work for historic, environmental and community resources. He and his firms have been the recipient of architectural
and preservation awards from national, state and local organizations. Grafton is an officer of Dade Heritage Trust and participates in the activities of other preservation
and environmental groups in South Florida. He lives with his wife Teresa and two children in a 1926 Dade County pine and limerock bungalow in Coconut Grove.
CHAPTER XIII ✧ 59

Main Street in the Town Center of Miami Lakes seeks to capture the feel of a traditional small town. (COURTESY OF THE GRAHAM COMPANIES)
MIAMI LAKES AND THE DAIRIES
THAT MADE DADE
B Y D ON S LESNICK
The dairies of South Florida played a vital role in the history and growth of Greater Miami. In addition to producing a healthy food,
they provided much needed jobs and contributed significantly to the local economy. In later years their pastures supplied the land
for the homes to house the population explosion following World War II.
—Bill Graham
The cows and the pasture lands are all gone;
in their place are homes, schools, industrial
parks, parking lots and paved roads. From the
start of the twentieth century to the 1950s,
Dade County was home to as many as sixtyfour
dairies stretching from the Broward
County boundary line to the Keys. Dairies,
many of which were small family operations,
bore names such as Puritan, Dixie, Biltmore,
Southern, Fairglade and Melrose. The milk
industry became the source of wealth and
political power for respected local families
such as the Grahams, Dressels, and McArthurs.
From the moment that South Florida’s pioneers
arrived, dairy cows were an integral part
of the Dade County landscape. By the last part
of the nineteenth century, milk was an essential
staple in the diet of Americans, including
those along the Miami River frontier. Thus, it
was not uncommon well into the first decade
of the twentieth century for a family to have its
own cow to provide fresh milk daily. Julia
Tuttle arrived with two cows in tow, and Dr.
James Jackson was known to graze his cow on
the grounds of the Royal Palm Hotel. Mrs.
William Hickman Chaille kept a cow named
“Rose” whose milk she sold to raise money for
the purchase of the new stained glass window
in the Methodist Church. The first commercial
deliveries were made by South Miami pioneer
Wilson A. Larkins, who transported the milk
in two dispensing tanks on either side of his
bicycle. He rode into Miami twice a day to
deliver the milk to various families and, during
the winter tourist season, to his most
important customer, the Royal Palm Hotel.
In 1911 Frank Houghtaling purchased
property in Little River for the purpose of
establishing an idealistic, socialistic colony. It
failed, and a dairy farm was begun instead.
He had the first herd of Guernseys in South
Florida. In the early 1920s, he advertised
strawberries and cream for twenty-five cents
a gallon and operated a golf driving range on
part of the property. The location is the site of
the present North Shore Hospital.
Early dairies did not possess the technology
to pasteurize their milk products, but sold raw
milk, which had to reach the consumer without
extended delay. Local historian Thelma
Peters describes the first effort in Miami to
eradicate diseases related to milk consumption:
In 1909 with smallpox and yellow fever
under control people everywhere were looking
for ways to prevent tuberculosis. Coming
under scrutiny was milk and how it was handled.
In 1909 the majority of Miamians were
getting milk from a can—to their benefit—for
the only fresh milk was raw milk, which is safe
60 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

only when cows are healthy and sanitation the
best. In 1909 ten percent of the cows in
Florida were said to be tubercular and rules
for sanitation almost nonexistent. One reason
the well known Lemon City doctor, John G.
DuPuis, started a model dairy was to provide
pure milk, especially for children and invalids.
The White Belt Dairy [named after the Dutch
Belted cows with which it was started] set
high standards for the care of milk, and soon
sanitation ordinances were passed which
forced other dairies to conform. [The White
Belt Dairy was eventually home to a herd of 900
cows spread across 2,000 acres.]
During World War I many of the truck
farms which had proliferated across the
South Florida landscape began to shut down
in favor of other uses. Some owners turned to
dairy operations. By 1922, Madie C. Ives had
established a herd of over 200 Jerseys and
Holsteins. In that same year, Ives was the first
dairy in Dade County to be awarded the title
“certified” by a group of physicians, which
was the equivalent of obtaining the “Good
Housekeeping Seal of Approval” for cleanliness.
By 1936 the dairy had grown to 400
cows on 614 acres. Today, the Madie C. Ives
Elementary School (located in the middle of
a housing subdivision which sits on the former
dairy site) honors the lady who set those
high standards for the dairy industry.
In 1922, J. Neville McArthur migrated to
Miami to apply for a teaching job. He interviewed
with dairyman Dr. John DuPuis, who
was also a member of the school board and the
originator of agricultural academic programming
in the county’s public schools. He later
remembered that when he met with DuPuis,
the doctor was planting young coconut palms
along the avenue across from his office in
Little River. McArthur had to walk up and
down the palm rows while Dr. DuPuis continued
to dig holes and plant trees during the
interview. McArthur was subsequently
appointed principal of the Dade County
Agricultural High School (later known as
Miami Edison) where he directed an experimental
farm located at 1895 NW 95th Street
which included a modern dairy plant.
In 1929 McArthur resigned his position to
start his own dairy business with $4000,
twenty Jersey cows and fifty acres in Broward
County. McArthur, who at the beginning
made his own deliveries, recalled in a 1958
Miami Herald interview:
My first route was from Miami Shores
to Flagler Street. I traveled about 120 miles
a day and worked seven days a week. It was
hard to find customers even though milk
was only six cents a quart.
By the end of 1939 the McArthur Jersey
Dairy Farm was milking 1,000 cows a day. The
company’s main milk processing plant was
built in 1951 at 6851 Northeast 2nd Avenue,
and still functions at that location today. South
Floridians find it difficult to dispute the company’s
well-known musical slogan: “We all
grew up on McArthur’s... McArthur’s Milk.”
An outbreak of “undulant fever” in 1939
brought the dairy industry to the forefront of a
city-wide controversy. Faced with an estimated
1,000 cases of this debilitating disease (which
was transmitted in raw milk from cows suffering
from brucelosis), The Miami Herald began a
campaign for 100 percent pasteurization of all
milk products sold in the city. The county
health department revealed that since 1935
Dairy farms such as that of the Curtiss-Bright Ranch in Hialeah, shown here in an old postcard, were precursors to many
communities in Miami-Dade County. (COURTESY OF THE SETH BRAMSON COLLECTION)
Lester Collins, renowned Washington, D.C. landscape
architect and land planner, conceived the Miami Lakes
master plan. He is pictured here in 1983 beside Miami
Lakes’ signature bovines. (COURTESY OF THE GRAHAM COMPANIES)
over 11,000 dairy cows had been slaughtered
after testing positive for the dreaded disease.
Additionally, some dairies were revealed to be
selling raw milk that they advertised as pasteurized.
However, the city’s powerful and popular
Mayor Ev Sewell sided with his friends in the
dairy industry and challenged the legitimacy of
legislating the pasteurization of milk. After
months of public debate, the electorate voted in
a city-wide referendum, and the proponents of
raw milk won. It was an empty victory however;
the debate had made so many people afraid
to drink raw milk that market demand eventually
forced all dairies to pasteurize their products.
Subsequently, the number of undulant
fever cases in Dade County dropped to zero.
As late as mid-century many of the smaller
independents attempted to milk the cows,
process the raw product, and distribute the
milk directly to the retail customers. By the
1950s economic pressures on the industry
caused many of the independent dairy owners
to sell off their processing and distribution
operations to national companies like Borden
or Foremost. During the same time frame, the
pricing of milk became one of the hot political
battles in Florida, pitting consumers, distributors
and producers against one another.
In 1956, the turmoil led to the founding of
the Independent Dairy Farmers Association
under the leadership of its first president, Bill
Graham, whose father, State Senator Ernest
Graham, founded the family dairy on land
acquired from the bankrupt Pennsylvania
Sugar Company in lieu of unpaid back wages.
This organization (the predecessor of today’s
Florida Dairy Farmers) became a potent political
platform for some of these dairy farmers.
Starting with the land boom of the 1920s,
dairy land became a prime target in the cross-
CHAPTER XIV ✧ 61

Cutting a cake in 1982 to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Miami Lakes is Pat Graham, Carol Graham Wyllie,
William A. Graham, Lou Rawls, Bob Graham, William E. Graham and Gerry Toms. (COURTESY OF THE GRAHAM COMPANIES)
hairs of residential developers. One of the
large land sales recorded in 1925 was that of
485 acres of the Ives Dairy Farm purchased by
Donnelly Realty Company and renamed
“North Fulford.” [Fulford by The Sea later
became North Miami Beach.] Forty years later
(1965), The Miami Herald reported the purchase
by Two Seasons, Inc. of 614 acres from
the Ives Dairy holdings for development purposes.
Miami-Dade County’s explosive urban
sprawl of the last several decades has almost
obliterated any evidence of the dairy farms.
Just as suburbs have consumed the rural acres
of other sections of our nation, so has South
Florida’s spreading population recycled dairy
lands into houses, shopping centers, sport
complexes and office parks. The dwindling
evidence of the dairy’s one time dominance of
our county’s land mass is confined to street,
school and housing subdivision names (such
as Ives Dairy Road, Milam Elementary and
Melrose Heights), and to a few contented
bovines pastured in the green space near the
“Main Street” Town Center of The Graham
Companies’ Miami Lakes.
While most dairies sold their land holdings
to companies who specialized in developing
suburbia, the Graham family took it
upon themselves to convert their dairy’s
vast fields into the planned community of
Miami Lakes, one of the area’s most successful
towns.
Miami Lakes is a five-square-mile residential
and business community that is home to
23,000. A master-plan consistently followed
since its inception thirty eight years ago by The
Graham Companies has resulted in one of the
nation’s finest examples of “New Urbanism.”
62 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS
Miami Lakes was designed by Lester
Collins, Harvard professor of land planning
and landscape architecture, as a “total living
environment” at the behest of the Graham family.
Early pioneers in Florida, the Graham family
tree includes notables such as Florida State
Senator Ernest “Cap” Graham, Washington Post
publisher Phillip Graham, and Florida
Governor and U.S. Senator Bob Graham.
Collins’ goal was “to design a community
that enhanced people’s lives,” rather than
maximizing development on the land.
Collins’ master plan for the “New Town” of
Miami Lakes abandoned the traditional gridbased
street plan. Using the nautilus shell as
his inspiration, he called for curved streets,
residential neighborhoods with culs-de-sac, a
network of artificial lakes, three-way intersections,
and areas specially set aside for schools,
churches, recreation and shopping facilities.
Miami Lakes is also a commercial success,
with more than 7 million square feet of office,
warehouse and light industrial buildings.
Over four dozen regional, national and international
firms lease or own buildings in
Miami Lakes’ business parks.
Much emphasis is placed on sustainable
environmental practices such as recycling and
landscaping that does not require too much
water or artificial fertilizer. In its efforts to promote
an environmentally green image, Miami
Lakes has adopted as its unofficial mascot the
dairy cow. It is common to see dairy cows
grazing in fields throughout Miami Lakes,
side-by-side with corporate office buildings
and shopping centers. One reason the cows
remain is because the people love them, especially
the kids. Another is that the cows are
part of Miami Lakes’ clever move to take
advantage of Florida’s “green belt” law, which
reduces property taxes on land used for agricultural
purposes.
From its inception, Miami Lakes has been
a community based on stewardship of the
land, of the environment and of the needs of
the people who have chosen to live and work
there. Its sound land-use plan, conservative
financial management and carefully planned
construction time-tables, calling for slow
growth over its development period, has
made Miami Lakes the successful community
it is today.
An aerial view of Miami Lakes in 1999 looking east from NW 87th Avenue. (COURTESY OF THE GRAHAM COMPANIES)
Don Slesnick is a fifty-year resident of Miami-Dade County, a product of its public schools, and a graduate of the University of Florida Law School. He
has served in the past as president of Dade Heritage Trust, chairman of the Miami-Dade County Historic Preservation Board and president of the Florida Trust
for Historic Preservation. He was assisted in procuring information for this chapter by Arva Parks McCabe, Sandy Graham Younts and Danny Navarro.

Attending the races at Hialeah Park in the thirties was a not-to-be-missed event for socialites and tourists alike. (COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
HIALEAH
B Y H ORATIO L. VILLA
Perhaps the earliest history of Hialeah that
might be verified goes back to the Tequesta
Indians, who left their mark in this area, a part
of a 4,000-square-mile broad, wide plain in
South Florida. The Miami River ran from Lake
Okeechobee to the coast, where Indian settlements
were found by the early Spanish explorers.
West of the river, the area was flooded year
round and was actually part of the Everglades.
The area east of the river was drier. It is here
where traces of former Indian settlements or
burial grounds were to be found.
The Laramore Site is found on several lots
east of what is now West 8th Avenue and 76th
Street in Hialeah. It is the remains of a natural
hammock, mostly large oak and gumbo limbo,
with soil that varies from black humic soil at
the north end to gray sandy soil to the south.
The main site is located on the northern end of
an oval island that originally presented an
impressive elevation above the adjacent glades
(now drained and developed).
When the first development took place, no
landfill was necessary. The site was originally
examined by D.D. Laxson in 1960 and sur -
veyed by Bob Carr, including test pitting in
February 1979 with a detailed sketch map
showing the site location, limits, and test
squares. Indian relics and artifacts were found
on the Fritz property and other sites. Among
these were ceramics, marine shells, faunal
bones plus fire pits, burial sites and post
molds. Those artifacts are now in the Historical
Museum of South Florida. The island ham -
mock was designated a historical site in 1991
by the Hialeah Historic Preservation Board.
Further archeological sites may be hidden in
the Hialeah area known as Seminola. Steve
Marshall, long time resident of the area, remembers
that as a child, he and his friends would play
in the area where we have Cotson Park and two
churches and they would find bones, trinkets,
and other items that looked like Indian artifacts.
How much of the history of our earliest inhabi -
tants lies buried under so many buildings?
The Seminole Indians (the word Seminole
means “run-away Creek”) did not reach this
area until the 1800s. They had migrated into
northern Florida, but after the Third Seminole
Indian War, they sought refuge in the
Everglades. It was the Seminoles who named
the area HI-A-LE-AH, meaning “high prairie.”
Another translation calls it “elevated plain of
light”. The Seminoles would use the Miami
River as their road out of the Everglades.
James H. Bright, a Missouri rancher, first
vacationed in the Miami area in 1901. He
looked around, saw Hialeah, and liked what he
saw. He immediately started planning to establish
a ranch. In 1907 he bought some land and
in 1909 another 10,000 acres east and north of
the Miami River. First, the land had to be
drained, so Bright befriended Governor Albert
W. Gilchrist for his support.
The draining of the Everglades had been
started by Gov. Napoleon Bonaparte Broward,
and it had been a slow process. The job was
completed in 1909 and the area became
known as the “Promised Land.” The draining
of the land changed the Miami River to the
Miami River Canal and made it possible for
Bright to fulfill his dream.
It was at this time that Bright brought from
Missouri two of his best ranch hands, Ben
Marshall and Jim Goodman. Ben became the
unofficial caretaker and began to work on the
ranch doing landscaping, maintenance, and
many other jobs.
Bright experimented with tropical grasses
and introduced “para” grass from Cuba. He
brought the Brahman cattle to South Florida.
Eventually, his ranch became the largest in
South Florida and supplied people in Miami
with beef, milk poultry, goats, sheep, and even
some vegetables. He also raised horses and deer.
Bright lived in the City of Miami until 1917
when he took up residence on his ranch. About
this time Glenn H. Curtiss, already a famous
aviator and inventor, approached Bright. Bright
and Curtiss became good friends and partners.
CHAPTER XV ✧ 63

This vintage postcard depicts a sugar mill in Hialeah, situated beside railroad tracks for easy shipment. Hialeah is now the second
largest city in Miami-Dade County and is a major manufacturing center. (COURTESY OF THE HISTORICAL MUSEUM OF SOUTH FLORIDA)
They created the Florida Ranch and Dairy Co.,
whose holdings extended from Hialeah north
to what is now Opa-locka—approximately
120,000 acres of land. In 1917 Curtiss also
established what later became the third airfield
in the U.S., locating it on what is now Palm
Avenue and 17th Street in Hialeah. Together,
they created the Curtiss-Bright Land Company,
which sold land to individuals and developers.
This land would eventually become the cities of
Hialeah, Miami Springs and Opa-locka.
Everything was booming in the 1920s. Land
sales were hectic. Milam and Dupuis estab -
lished dairy farms. Seminole Chief Willy-Willy
established an Indian post on the banks of the
Miami River Canal. The platting of the area was
concluded in 1921, and Bright and Curtiss
donated land for Hialeah’s first post office,
churches, parks, a city hall, a water plant, golf
course, and race tracks, the first dog track in
South Florida and the first jai-a-lai fronton in
the U.S. An amusement park was included.
In 1922 plans for a horse track began, and the
Woman’s Club of Hialeah was founded by Lua
Curtiss, Glenn’s mother. A movie studio was
added, and the first Tarzan of the Apes movie was
filmed in Hialeah. Leah Millard (the first child
born in Hialeah) celebrated her first birthday. The
first water plant in South Florida was built, with
the title eventually being transferred to Miami,
along with the golf course. Bright requested, and
helped financially, the school board to build the
first school west of 27th Avenue. It is now South
Hialeah Elementary, well known for former students
such as Senator Bob Graham and Bucky
Dent. In 1923 a swing bridge was built over the
Miami River Canal to connect Hialeah with the
Country Club Estates. The following year Florida
East Coast Railroad built a spur into Hialeah.
The area of Seminola was established in
1924 by Bright to provide a place to live for the
black workers of the ranches, amusements,
tracks, services and other enterprises, including
Hialeah’s first manufacturer, a soap factory.
Before that, many of the workers had to com -
mute from Miami. Seminola City ran from near
Palm Avenue to the area west of what is today
West 8th Avenue and from north of 29th Street
to the area south of 21st Street. Ben Marshall,
Bright’s righthand worker, was given the original
charter by Bright. The first black child born in
Hialeah (Seminola) was Sarah Marshall Craig.
The Jockey Club was inaugurated on January
15, 1925. Hialeah Race Park would become the
symbol and most famous landmark of this area.
The trains would bring visitors from all over the
A statue of the world famous racing champion “Citation”
graces the lushly landscaped grounds of Hialeah Park,
which include 220 acres of lawns, winding driveways
lined with royal palms, flower beds, fountains, and the
largest domestic flock of flamingos in the world.
(PHOTO BY PHIL BRODATZ)
country for a 51-day run at the new track. Built
to hold 5,000 people, it was overwhelmed with
a crowd of 17,000. Betting was not legal but
those attending the track would establish a pool
on their favorite horses, which would result in a
gain or loss after the horses crossed the finish
line. Pari-mutuel betting would not occur until
seven years later. It was a great boom for Hialeah.
Hialeah officially became a city in
September 1925. The charter for the new city
indicated 243 residents, but the numbers for
the area were closer to 1,500. The land boom
continued and Hialeah prospered. Over 75
clubs, bars, gambling emporiums, and other
(some very seedy) establishments flourished
there. Some gained a reputation with the Palm
Beach crowd, including the Moulin Rouge and
the Follies. The best known drink during
Prohibition got the name of “Hialeah Rye.”
During this time, Miami’s Municipal Airport
was established on what is now Amelia Earhart
Park and areas to the east. One of the first radio
communication centers in the U.S. was built
by the United Fruit Company in Hialeah. More
progress came when the Seaboard Railroad
built tracks into Hialeah and built the first passenger
station in 1927.
In the ensuing years tragedy struck. First,
there was the devastating hurricane of
September 18th, 1926. It destroyed seventy
percent of the city buildings. It affected people’s
lives and employment. The dog track, the
jai-a-lai fronton and the amusement parks
were destroyed. The Jockey Club also suffered
extensive damage. Hialeah had been one third
black before the hurricane. By 1927, without
jobs, few remained. An exodus started. The
racetrack closed and did not reopen until
1929. The crash of 1929 further affected
Hialeah’s economy and growth. The main
manufacturer in the city, the soap factory,
burned down. However, the Bank of Hialeah,
which was partially owned by Bright, was one
of the few banks in the U.S. that did not close
with the crash. And the Miami Municipal
Airport was finally completed, and the first air
show in the United States took place there.
Joseph E. Widener started plans to rebuild
new facilities at the track. He decided to bring
from Cuba a flock of flamingos, but they all flew
back to Cuba. He brought another 100 birds,
and with clipped wings and mating they
remained. The new track had a grand opening
day that was a great success. During the running
of the Florida Derby 25,000 attended, including
sports figures, society families (the Vanderbilts,
Whitneys, Barbara Hutton, Lily Pons, and many
others) and many members of the U.S., Canada
and the Bahamas business circle. By 1949
Hialeah had the most complete thoroughbred
64 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

museum in the U.S., the best track conditions,
and the best turf track. For many years the track
was an Audubon Society preserve, with over
700 native birds and an equal number from the
U.S., Canada and Alaska, plus the magnificent
flamingos which became a symbol, not only of
Hialeah, but of South Florida.
During World War II Hialeah’s Municipal
Airport, from which Amelia Earhart embarked
upon on her ill-fated flight in 1937, was used
for military training. After the war it became an
air base for the Navy and Marines until the
1950s. Along the Miami River Canal, a prisoner
of war camp was established in 1944.
In 1925 Hialeah had 21 factories; in 1945 it
had only 20. Henry Milander, elected Mayor in
1947, was the catalytic agent that made
Hialeah the City of Progress. He was instru -
mental in a new building boom and, through
tax incentives, attracted many manufacturers
to the city. After World War II many who had
trained in South Florida returned to the area.
In 1945 the population of Hialeah was 4,900
people. The population grew to 45,000 by
1950. Elimination of the Municipal Inventory
Tax in 1955 brought even more manufacturing
plants. The proximity to Lindbergh Field (now
Miami International Airport) encouraged Pan
American, National and Eastern Airlines
employees to live in Hialeah. In the 1950s
Hialeah’s population was primarily white and
Anglo, except for the small community of
Seminola and a few Hispanics.
Hialeah is now the largest industrial city in
South Florida and is among the ten largest
cities in the State of Florida. Due to the extensive
manufacturing in the area, Hialeah has
always attracted workers. Since the early 1960s
the influx of Cubans fleeing Castro changed
the face of Hialeah’s community. The census of
that year listed the population of Hialeah at
70,000. The Cuban immigrants were first
attracted to Hialeah because of the availability
of jobs within the city. Many decided to move
to the area to be near their place of work. Over
1,000 factories and over 10,000 businesses
(including apparel, textile, fabricated metal,
furniture and fixtures, printing and publishing,
food, chemicals, electric and electronic, rubber
and other) now employ thirty percent of
Miami-Dade County’s workforce.
Hialeah is quite active in cultural pursuits
as well. In 1988 the Hialeah Historic
Preservation Board began to look around to
save the heritage of the past and ensure its
Native oolitic limestone, found locally, was used in the construction of this bungalow-style store and gas station in Hialeah.
(COURTESY OF THE SETH BRAMSON COLLECTION)
preservation for the future. Within several
years, the Board designated as historic many
sites: Hialeah Race Track, Triangle Park, the
James Bright residence, the Swing Bridge,
Hialeah Passenger Station, South Hialeah
Elementary, the Water Plant, the old Dixie Mill
Building and the Laramore Site. Many resi -
dences built prior to 1926 have also been designated
as historic. Examples of the variety of
architecture to be found in the city include the
masonry vernacular style of the James Bright
residence (1921), the Alamo-Mission style of
the G. Carl Adams residence, the Classical-
Federal-Revival-style of the Emerson E. Snyder
house, and the Belvedere frame-bungalow style
of the Fred Harrington house.
The Hialeah Arts Board, in existence 20
years, conducts several yearly events. The
Cultural Affairs Council is also active. Hialeah
sponsors the Hialeah-Miami Lakes Community
Theater, which performs several times a year at
the Goodlet Theater. During Black History
Month these groups also sponsor a Gospel
Singing with groups from Seminola and from
throughout Miami-Dade County.
What is still lacking is a Museum of the City
of Hialeah, which would include history, art,
memorabilia, and Americana. This idea was
first put forth in 1979 but has yet to happen.
Hialeah is not just a racetrack; it is home
and school, playground and business. It grows
and grows. “Mr. Jimmie” Bright said it in a different
way: “I have never fathomed the great
idea of touring the world just to find a place to
meet the desires of the human race—when
there is Hialeah!”
Hialeah Park was called “the most beautiful racetrack in the world.” (COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
Horatio L. Villa worked as an educator for thirty-five years, at Ransom-Everglades, Havana Business University, Santa Fe Community College and in the Dade
County Public Schools, where he taught history and was a counselor. A native of Cuba, he received his B.A. degree from New York University and his master’s and Ph.D.
degrees from the University of Florida. He served during World War II with combat engineers and the Air Corps. A resident of Hialeah since 1956, Dr. Villa has been
active with the Boy Scouts, VFW, and the American Legion and has served as a member of the Hialeah Historic Preservation Board and the Cultural Affairs Council.
CHAPTER XV ✧ 65

“Dar-Err-Aha” (House of Happiness) was built by Glenn Curtiss as his own residence. Located at 500 Deer Run, the Curtiss Mansion suffered from neglect and arson over the years. It was
conveyed to the City of Miami Springs in 1998 by Sunburst Hospitality, and a major restoration effort was begun. (COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
GLENN CURTISS’ DREAM: MIAMI SPRINGS
B Y M ARY A NN G OODLETT-TAYLOR
The developer of Miami Springs was one of
the most famous names in aviation history:
Glenn Hammond Curtiss.
Born in 1878 in the quiet little town of
Hammondsport, New York, Curtiss opened the
G. H. Curtiss Manufacturing Co. in 1901, turning
out his own designs of Hercules bicycles and
Curtiss motorcycles. In 1907 he became the
“world’s fastest man” on his eight-cylinder motorcycle.
He designed and built his own motorcycle
engines and, later, aircraft engines, developing an
efficient air-cooled engine. The dirigible California
Arrow, powered by a Curtiss engine, won a
$25,000 grand prize at the Louisiana Purchase
Exposition of 1904. After becoming a member of
the Aerial Experiment Association organized by
Alexander Graham Bell in 1907, Curtiss began
designing and building his own aircraft. In 1908
he won the first leg of the Scientific American
Trophy Race, the first public flight of one kilometer.
In subsequent years, Curtiss won the other
two legs of this race, thus, gaining permanent
possession of the trophy.
Curtiss, the only American entrant against the
best pilots of Europe, won the Gordon Bennett
Cup in 1909 in Rheims, France. In 1910 he flew
from Albany, New York, down the Hudson River
to New York City, winning the $10,000 grand
prize. Curtiss was the recipient of the prestigious
Gold Medal of the Aero Club of America for the
“greatest advances in aviation” for the years 1911
and 1912. In recognition of his achievements and
the public demonstrations of his flights, he was
awarded Aviator License #1 in 1911.
Glenn Curtiss became the “Father of Naval
Aviation” by designing a successful
hydroplane, landing and taking off from water
for the first time in history. A Curtiss NC-4 “flying
boat” made the first airplane crossing of the
Atlantic Ocean in 1919. During World War I,
the Curtiss aircraft factories in Buffalo, New
York, had huge contracts with the U.S.
Government to build military planes. The
famous Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny” was used to train
ninety-five percent of the U.S. Army Air Corps
pilots. After many years of trial and tribula -
tions, often struggling just to make ends meet,
Curtiss was finally enjoying financial success.
With the hectic war years over, Curtiss’
interests in the business end of his aviation
empire began to wane. An international hero,
with worldwide recognition as an airplane
designer/builder and an extremely capable
pilot, his creative genius was no longer ful -
filled, so he turned his sights to the South
Florida area. As early as 1912 Curtiss had been
persuaded by Miami pioneer Everest Sewell to
establish a flying school in Miami. A Curtiss
land flying school was located at NW 17th
Avenue and 20th Street, and hydroplane
instruction was given on Biscayne Bay near the
Royal Palm Hotel.
Years later, when Curtiss wanted to move his
flying schools to a less populated area, he was
advised to contact James H. Bright, a dairyman
with thousand of acres of land west of Miami.
Bright, who came from Missouri in 1910, had
bought land for pasture, which encompassed
much of what was to become the City of
Hialeah. The two men became good friends and
later partners in the Curtiss-Bright Company.
James H. Bright also had a significant historical
impact on South Florida, through his
interests in studying, propagating and planting
many varieties of tame grasses to find those
66 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

est suited for livestock grazing. He also had a
trading post on the Miami Canal and became a
trusted friend of the local Seminole and
Miccosukee Indians. He established his dairy
ranch in 1914. It grew to include Holstein,
Guernsey and Jersey cows for milk, as well as
beef cattle and horses. Bright’s other claim to
fame was the development of Hialeah Race
Park for thoroughbred horse racing. Bright
provided the land and helped develop the
track in 1925.
Curtiss and Bright invested one million dollars
in the Curtiss-Bright Ranch Company and
another million in the Florida Ranch and Dairy
Corporation. These two versatile men then
went on to develop the towns of Hialeah,
Country Club Estates (now Miami Springs),
and Opa-locka during the famous “land boom”
of the 1920s.
Beginning in the early 1920s, the Florida
“land boom” was a hectic and exciting period of
U.S. history, and Curtiss and Bright soon found
themselves in the business of land sales and
development. Countless acres of ranch land
were sold to “get rich quick” visitors from all
over the country, as everyone was eager to own
a lot in “sunny” Florida. The land sold by the
Curtiss-Bright Company eventually became the
towns of Hialeah (incorporated in 1925),
Country Club Estates (incorporated in 1926)
and Opa-locka, also incorporated in 1926,
which Curtiss planned as an Arabian-themed
residential development just north of Hialeah.
Lots that were originally purchased for $10.00
an acre sometimes sold for as much as $3,500
each. Fantastic wealth poured in on Curtiss and
his partners.
When Hialeah was sold out, Curtiss pur -
chased land on the south side of the Miami
Canal across from Hialeah, an area used as an
aerial training “bombing range” by U.S. pilots
during World War I. Here, Curtiss began to
develop his well-planned residential community,
Country Club Estates, using Coral Gables
as a model. Since water was a crucial factor, he
brought in engineers who found an inex -
haustible supply of pure water under this land.
Until recent years these deep wells supplied all
of the water to the Miami area.
Curtiss chose the “Pueblo Revival” style, a
unique design concept, to attract attention to
his Country Club Estates development. He
wanted buildings that would revive the look of
the homes of the Pueblo Indians in the
American Southwest, a popular tourist destination
of the 1920s. Curtiss had become aware of
these unique Pueblo buildings as he traveled
from Hammondsport, New York, to the San
Diego, California, area where he carried out his
hydroplane experiments during 1910-1911.
Country Club Estates was to be a garden spot,
with fine homes, wide boulevards, and only as
much business as was necessary. Deed restrictions
were rigid, and strict building and zoning guidelines
called for masonry construction, tile roofs,
proper setbacks and landscaping. Plans for individual
construction had to be submitted to the
Curtiss-Bright Company for approval. Lot prices
were set at $1,000. Since this was expensive, lots
sold slowly and most of the town’s first residents
were relatives, friends and co-workers of Curtiss.
To encourage construction, Curtiss gave away lots
to some families who promised to build their
homes immediately.
Built in 1926 as the Hotel Country Club, commonly called the Pueblo Hotel, this is the largest, most extravagant project of
Curtiss’ development in Miami Springs. In 1929, John Harvey Kellogg, of cereal products fame, purchased the building and
converted it to the Miami Battle Creek Sanitarium. During World War II it served as a rest facility for soldiers, later as a
health spa, and today is the FairHaven Retirement Home. (COURTESY OF THE SETH BRAMSON COLLECTION)
World famous aviation pioneer Glenn Hammond Curtiss,
at the controls of the Albany (Hudson) Flyer in May,
1910, is joined by his wife Lena Neff Curtiss and Aero
Club of America President Augustus Post. In the 1920s
Curtiss partnered with James H. Bright to develop Miami
Springs, Hialeah, and Opa-locka.
(COURTESY OF THE MIAMI SPRINGS HISTORICAL MUSEUM)
The Curtiss Bright Company built many
large Pueblo Revival style homes and commercial
buildings in the period between 1924 and
1926. A “civic center,” which included the
Clune Engineering Building, the Curtiss-Bright
Administration Building, and the First State
Bank of Hialeah, was developed on the “Circle”
at the center of town.
Inside the Circle stood a Pueblo-style bandstand
where famed bandmaster, Arthur Pryor,
conducted concerts. Two blocks west of the
Circle stood the Pueblo-style Everglades
Construction Corporation, which built all of the
roads and sidewalks in Country Club Estates,
Hialeah and Opa-locka. G. Carl Adams, the
half-brother of Glenn Curtiss, was the President
of the Everglades Construction Corporation.
Curtiss also built homes for his mother, Lua
Andrews Curtiss, and his half-brother, G. Carl
Adams. These spacious two-story homes, as
well as several other comparably sized homes,
were built around the perimeter of a golf
course with a country club building of Pueblo
Revival design, also built during this period.
Situated on large plots of land, these homes
provided the occupants with a lovely vista of
the gently rolling hills of the golf course. The
Curtiss-Bright Company also built smaller single-story
homes that sold at moderate prices.
In 1925 Curtiss designed his own palatial
Pueblo Revival mansion on a 9.33 acre site at
the southeast corner of the golf course, and
named this beautiful home “Dar-Err-Aha”
(House of Happiness). The estate boasted its
own man-made lake, which was stocked with
many species of exotic water birds. The
grounds were lushly landscaped with native
and exotic species of trees and shrubs.
The disastrous hurricane of September
1926 brought most of the building “boom” in
Country Club Estates and Dade County to a
halt, but Curtiss had promised to develop a
CHAPTER XVI ✧ 67

“The Alamo,” so named for its vague resemblance to the Texas landmark, was built in 1926. (PHOTO BY FERNANDO SUCO)
hotel for his development. After some delay in
getting building underway, the posh Hotel
Country Club, built in the Pueblo Revival style
at an estimated cost of $275,000, opened to
rave reviews in December 1927. No expense
was spared in making this splendid multi-storied
edifice (commonly called the Pueblo
Hotel) as authentic as possible. Furnishings
were in the Pueblo Indian theme, and there
were hand-woven Indian rugs on the floors.
The Thunderbird motif (the Indian symbol for
rain and prosperity) was on the front façade
and was used as a decorative feature through -
out the interior of the building.
The hotel became a “white elephant” during
the depression that followed the hurricane.
Shortly before his untimely death in July 1930,
Glenn Curtiss sold the hotel for a token sum to
Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, world acclaimed
physician and nutritionist. Dr. Kellogg
reopened the hotel in 1930 as the Miami-Battle
Creek Sanitarium, with a health regimen patterned
after his famous sanitarium in Battle
Creek, Michigan. Many illustrious individuals
were patients at Miami-Battle Creek during its
many years of operation. The extensive
grounds surrounding this building were a
showplace, thanks to the landscape design
supervision by Dr. Kellogg and the famous
botanist and plant collector, David Fairchild.
Miami-Battle Creek was also the center of the
social activities for the residents of Country
Club Estates and Hialeah.
In 1930 the name of Country Club Estates
was changed to the Town of Miami Springs, in
recognition of the natural springs of pure water
located beneath the town. Miami Springs continued
as a small, mostly residential community
until after World War II. As the airline
industry at 36th Street Airport began to
expand, many airline employees were transferred
to the area, and Miami Springs became a
convenient location for them to live. A new
“building boom” continued for many years.
The airline industry was a major factor in the
economic growth of the town. In 1962 the
The grassy Circle park creates a pleasant setting for Miami Springs businesses. Just to the right of the gazebo is the 1925 Clune-
Stadnik Building, which houses the Miami Springs Pharmacy. The Miami Springs Historical Museum is located on the second floor
in space donated by John Stadnik. (PHOTO BY FERNANDO SUCO)
town was incorporated as the City of Miami
Springs. Since that time, economic growth has
remained stable.
In 1982 the Miami Springs City Council
adopted the City’s Historic Preservation
Ordinance, and appointed a five-member
Historic Preservation Board to serve in an advisory
capacity to the City Council.
Unfortunately, this Ordinance came too late to
save some of the most significant Pueblo
Revival style buildings that have been demolished
over the past 40 years. The Miami
Springs Historic Preservation Board worked
diligently to save and protect the precious remnant
of Glenn Curtiss’ vision; and in 1985 and
1986 seven of these buildings were placed on
the National Register of Historic Places. These
included the Clune-Stadnik Building, the
Oceola Apartment/Hotel (Azure Villas), Lua
Curtiss House #1 and #2, G. Carl Adams
House, Hequembourg House, and the Millard-
McCarty House.
Eight historic buldings and two historic
bridges are locally designated and protected,
including the Hotel Country Club (Fair Havens
Center), 201 Curtiss Parkway; Glenn Hammond
Curtiss Mansion, 500 Deer Run; Lua Curtiss
House #2, 150 Hunting Lodge Drive; G. Carl
Adams House, 31 Hunting Lodge Court; Millard-
McCarty House, 424 Hunting Lodge Drive;
Clune-Stadnik Building, 45 Curtiss Parkway;
Warren Pony Swing Bridge, Miami Canal/Curtiss
Parkway; Vertical Lift Bridge, Miami Canal/Hook
Square; Hequembourg House, 851 Hunting
Lodge Drive; and The Hunting Lodge, 281
Glendale Drive.
In 1987 the Miami Springs Historical
Society, a non-profit organization, was estab -
lished to involve the community in preserving,
protecting and documenting the past and present
history of the City. The Society’s original
goal was to save the City’s most historic building
site—the Glenn Hammond Curtiss
Mansion, which was deteriorating and was
constantly vandalized. The Society also wanted
to establish a local history museum to tell the
incredible story of the life of Miami Springss’
founding father, Glenn Hammond Curtiss, as
well as the development of Hialeah, Miami
Springs and Opa-locka.
John Stadnik, a pharmacist and World War
II veteran, came to Miami Springs in 1946 and
opened Miami Springs’ first pharmacy in the
historic Clune Engineering Building on the
Circle, which he later purchased. He was
enthusiastic about collecting and displaying
old photos and memorabilia about Glenn
Curtiss and the local history in his store windows.
As a charter member of the Miami
Springs Historical Society, Mr. Stadnik
68 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

esponded to the need for a place to house historical
memorabilia, and in the fall of 1987 the
Miami Springs Historical Museum was born,
using space he donated on the second floor of
his historic Clune-Stadnik building.
Since 1987, Mr. Stadnik has graciously
continued to donate the space and maintain
the Museum, which has grown to encompass
the entire second floor of the Clune-Stadnik
building. The Miami Springs Pharmacy still
operates on the first floor. The Museum has an
extensive collection of photos, posters, scrapbooks,
and other memorabilia which pertain
to the development of Miami Springs,
Hialeah, and Opa-locka, as well as the historic
career of Glenn H. Curtiss, the founding father
of these communities. The Glenn Curtiss
Room displays the life, achievements and
inventions of Curtiss and the history of Miami
Springs. The Aviation Room contains historic
memorabilia related to Eastern Air Lines, Pan
American World Airways, and other local airlines,
as well as other miscellaneous items
associated with aviation. The Art Gallery dis -
plays numerous pieces of artwork by local
artists, depicting local historic sites. The
museum is free of charge and is open on
Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:00 a.m. to
12:00 noon, and from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.
Miami Springs Mayor Cliff Hurrell and Hialeah Mayor Henry Milander join others in a 1954 ribbon cutting to celebrate the
moving of the 1927-built Parker Truss Vertical Lift Bridge. The bridge was moved to Miami Springs at Canal Street and
Okeechobee to give egress from Miami Springs to Hialeah. (PHOTO BY LARRY MARTINEZ, COURTESY OF THE MIAMI SPRINGS HISTORICAL MUSEUM)
Visitors enjoy a heritage tour of the house Glenn Curtiss built for his mother, Lua Curtiss. Located at 150 Hunting Lodge
Drive, the spacious home was built around the perimenter of a golf course. (COURTESY OF THE MIAMI SPRINGS HISTORICAL MUSEUM)
In August 1998 the historic Curtiss
Mansion, on over three acres of land, was conveyed
to the City of Miami Springs by its
owner, Sunburst Hospitality. Shortly thereafter,
Curtiss Mansion Incorporated (CMI), a nonprofit
corporation, was established under
Florida Law. CMI’s mission is to “identify, promote,
receive and manage all private gifts and
public grants from individuals, corporations,
foundations, and local, state, and federal
sources for the restoration, development and
maintenance of the Glenn Curtiss Mansion
site.” Since the Mansion had been consistently
vandalized and was the victim of three arson
fires, significant restoration efforts are needed.
CMI’s goal is to raise public consciousness and
promote responsive action and the enthusiasm
from the community that is needed to bring
this priceless historic house back to life.
Miami Springs’ triangular boundaries
include the Miami International Airport to the
south, the Miami Canal to the north, and the
Florida East Coast Railway canal on the west.
These boundaries significantly limit expansion,
and help “Beautiful Miami Springs” maintain
the small-town atmosphere that is so desired
and enjoyed by its residents. Concerned residents
and a vigilant City Council strive to protect
and maintain this quiet, tree-shaded, wellplanned
residential community that Glenn
Hammond Curtiss envisioned many years ago.
Mary Ann Goodlett-Taylor shares a rich history with the City of Miami Springs where her family settled in the mid 1920s. She has served as the vice-chairman of
the Miami Springs Preservation Board since its inception, serves as the curator of the Miami Springs Historical Museum, and is a charter member of the Miami Springs
Historical Society. She is a recognized authority on the history of Glenn Curtiss and Miami Springs, often appearing on television in her capacity as city historian. She
has been instrumental in helping to save and preserve the Glenn Curtiss Mansion. Her late husband, Francis S. Taylor, was a renowned wildlife conservationist in the
Florida Everglades. She has four grown children who grew up in Miami Springs, and two still reside in Miami Springs.
CHAPTER XVI ✧ 69

An early photo of a Native American canoeing with a pole through the saw grass of the Everglades. (COURTESY OF THE FLORIDA STATE ARCHIVES)
NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE
B Y S TEPHEN T IGER
Legends of the Miccosukee give interesting
explanations of their origins. One reports a
people dropping from heaven into a lake in
northern Florida, now called Lake Miccosukee,
and swimming ashore to build a town. No
early written records clarify the picture, but it
is known that the Miccosukee were originally
part of the Creek Nation.
The Creek Nation was an association of clan
villages in the areas now known as Alabama
and Georgia. This territory was separated into
two sections: the Upper Creeks, who lived in
the mountains and spoke Muskogee, and the
Lower Creeks, who spoke Hitchiti. Although
the languages are closely related, they are mutually
unintelligible. This hindered full communication
between the two groups, who were constantly
at war with each other. The Miccosukee
are from the Lower Creek region and speak
Mikasuki, which is derived from Hitchiti.
The Miccosukee and other Lower Creek tribes
lived together in harmony. They shared legends,
religious practices and social gatherings, in addition
to trade and traditional stickball games.
They lived by hunting, fishing and growing
crops, of which corn was most significant. The
new harvest is still celebrated each year at the
sacred Green Corn Dance.
The arrival of the Europeans in the 1500s
placed the Creek people in the center of a
three-way struggle for colonial supremacy on
the southern frontier. In the 1700s the
Spaniards enticed some Lower Creeks to relocate
into Spanish Florida and take up lands
formerly occupied by Florida’s aboriginal
tribes. The Miccosukee, who were familiar
with the Florida peninsula through hunting
and fishing expeditions, were among the first
to arrive sometime after 1715 in an effort to
escape both the encroaching whites and their
Upper Creek brothers. Complex town life soon
evolved into permanent settlements estab -
lished in the Apalachee Bay Region and along
the Chattahoochee and Apalachicola Rivers.
Families built and occupied substantial
dwellings, engaged in skilled handcrafts and
participated in a sophisticated social life.
Following the American Revolution, white
settlers started pushing west and south, creating
conflict with the Upper Creeks. These conflicts
led to the Creek War of 1813 and later the
so-called First Seminole War of 1818. The
Miccosukee managed to stay in the Florida
Panhandle for awhile, resisting the greedy settlers,
American soldiers and crooked slave
traders’ attacks on their towns. However, they
eventually left the area to settle around Alachua,
south of Gainesville and the Tampa Bay area.
In 1821, when Spain sold Florida to the
United States, Americans recognized the rights
of Indians over much of the land in the peninsula.
In 1823, they negotiated for the land in
the Treaty of Moultrie Creek. The Indian leaders
who signed the treaty wanted peace.
Therefore, they agreed to pull their clans back
to a reservation in Central Florida, where they
would be allowed to live in peace for 20 years.
By 1830, however, agitation by new
American settlers led the U.S. to adopt the Indian
Removal Act, which dictated that all Indians in
the southeast had to move out west. This forced
the Miccosukee to join the other Creek tribes in
the wars known as the Second Seminole War,
which lasted from 1835 to 1842, and the Third
Seminole War, which lasted from 1855 to 1858.
During these wars, the Miccosukee escaped by
fighting and hiding in the Everglades. Present
tribal members are descendants of some 50 people
who eluded capture.
To survive in this new environment, they
had to adapt to living in small groups in temporary
“hammock style” camps spread
throughout the Everglades’ vast “river of grass.”
Fishing and hunting continued to provide the
70 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

Airboats are used today to reach the traditonal Miccosukee chickee huts in the Everglades.
(PHOTO © RUDI KLEIN, COURTESY OF THE MICCOSUKEE INDIAN VILLAGE & AIRBOAT RIDES)
Miccosukee crafts are displayed at a Miami RiverDay festival. (PHOTO BY BECKY ROPER MATKOV)
main staples of their diet. However they had to
learn to harvest the native fruit of the ham -
mocks along with the coontie and cabbage
palm of higher ground.
Corn, which plays the most important role
in tribal customs, became very difficult to grow.
By the 1870s, identifiable Miccosukee communities
began to re-form. Game was abun -
dant and there was a surplus of alligator skins,
deer hides and feathers, which were traded in
town for cloth, tools, guns, salt, and coffee.
The test to adapt without becoming assimilated
persisted throughout the 1900s. In the
early 1900s, canals were cut to drain the
northern and eastern Everglades for agriculture.
This reduced the fish and game popula -
tion drastically. Real estate booms changed
Miami overnight into an expanding metropolis
and the construction of the Tamiami Trail in
1928 allowed non-Indians access to the fish
and game. However, the most significant
change came in 1947 when the U.S.
Department of Interior declared most of the
tribe’s ancestral land as part of Everglades
National Park.
In adapting to new ways, the Miccosukee
have always managed to retain their own cul -
ture. They have kept their language, medicine
and clans. Some Miccosukee even prefer to live
in chickees, thatched-roof houses on stilts,
instead of modern housing. The Miccosukee
Indian Village and Airboat Rides is an authentic
family camp with sleeping and working chickees
surrounding the cooking chickee, which has
a symbolic star-shaped fire. The village includes
a museum, boardwalk and alligator arena.
Since the 1960s, the Miccosukee have had
their own Constitution and Bylaws. The
Miccosukee Tribe is in the continuous pursuit of
economic self-sufficiency and self-determina -
tion. Their goal of total independence has led to
the tribe operating its own clinic, police department,
court system, day-care center, senior program,
Community Action Agency, educational
system and other social services. These pro -
grams, along with a restaurant, gift shop, general
store and service station, are located on the
Tamiami Trail Reservation, forty miles west of
Miami. A gaming facility and tobacco shop are
located on the Krome Avenue Reservation, at the
intersection of Krome Avenue and Tamiami
Trail, and a full service gas station and plaza are
located on the Alligator Alley Reservation, west
of Fort Lauderdale lying north and south of
State Road 84.
Membership in the Miccosukee Tribe of
Indians of Florida is open to Indians who are onehalf
Miccosukee Indian blood and are not enrolled
members of any other tribe. The total population
of the Miccosukee Service Area is 550.
The Miccosukee way is best reflected in its
yellow, red, black and white flag—colors that represent
the circle of life: east, north, west and
south. They view the whole universe as spinning
slowly in a circle like the logs of their ceremonial
fire. What was, will be and will cease to be again.
Stephen Tiger is the former Public Relations Director for the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida Inc. Since 1989, he has successfully transformed the Miccosukee
Indian Village and Airboat Rides into a major South Florida attraction. He served on the Board of Directors of the Florida Attractions Association and the EDA Grant
Committee. His endeavors have showcased the Miccosukee tribe and the Everglades. Tiger is also an accomplished musician, singer, songwriter and author.
CHAPTER XVII ✧ 71

Entertainers such as Billie Holiday, seen here, were guests at the historic Georgette’s Tea Room, 2540 NW 51st Street. (COURTESY OF THE BLACK ARCHIVES HISTORY AND RESEARCH FOUNDATION OF SOUTH FLORIDA)
BROWNSVILLE
B Y E NID C. PINKNEY
According to Bill Gjebre in Miami’s
Neighborhoods, Brownsville is bordered by the
Airport Expressway on the south, NW 62nd
Street on the north, NW 19th Avenue on the
east and NW 36th Avenue on the west. The
Brownsville Neighborhood Civic Association
gives its boundaries as NW 54th Street on the
north, NW 41st Street on the south, NW 27th
Avenue on the east, and NW 36th Avenue on
the west. For our purposes, we will accept the
broader boundaries.
The community of Brownsville was put on
the map of Dade County in May 1916 by a
black farmer, W.L. Brown, who recorded it as
“Brown Subdivision.” Over the years the area
came to be known as “Brownsville,” but many
old-timers still refer to it as “Brownsub.” Much
of the community was used for farming. Farmer
Brown owned property west of 27th Avenue in
the upper 40th Street area. He grew string beans
and sugarcane. There were other farmers in the
area who were pioneer settlers. Among them
were John Howard Adams and J.D. Williams,
who raised hogs. The Adams family moved into
a house at what is now NW 24th Avenue and
50th Street in 1916, several years before their
son Neal was born. The area was known as
Amos Town, named for Theodore Amos, a
developer of the area.
Neal Adams became a Dade County
Commissioner and served the Brownsville
Community and all of Dade County by bringing
government services to the area. He was instrumental
in having a Metrorail station built in
Brownsville. He also worked to bring the Joseph
Caleb Center to the neighborhood. Other Adams
children were Richard, Lawrence, George, Earl,
Howard, Renvy, Margie and Miriam.
J. D. Williams, who was a bishop in the
Church of God of Prophecy, moved from
Overtown to Brownsville in the 1930s. He
built a house out of coral rock on 27th Avenue
near 51st Street where the Metrorail station is
now located. Roger Williams, one of Bishop
J.D. Williams’ sons, remembered the hogs digging
up coral rocks out of the ground. He also
remembered having to laboriously take the
coral rocks to the area where their house
would be built because they were used in the
construction of the house.
Bishop Williams was also a realtor and developer.
He and Wesley Garrison developed
“Home Owner’s Paradise,” which was bounded
on the south by 48th Street, on the north by
50th Street, on the east by 27th Avenue and on
the west by 32nd Avenue. Both developers were
registered Republicans because blacks could not
register as Democrats during the 1930s in
Miami. Bishop Williams started the Church of
God of Prophecy on 27th Avenue and 50th
Street. He later bought land on 51st Street near
27th Avenue to move the church from the commercial
and business area of 27th Avenue to
where the church is now located. Bishop
Williams was not only a minister and realtor, he
was also a philanthropist, for he donated much
of his personal wealth for the development of
the church and to help its members. Other
Williams children were Matthew, a postal
employee; Carl, a teacher and realtor; Inez, an
artist, and Erma, a registered nurse.
Dr. William Sawyer was another developer
in the Brownsville community. He was a doctor
who played a major role in the building of
the Christian Hospital. He built Alberta
72 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

Heights Apartments on 50th Street and 27th
Avenue. It was named for his wife but com -
monly called the Sawyer Apartments.
Another community leader was Bruce
Torres, who was from Cuba. He and H.E.S.
Reaves, editor of the Miami Times, and Ozella
Dunn, were listed in the Miami Times as the
1946 Citizens of the Year. Mr. Torres was cited
for his courageous stand against terror and
mob threats in the defense of his home and the
right of blacks to live in certain sections of the
Brownsville settlement where whites once
lived. Whites once lived in the area of 50th
Street and 29th Avenue. Mr. Torres’ address
was 3053 NW 50th Street.
Jackie Torres Aranho, one of Mr. Torres’
daughters, considered her father to be a Civil
Rights worker. She remembered hearing her
father talk about racial tensions in Brownsville
in 1945. He often talked about the cross burning
that took place in their front yard when the
family lived on NW 50th Street. Her brother
Martin Ellis now lives there. Even the mailbox
was burned, she said. Mr. Torres waged his
own battle to protect his home and neighborhood.
Wesley Garrison, the realtor and developer,
helped Mr. Torres to make contacts with
whites for whom he worked to ask them to see
what they could do to get the Ku Klux Klan to
lessen their pressure on Mr. Torres. Mr. Torres
also appealed to the NAACP for help in alleviating
the racial tension in Brownsville.
Brownsville consisted of single family homes
until the mid 1960s, when the Dade Department
on Housing and Urban Development started
building low income family housing projects.
The residents felt a need to become organized to
protect themselves from the encroachment of
Brownsville’s Lincoln Memorial Park Cemetery is the final
resting place of D.A. Dorsey, Miami’s first black millionaire.
(COURTESY OF METRO-DADE TRANSIT)
low income housing in their residential community.
The Brownsville Improvement Association
was organized by Neal Adams and chartered in
1938 to fight the county’s efforts to build even
more low-income housing in Brownsville.
Brownsville is now a neighborhood of both
well-kept and run-down single-family homes
and apartments. The Brownsville Neighborhood
Civic Association has sought to keep the community
a desirable place to live by fighting zoning
variances that provide for apartments, junk
yards, and businesses that bring crime, drugs,
and other menaces to the community. It seeks to
bring improvements in schools, lighting, streets,
safety of citizens, cleanliness of the neighbor -
hood, recreational facilities and the addition of
sidewalks. Brownsville is a community with
character and pride.
Samuel Smith was another entrepreneur who
lived in Brownsville. He and his wife, Leonie,
reared seven children at their family homestead,
The many churches in the area have always played an important role in the community. Greater Bethel AME Church,
245 NW 8th Street, was built between 1927 and 1943. (PHOTO BY DEBORAH TACKETT)
2735 NW 50th Street, where Mrs. Smith, 96,
still lives. Their children are Birdie Anderson, a
retired registered nurse, Adelle Smith, beautician
(deceased), Samuel Smith Jr., retired postal
worker, Lowell Smith, retired teacher, Victoria
Byron, retired cashier and day care teacher, and
Priscilla Rutledge, retired registered nurse.
Brownsville has always been a place where families
could grow and become productive. This
family is but one example of family accomplishments
in the Brownsville Community.
The Brownsville Neighborhood Civic
Association has participated in several neighborhood
awareness and community projects. It
participated in “Making Brownsville Home,” a
project sponsored by Dade Heritage Trust,
which featured such citizens as Ora Lee
Adams, Jonathan Thurston, Earl Glenn, and
One of the aspects of life that people of
Brownsville are proud of is that it is a pleasant
place to rear a family, and its citizens have made
contributions to the neighborhood and the wider
community. These leaders have included:
Gwendolyn Sawyer Cherry, first African-American woman
in the Florida State Legislature.
Joe Lang Kershaw, first African American state legislator.
Jefferson Reaves, state legislator and organizer of Brownsville
Neighborhood Civic Association.
Daryl Reaves, state legislator.
James Bush, state legislator.
Eugene Lowe, builder who constructed
the Church of God of Prophecy.
George Williams, builder who constructed his own home,
Luscious Crawford, president of the
Brownsville Neighborhood Civic Association.
Gearge Kilpatrick , owner of Spic and Span Grocery
Warren Welters, owner of the Brownsville Drug Store.
James Everett, outstanding athlete, coach, and
inductee into the Hall of Fame.
Caroline Morley, businesswoman, civic and religious leader, and
charter member of the Black Archives History and Research
Foundation of South Florida.
William Louis Generethe, manager and supervisor
of the Miami District for Atlanta Life Insurance.
Dr. Daniel T. Williams, archivist at Tuskegee Institute.
Dr. Ronald R. Hopkins, retired deputy director of the Center
for Disease Control, Atlanta, Georgia, who teaches and lectures
around the world.
Dr. Dorothy Jenkins Fields, founder and chief archivist of the Black
Archives History and Research Foundation of South Florida, Inc.
Judge L. Leo Adderly, municipal judge.
Judge John D. Johnson, retired municipal judge.
Everete Stewart, president, Brownsville Neighborhood
Civic Association.
Dr. Kelsey L. Pharr, civic leader, funeral home owner and licensed
embalmer.
Paul Moss, operator of home for delinquent students and musicians.
Marjorie Wake, charter member of Black Archives,
community and church leader.
Eufaula Frazier, political leader, Democratic Committeewoman.
Emanuel Hutcheson, businessman, civic leader.
Isreal Milton, assistant county manager.
Bishop Emanuel Rahming, and Wilbur Vickers, leader in
Neighborhood Crime Watch and religious leaders.
John R. Marks III, attorney and first African American
Public Service Commissioner in the state of Florida.
Ida Bell Jackson, founder of Jackson’s Toddle Inn nursery school.
Mavis Martin, renowned opera singer.
Gwendolyn Welters, school administrator and community worker.
CHAPTER XVIII ✧ 73

as the Family Health Center, Claude Pepper
and Ward Towers, housing for senior citizens,
and the James E. Scott Community Association.
The African Heritage Cultural Arts Center is
located on 62nd Street and 22nd Avenue.
Martin Luther King Park is located at NW 32nd
Avenue and 62nd Street. All provide social, cultural,
and physical activities for the community.
Historical sites in Brownsville include
Georgette’s Tea Room, 2540 NW 51st Street, a
13-room house built in the 1940s by Georgette
Scott Campbell. It was a meeting and guest
house for black celebrities and entertainers. It
offered a quiet and pleasant alternative to larger
hotels such as the Hampton House, also
located in Brownsville, where famous black
The Brownsville Community Center in Jefferson Reaves Park provides activities for local children. (PHOTO BY DEBORAH TACKETT)
Isreal Milton, who talked about the growth and
development of Brownsville. Dr, Richard K.
Dozier, professor of Architecture at Florida
A&M University was guest panelist on how
other neighborhoods have preserved their heritage
and communities.
Members of the community have also participated
in 12 television programs on Cable
TAP 37 about the history of Brownsville. The
series was entitled “Historical Perspectives of
Brownsville,” sponsored by Dade Heritage
Trust and Barnett Bank, now Bank of America.
The Museum of Science and Space
Planetarium sponsored a reception honoring
persons who participated in the television
series at the Museum. Nationsbank has also
given workshops on how to purchase a home
and has assisted in the community clean-up
campaigns. The community has also participated
in a Main Street Workshop. This workshop
helped the participants identify some of
the goals that they would like to achieve in the
community. A workshop on how the community
could participate in the Main Street
Program was conducted by consultant Joan
Jefferson at Antioch Baptist Church.
Some members of the Brownsville
Community continue to attend church in
Overtown and in other communities.
The community has continued to grow and
prosper. It has long ago outgrown its original
roots as a farming community. There are governmental
services and cultural buildings in
the vicinity. One program brought to the community
was the Model Cities Program. This
program grew out of the 1966 Cities
Demonstration and Metropolitan Development
Act. It was designed to achieve maximum
coordination of federal, state, local and private
resources in a comprehensive plan to significantly
improve the social and physical conditions
of neighborhoods. One of the major
achievements of the Model Cities Program is
the Joseph Caleb Community Center, which
opened its doors for service at 5400 NW 22nd
Avenue on September 25, 1977. The Caleb
Center houses a large auditorium, the Black
Archives History and Research Foundation of
South Florida, Inc., Child Development
Services, Community Conflict Resolution
Services, Community Clerk’s Office, Dade
County Office of Emergency Assistance, James
E. Scott Community Association Day Care
Center, James E. Scott Community Association
Home Visitor Program, Neighborhood
Network North, New Century Development,
North Central Manpower, State Attorney’s
Office, a tag agency, Veterans’ Services, the
Juvenile Court, a clinic, the Mental Health
Center and offices for County Commissioner
Barbara Carey and United States
Congresswoman Carrie Meek.
The area of 22nd Avenue and 54th Street is
the location of other community agencies such
Earlington Heights Elementary School, 4750 NW 22nd
Avenue, is built of oolitic limestone, or coral rock, and is
locally designated as historic. (PHOTO BY DEBORAH TACKETT)
Entertainers Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee perform on the stage of the Joseph Caleb Community Center, located at 5400 NW
22nd Avenue. Named for a black union leader, the Caleb Center hosts many civic events and is the headquarters for the
Black Archives History and Research Foundation of South Florida. (COURTESY OF MIAMI-DADE PARKS)
74 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

The Brownsville Renaissance Shopping Center is a symbol of economic revitalization for the community. (PHOTO BY AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY, INC., COURTESY OF DEEDCO)
entertainers would stay when visiting Miami.
Other historical sites are Lincoln Memorial
Cemetery, one of the oldest black cemeteries in
Dade County. It is the final resting place for
many of Miami’s black pioneers such as Dr.
William Sawyer, Henry E.S. Reeves, D.A.
Dorsey and Dewey Knight.
The Christian Hospital, previously located
in Overtown, was at one time the only hospital
that would admit African Americans.
Earlington Heights Elementary School,
4750 NW 22nd Avenue and Dr. DuPuis’ house
at 3105 NW 62nd Street are listed on the
Miami-Dade County Historic Registry.
Community schools that provide education
for the youth and space for evening meeting
for adults are Lorah Park Elementary, Floral
Heights Elementary and Kelsey L. Pharr
Elementary. Brownsville Middle School is the
only middle school in the community. Some
students attend Miami Springs Middle School.
There is no high school within the boundaries
of the neighborhood. Residents of the community
attend Northwestern, Jackson, Miami
Springs and Central senior high schools.
The community of Brownsville has had its trials
and tribulations. It has seen riots and crime,
and lives with debris on various corners and in
front of homes. The Brownsville Neighborhood
and Civic Association continues to work for
community improvement. Members have
appeared before the County Commissioners, the
Zoning Appeals Board and other governmental
agencies to sustain the single family housing zoning
for the community and stop the proliferation
of junk yards and other undesirable ventures.
One of the outstanding ventures and positive
changes that have come to the community is the
Brownsville Renaissance Shopping Center. It is
the result of community efforts and the Dade
Employment and Economic Development
Corporation, commonly referred to as DEED -
CO. The shopping center is located at the intersection
of NW 27th Avenue and 54th Street.
This is the former site of the old Jet Drugstore, A.
and G. Grocery Store and Tiny’s Liquors, which
burned down during the 1980 riots. The new
structure is approximately 27,000 square feet.
Financing was secured with a $1.7 million construction
loan from NationsBank and $750,000
from Fannie Mae. Without this commitment by
Fannie Mae to inner city development and revitalization,
the project would not have been realized.
It is hoped that this project will serve as a
catalyst for the economic revitalization of
Brownsville and will enhance the growth, development
and quality of life of the community.
The Brownsville Neighborhood and Civic Association has worked to preserve zoning for single family housing. Shown here is
the home of Enid and Frank Pinkney. (PHOTO BY PAULETTE MORTIMER)
Enid Curtis Pinkney was born in Miami in Overtown and graduated from Booker T. Washington High School. She received a B.A.degree from Talladega College and a
M.S. degree from Barry University. She wrote “Fifth Court Revisited” for Miami South Florida magazine in 1982 and “Overtown Was My Town” in Miami the American
Crossroad by Arva Moore Parks and Greg Bush. She conducted the African American research for Burials in the City Cemetery, 1896-1990, was featured in “Miami in
Our Own Words” by The Miami Herald and the University of Miami’s Profiles of Miami, and has been a columnist for The Miami Times. She produced the television
program Resurrection: Blacks Buried in the City Cemetery for Channel 35 and a twelve-part series on Historical Perspectives of Brownsville for Channel 17.
She has served as the first African American president of Dade Heritage Trust and of the Natives of Dade. She is a founder and charter member of the Church of
the Open Door, United Church of Christ. She serves on the Executive Council of the United Church of Christ and the Miami-Dade County Historic Preservation Board.
She has been honored with the “Distinguished Alumni Award” from the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, the “Lay Woman of the Year”
award from the Florida Conference of the United Church of Christ, and the “Essence of Quality” award from Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. She was inducted into the
Hall of Fame of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority and into the Talladega College Hall of Fame. She has been named a “Woman of Impact,” has received an “In The Company
of Women” award from Miami-Dade County and has been sent a letter of commendation by the Queen of England.
CHAPTER XVIII ✧ 75

Crowds enjoy Dade Heritage Days’ RiverDay 2000 in José Martí Park on the south side of the Miami River in East Little Havana. (PHOTO BY BECKY ROPER MATKOV)
RIVERSIDE AND SHENANDOAH
BY P AUL S. GEORGE
As difficult as it is to imagine today, the community
called Miami, or, more precisely, the
settlement gracing the banks of the meandering
Miami River, contained, according to the
Florida State census for 1895, just nine people!
Yet one year later, following the extension of
Henry M. Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway
(FEC) from West Palm Beach to the Miami
River, Miami claimed many hundreds of set -
tlers. The story of the entry of the FEC Railway
into Miami and the efforts of Julia Tuttle and
William and Mary Brickell, the community’s
most prominent settlers, in this process are
familiar. Flagler, the multi-millionaire oil baron
and industrialist, had extended his rail line
from northeast Florida to West Palm Beach over
a period of many years, arriving in the latter settlement
in 1894. One year later, on the heels of
two ruinous freezes that destroyed agricultural
crops as far south as the Palm Beach area,
Flagler decided, after meeting with Tuttle, to
move his railroad to the Miami River.
For Flagler, Miami offered the prospect of a
frost-free area suitable for agriculture as well as
a promising venue for tourism. For Tuttle, the
prospects of the railroad’s entry meant that
Miami would gain a long-awaited lifeline to the
outside world and a jumpstart toward development.
The announcement that the railroad was
headed to Miami brought hundreds of settlers,
many still reeling from the devastation of the
recent freezes, to the shores of Biscayne Bay for
a chance to begin anew in a milder clime.
As part of his agreement with Tuttle and the
Brickells, Flagler, in addition to extending his
railroad to the Miami River, agreed to lay out a
city site, and build a tourist hotel. In return,
the railroad baron received hundreds of acres
of choice land from Tuttle and the Brickells. By
October 1895, a contract had been drawn setting
forth the items previously agreed on
among the principals to it. At the same time,
Flagler’s surveyor, A.L. Knowlton, was in
Miami studying the area in order to begin platting
a town site.
Using today’s street numbering system, the
boundaries established by Knowlton included
Eleventh Street on the north; on the west, NW
7th Avenue (north of the Miami River); on the
south, NW and SW 8th Avenue (south of the
river), beginning at the intersection of SW 8th
Avenue and SW 11th Street, running east
along 11th Street to the intersection of 15th
Road and following that artery southeast to a
point two miles into Biscayne Bay. The eastern
border was also set in the middle of the bay.
The future Riverside, a thickly wooded area,
virtually bereft of people, thus found itself
within the proposed limits of the new city.
With the arrival of hundred of workers to
the area, many of the familiar trappings and
institutions of fledgling settlements began to
appear. Julia Tuttle’s Hotel Miami began to rise
in early 1896 near the north bank of the Miami
River. By then, several business houses,
stretching from the north bank of the Miami
River to today’s Southwest/Southeast 2nd
Street, appeared along the community’s first
street, Avenue D, today’s Miami Avenue. They
included the Miami Metropolis, the first newspaper,
which began publishing on May 15,
1896, and the Bank of Bay Biscayne, which
opened soon after. In its inaugural issue, the
Metropolis called for the incorporation of the
City of Miami. At the same time, the Flagler
organization began preparing the community
for this moment. On July 28, 1896, the City of
Miami was incorporated and the above boundaries
defined its size and shape.
The nascent city grew quickly despite early
problems. Its population rose to 1681 in 1900.
76 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

Two decades later, it claimed nearly 30,000
residents. By then, tourism and real estate sales
had joined agriculture as the major elements of
its economy. Miami’s early population spurt
pushed settlement beyond the confines of
downtown. The city grew primarily north and
west of the original core. The subdivisions on
the west bank of the Miami River, corresponding
to today’s East Little Havana, included
Miami (A.L. Knowlton), Riverside, which later
was expanded and became Riverview, and
Lawrence Estate Land Company subdivision.
They stretched from the Miami River west to
today’s Twelfth Avenue and from today’s
Southwest Eighth Street north to Northwest
Seventh Street.
Carved out of the piney woods and resting
on an oolite limestone ridge, Riverside was
located in a portion of the Rebecca Hagan
Donation, a Spanish land grant emanating
from the early nineteenth century. Riverside
and the above-mentioned subdivisions were
developed in the first two decades of this century.
The entire area came to be called
“Riverside” for its location near the stream and
for the fact that one of its subdivisions bore
that name. While Mary Brickell platted the
Riverside subdivision, the most important
developers were the Tatum Bothers: Bethel B.,
John R., J. H., and Smiley, creators of the
Lawrence Estate Land Company subdivision,
which represented a sizable segment of
Riverside. These colorful promoters came to
Miami from Dawson, Georgia, in the 1890s.
The neoclassical Warner House, at 111 SW 5th Avenue, was completed in 1912 as the Warner family home and floral business.
One of the most elegant buildings in Riverside, it was restored in 1983 as an office building. (COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
Tatum in Riverside fetched $300 to $350 in
1904. Tatum Brothers’ advertisements characterized
the area as “The Beautiful Ridge” owing
to its verdant, elevated terrain. In an advertisement
appearing in 1906, J.H. Tatum and com -
pany exhorted Miamians to “buy a lot in
Riverside,” especially since “the electric trolley
line will be completed through (Riverside) in
90 days and the price of all lots will be
increased 50%.”
Riverside contained many elegant, two-story
frame homes and other simpler residences. As
the second and third decades of the twentieth
century unfolded, many of the newer homes
were bungalows. This style of architecture originated
in British-controlled India and spread to
other areas of the world, including the United
States. Early on, Riverside’s residents included a
roster of prominent entrepreneurs, politicians,
and civic activists.
The Riverside area was connected to nearby
downtown by the 12th Street (later Flagler
Street) bridge, which opened as a toll-roadway
in 1905. The tolls were steep for that era: 10
cents for a pedestrian; 25 cents (more than $6
in today’s money) for a horse-drawn cart. In
A bungalow style home, featuring coral rock and wood shingles, which was typical of many built in Riverside in the 1920s
and 1930s. (COURTESY OF MIAMI-DADE HISTORIC PRESERVATION DIVISION)
The Miami River Inn consists of a series of wood frame
and masonry buildings dating to the early 1900s.
(PHOTO © 1994 BY JOHN GILLAN)
CHAPTER XIX ✧ 77

A statue of Mary holding baby Jesus graces the shade of a banyan tree in Little Havana. (PHOTO BY ANTOINETTE NATURALE)
1909, the City of Miami purchased the facility
and removed the tolls. Broad Flagler Street was
Riverside’s most important thoroughfare. A
Flagler Street trolley began operating in 1915,
carrying passengers as far west as SW 12th
Avenue. A car barn was located nearby. SW 6th
Street also boasted a trolley line beginning in
1925. This line rambled from downtown along
6th Street to SW 16th Avenue, where it turned
north and traveled as far as NW 7th Street.
Businesses and splendid homes arose along
both sides of West. Flagler Street in the early
1900s. In later decades, parades sometimes
spilled over the Flagler Street Bridge west to
SW 12th Avenue and beyond. Located on
thoroughfares north and south of 12th Street
were additional homes occupied by many
prominent Miamians. By the 1920s, Riverside
reached beyond 8th, 12th, and 17th Avenues.
(Much of the area between 12th and 17th
Avenues had earlier hosted large citrus groves.)
New thoroughfares, like SW 8th Street, which
represents the easternmost portion of the
Tamiami Trail, joined the aforementioned
streets as major commercial arteries. That area,
stretching from 8th Street to Coral Way and
from 14th Avenue to roughly 27th Avenue,
came to be known as Shenandoah, for several
of its subdivisions located there bore the name
of the beautiful valley that runs through a portion
of Virginia. Shenandoah’s unofficial borders
stretch from SW 12th to 27th Avenues
and from 8th Street to Coral Way.
The decade of the 1930s saw significant
changes in the population of Riverside.
Increasing numbers of Jews moved into the
area. Their businesses, professional offices, and
institutions accompanied them. The Jewish
presence continued to grow and remained a
major element of the population until the late
1950s, when an era of postwar prosperity and
population expansion brought another housing
boom to Greater Miami. The boom
prompted the migration of many Riverside residents
to suburban developments throughout
Dade County.
Riverside’s population mix has undergone a
remarkable change in the last half of the twentieth
century as large numbers of Cubans,
Nicaraguans, and other peoples from the
Caribbean and Latin America poured into the
quarter. The earliest known Cubans in Miami,
were the family of Luis Gonzalez, who were
already residing in the nascent city in 1896. In
its inaugural edition of May 15, 1896, the
Miami Metropolis reported that Luis Gonzalez,
a Cuban-born, but longtime American resi -
dent, had opened a cigar “factory” in Miami.
According to historian Francis Sicius, the
Gonzalez family probably moved to Miami
from Key West, a bustling home to many
Cubans in the nineteenth century. He was
joined in 1896 by Jose Sanchez, who, following
his arrival in Miami, became a foreman in
a small cigar factory in the fledgling munici -
pality. These Cubans were part of a small community
of cigar makers. About fifteen Cubans
were living in the Miami area according to the
United States Census of 1900. One of those
families were the Enscinosas, who, by 1920,
were residing on SW 8th Street/Calle Ocho.
The turbulence of Cuban politics led to the
formation of a Cuban exile colony, primarily
on Miami Beach, in the early decades of this
century. The island’s political tumult increased
in the final years of the regime of President
Gerardo Machado in the early 1930s, when
Greater Miami became the center of Cuban
exile activity. By then, more than 1,000 Cuban
exiles were huddled on the periphery of downtown
Miami.
The numbers of Cuban exiles grew dra -
matically in the 1950s as many fled the dictatorship
of Fulgencio Batista for Miami.
(Ironically, Batista maintained a home in
Spring Garden, on the north bank of the
Miami River). Riverside and Shenandoah
became home to many of these exiles whose
numbers in Dade County reached 30,000 in
that decade, according to historian Maria
Cristina Garcia. Cuban radio programs and
restaurants counted large numbers of enthusiastic
listeners and patrons. By 1955, a shrine
to Our Lady of Charity, the patron saint of
Cuba, had risen west of Riverside in the
Catholic parish of St. Michael the Archangel
on West Flagler Street. Círculo Cubano, a
Cuban Social Club, opened at 420 Southwest
Eighth Street in 1955. It sponsored weekly
dances for teenagers and adults. In the meantime,
the Cuban community dined on native
dishes at restaurants in the area and enjoyed
Cuban pastries from nearby bakeries.
By then, the physical components of the
neighborhood had begun to change. In the
period immediately after World War II, new
structures arose throughout the quarter as large
apartments, bearing bland architectural styles,
increasingly replaced the quaint frame vernacular
and bungalow homes of yesteryear.
Additionally, many denizens of Riverside
moved to new homes in burgeoning suburbs
arising west of there.
More remarkable was the change in
Riverside’s population in the years and
decades following Fidel Castro’s rise to power
in Cuba in 1959, as many thousands of
Cubans poured into the quarter. By the beginning
of the 1980s, they were joined by
Nicaraguans, Hondurans, and other Spanishspeaking
persons from throughout the hemisphere.
By the 1960s, “Little Havana” was a
78 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

Begun in 1978 as a way to unite the Miami community and to bring people to visit 8th Street, the “Calle Ocho” festival is now the biggest block party in the world.
(COURTESY OF THE KIWANIS CLUB OF LITTLE HAVANA)
CHAPTER XIX ✧ 79

The Art Deco building of Miami Shipyards stands on the
corner of SE 2nd Avenue and South River Drive.
(PHOTO BY MARTY STOFIK, COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
term commonly used to describe the
Riverside and Shenandoah neighborhoods.
“Calle Ocho,” or Eighth Street, again became
a bustling thoroughfare closely associated
with the Cuban economic “miracle.” Today’s
East Little Havana is like an “Ellis Island,”
since so many of its residents have fled the
political and economic turmoil of the
Caribbean and Latin America for new lives in
the United States.
In the 1980s, City of Miami planners divid -
ed Little Havana into East and West sectors,
with 12th Avenue serving as the dividing line
between the two. While East Little Havana’s borders
are clearly defined, incorporating, as they
do, the former Riverside area, those of West
Little Havana, which includes Shenandoah, are
more vague, especially in the west, since some
authorities consider Southwest/Northwest 27th
or 37th Avenues as the border in that direction.
Others maintain that the robust Cuban-driven
Hispanic business corridor stretching along 8th
Street, Flagler Street, and other thoroughfares
deep into the western sectors of the county
places the edge of West Little Havana in that
direction, or many miles beyond the more conservative
interpretation. The federal population
for 1990, outdated as it is today, remains,
nonetheless, the most accurate source for assessing
the population of East Little Havana. (By
2001, new census material will, of course, provide
us with a much more complete and updated picture
of the changing demographics of East Little
Havana). According to that count, the quarter
contained in 1990 about 20,000 residents, more
than ninety-five percent of whom were Hispanic.
(West Little Havana with its undefined western
borders contains a much larger population,
while the total population of the City of Miami
in that decennial year was 358,548, of whom
224,000 were Hispanics). The sector’s population
has risen steadily since then, as the upcoming
census will indicate. Today’s East Little
Havana represents one of the most densely
populated neighborhoods in the state.
East Little Havana has much to offer resi -
dents and visitors alike. It is the home of such
singular institutions as the Lighthouse for the
Blind and the Hope Center. It was also the
birthplace of the Miami Jewish Home and
Hospital for the Aged. Victoria Hospital operated
there from its inception in 1924 until its
closing earlier in this decade. The quarter contains
two historic parks created in the early
1900s, Henderson Park and Riverside Park,
now named for Jorge Mas Canosa, which
includes one of the most elevated areas in the
city. Named for an early Miami mayor,
Henderson Park was the site of many championship
tennis tournaments and matches in the
century’s middle decades. José Martí Park, a $5
million waterfront park that opened in 1985,
sits on the site of an ancient Tequesta Indian
village. It offers visitors a stunning view of the
bustling Miami River and the soaring buildings
of downtown to the east.
Some of the city’s oldest businesses, such as
Biscayne Engineering (1905), McAllister
Florists (1923), and Robert’s Drugstore (1921),
still operate in the quarter. Teatro Martí has
resided in the Riverside Mercantile Building
since the early 1960s. The John B. Gordon
Chapter 24 constructed this building, located
on the southwest corner of SW 8th Avenue and
4th Street, in 1926. Nearby stands Templo
Adventista del Séptimo (1925), a textbook
example of a mission style church. Another
religious institution of landmark status is
Riverside Methodist Church, which began in
1921. Riverside Elementary School, one of the
county’s oldest schools, is a bustling bi-racial
cultural institution. Ada Merritt Junior High,
the county’s first junior high school, opened in
Riverside in 1923. Currently closed, it is destined
to reopen in a new complex that will
include the restored, historic Spanish Colonialstyled
main building that hosted the original
school. The Koubek Center, the University of
Miami’s School of Continuing Studies, is located
at 2705 SW 3rd Street and includes a beautifully
restored home from the 1920s.
The quarter also claims the Miami River
Inn, consisting of a series of wood frame and
masonry buildings, some of which were constructed
in the early 1900s. Overlooking the
Miami River, this quaint, beautiful facility is the
area’s premier bed and breakfast establishment.
Warner Place, standing one block west of the
Miami River Inn and formerly known as the
Warner House, is a stunning neoclassical structure
built in 1912 as a home to the Warner
family and their Miami Floral Company.
The quarter contains many street vendors
as well as produce trucks offering fresh vegetables
and fruits. East Little Havana is dotted
with small food emporiums and cafeterias,
which offer a surprising variety of inexpensive
food delights and, of course, Cafe Cubano. A
restaurant in the quarter, La Esquina de Tejas,
became famous when it hosted President
Ronald Reagan for lunch in 1983 and Vice
President George Bush for Cafe Cubano several
years later. The quarter’s liveliest day is the
second Sunday in March, when an estimated
one million revelers crowd along the narrow
parameters of Eighth Street in both sectors of
Little Havana for the fabled Calle Ocho Open
House. This nonpareil event marks the culmination
of the eight-day Lenten Celebration
known as Carnival.
East Little Havana offers residents and visitors
alike a wonderful window into yesterday’s
Miami, as well as today’s bustling metropolis.
Just as Miami’s suburban experience began
with Riverside nearly 100 years ago, the city’s
contemporary character has been, and continues
to be, strongly influenced by East Little
Havana, home to waves of recent arrivals chasing
the American dream in their quest for freedom
and opportunity.
Paul S. George is an associate professor, senior, at Miami-Dade Community College, Wolfson Campus. A native Miamian, he is a graduate of Miami-Dade
Community College and received a Ph.D. in history from Florida State University. He has taught at FSU, Florida A &M University, Florida Atlantic University and
the University of Miami. The author of eight books and over 100 articles and book reviews, he is editor of Tequesta, the scholarly journal of the Historical Association
of Southern Florida, to which he is historian. He has served as president of the Florida Historical Society, vice chairman of the City of Miami’s Heritage Conservation
Board, and director of the Historic Broward County Preservation Board. He currently is a member of Miami-Dade County’s Preservation Board and is the president of
the Louis Wolfson II Media History Center. He is well known for the thirty-five different history tours he conducts of Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe Counties.
80 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

LITTLE HAVANA AND CALLE OCHO
BY L ESLIE P ANTÍN, JR .
Little Havana is the emotional center of
Miami’s Hispanic community. In the early
1960s, large groups of Cuban exiles settled in
this area near downtown Miami, where housing
was affordable (due to the movement to the
suburbs) and close to the available jobs.
The area came to be known as Little Havana.
Its rough boundaries are the Miami River on
two sides, and U.S. 1 and Coral Gables on the
other sides. Southwest 8th Street, known as
“Calle Ocho,” is Little Havana’s main street. It is
also a main feeder to downtown Miami.
You can be born and buried in Little Havana.
You can get an education in Little Havana, from
bilingual grade schools to college. South
Florida’s oldest high school, Miami Senior, as
well as campuses of Miami-Dade Community
College (the nation’s largest community college)
and the University of Miami are all in Little
Havana. You can shop, bank and eat at great
restaurants, and buy books and music all in
Spanish. You can read Miami’s two Spanish-language
dailies while sipping Cuban coffee at the
many storefront cafes, and listen to one of the
many radio stations that transmit music or talk
from Little Havana. You can worship at one of
the many churches, attend football or soccer
games at the Orange Bowl, or watch soap operas
(telenovelas) on the two Spanish language television
networks, Univision and Telemundo, headquartered
in Miami.
The central part of Little Havana contains
the “Latin Quarter,” where unique zoning and
architectural standards give it a distinctive fla -
vor that includes brick sidewalks, red barrel tile
roofs and sidewalk cafes. Many Spanish-lan -
guage works can be enjoyed at the numerous
theaters in Little Havana, plus the Greater
Miami Opera at the Dade County Auditorium.
Today, Little Havana is also the home to residents
of many Central and South American
countries, adding to the Miami mosaic.
Hispanics reside in every neighborhood, making
South Florida (Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, the
Palm Beaches and the Keys) the third most
populated Hispanic center in the U.S., behind
Los Angeles and New York. With over
1,250,000 Hispanic residents (35% of the population),
this market has a buying power of
over eight billion dollars.
The following walking tour gives a glimpse
of the flavor of Little Havana, highlighting some
typical establishments along Calle Ocho and
several notable places that are a five-minute car
drive from the walking tour.
We start at the southwest corner of
Southwest 8th Street (Calle Ocho) and 19th
Avenue with Librería Cervantes, 1898 SW 8th
Street. Named after the well known author of
Don Quixote, this bookstore carries many titles
by other great Hispanic authors, as well as the
New York Times best-sellers that have been
translated into Spanish.
Florería El Camino, 1896 SW 8th Street. As
you enter this multi-purpose shop, you will see
a wide variety of Spanish language magazines.
Some of you might recognize Spanish versions
of Good Housekeeping or Popular Mechanics.
Many others are original titles specifically edited
for Hispanics. Along the reading area there
are racks of used western paperbacks in
Spanish, which are either sold or exchanged.
On the opposite wall, there is a display of
Santería paraphernalia. Santería is the Afro-
Cuban religious cult developed by slaves in
Cuba and practiced by many Cuban-
Americans. Florería literally means flower shop,
and indeed there are flowers sold here, for in
Santería rituals are closely linked to color
schemes for each “saint” and flowers and candles
are utilized.
As we walk down Calle Ocho towards the
next stop, there is a coffee shop’s window open
to the street, forming a countertop where Café
Cubano, pastries, cigarettes, cigars and other
items are sold. These are common and numerous
in Hispanic areas, usually associated with a
restaurant or grocery shop. It is a great place to
have a 10-second breakfast on your way to
work or for a quick break during the afternoon.
Make sure you order a cafecito, or Cuban
expresso coffee. It will give you enough of a
“charge” to help you make it through the rest of
your day.
You will find clothing stores where you will be
able to purchase a guayabera shirt, the official
summertime attire for many Miami businessmen.
Casa Prieto Bakery, 745 SW 8th Street. Feast
your eyes on a display of colorful birthday
cakes and Cuban pastries filled with guava,
meat or cheese. Order a giant loaf of Cuban
bread, or the distinctive Cuban crackers.
Kings Ice Cream, 1831 SW 8th Street, is
typical of the old Havana shops in that it has
been family owned and operated for several
generations. It offers tropical fruit ice cream
made on the premises. There is a large mural
depicting tropical fruits such as mamey, mango,
tamarindo, guanabana and coco. Their ice
creams and shakes are extremely popular, and
during Miami’s few cold days they also serve
hot chocolate with churros, the Spanish version
of hot doughnuts.
Do Re Mi Music Center, 1829 SW 8th Street,
features thousands of recordings of popular
Hispanic performers, both local and international.
New Canton, 1823 SW 8th Street. Cuba,
like many Caribbean islands, used to have a
large Chinese community. Many of them also
immigrated to Miami when Castro took over. In
the menu, along with traditionally Chinese
items you will find typical Cuban dishes.
Little Havana’s “Latin Quarter” features brick sidewalks,
red barrel tile roofs and sidewalk cafes.
(PHOTO BY ANTOINETTE NATURALE)
President Supermarket, 1895 SW 8th
Street, is stocked with many Cuban specialty
items not found in the average grocery store,
plus many products originating in Central and
South America.
On 15th Avenue and SW 8th Street there
is Domino Park, considered to be one of the
most-used parks in the United States, if
measured by square inch. This mini-park is a
haven for the area’s senior citizens; it is a
place where they can meet and play domi -
noes and chess from dawn to dusk.
Discussion and debate are as much part of
CHAPTER XX ✧ 81

A perpetual torch burns at the Bay of Pigs Monument
along Calle Ocho to honor those who died in the ill-fated
1961 invasion to free Cuba from Castro’s dictatorship.
(PHOTO BY ANTOINETTE NATURALE)
the game as the game pieces. Topics may
include daily updates of what is happening in
Cuba and the possibilities of Castro’s demise.
Arguments sometimes turn very lively in
spite of the No Escándalos (No Scandals) and
other signs that warn about discussing reli -
gion or politics. There is a snack shop next to
the park that offers fresh squeezed fruit
juices, including the typical guarapo, a drink
made from sugar cane.
The Bay of Pigs Monument, 13th Avenue
and 8th Street, has a perpetual torch dedicated
to those who lost their lives in 1961 in the illfated
invasion of Cuba by the anti-Castro 2506
brigade, comprised mostly of Cuban exiles living
in Miami.
El Crédito Cigars, 1106 SW 8th Street, has
expert workers who learned this complex art in
Cuba, hand rolling cigars on the premises. The
tobacco leaves are grown in Central America
from Cuban Seeds, considered the best in the
world. Cigar making has a long history in
Florida. Factories used to flourish in Tampa
and Key West, staffed by both Cuban and
Spanish descendants. Old cigar rollers are a
very educated group, because, in Cuba at the
factories, they hired professional readers, who
would read aloud from classic books whilst
they were working. Cuban’s foremost patriot,
José Martí, used to make a living as a reader.
Finally, stroll around José Martí Park, SW
4th Avenue and 4th Street. This riverfront park
delivers a magnificent view of downtown
Miami and gives you another chance to peek at
Little Havana’s daily life.
Visitors by the hundreds of thousands come
to partake in the many festivals hosted by Little
Havana. In early January, the Three Kings
Parade preserves an old Cuban tradition.
In his efforts to eradicate traditions, particularly
those with religious roots, Castro eliminated
many celebrations, including that of
the Three Kings Day. The celebration of the
Three Kings Day is widespread in the
Hispanic world. This holiday commemorates
the visit of the three wise men to baby Jesus
in Bethlehem twelve days after Christmas.
These wise men, also known as “The Three
Kings,” brought gifts to baby Jesus, starting
the tradition of giving presents to the children
on January 6th.
In Cuba it was customary for children to ask
one of the Three Kings for a present. Children
would pick their favorite King (Balthazar,
Gaspar or Melchior) and request their desired
gift. On the morning of January 6th the toys
would magically appear in the child’s home.
Many families placed a nativity scene under
their Christmas trees, which displayed the figures
surrounding the birth of Jesus, including
the Three Kings.
During the 1950s Santa Claus was also
becoming popular at Christmas time. The celebration
of Noche Buena on Christmas Eve, Santa
Claus and Three Kings Day all led to a very
enjoyable extended holiday season. In Miami
Cuban-Americans have kept the tradition alive
with an annual parade in Little Havana.
In March, Carnaval Miami brings 10 days of
partying and festivities, including the world’s
largest block party: Calle Ocho Open House,
sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Little Havana.
Calle Ocho’s beginning has an interesting
story. It all started as a project in 1977 to unite
the Miami community, with the co-sponsorship
of The Miami Herald, led by John McMullen,
and Frank Soler of el Nuevo Herald. After much
brainstorming that included ideas such as a
bicycle race, a concert and others, club member
Willy Bermello, who had lived in Philadelphia,
suggested a block party like many ethnic festivals
held in that city.
A year of planning brought together music,
food, arts and crafts, boxing and folkloric
groups. City officials were very skeptical, but
finally acquiesced, and a few sponsors were
found, including Bacardi.
The festival was first called “Open House
Eight, An Invitation to SW 8th Street,” so it
would be language friendly, and it followed the
United States custom of having an open house
so your new neighbors would get to know newcomers.
Oddly enough, it was the Englishspeaking
guests who called it “Calle Ocho.”
March of 1978 came around and members
of the Kiwanis Club were working hard on the
preparations and were very nervous about
how many people would come; the most optimistic
guess was 10,000. That Sunday morning,
club members were up way before dawn,
physically finishing the music stages and
planting bushes.
A system trolley was secured for guests to ride
through the fifteen blocks of Calle Ocho. The
sidewalks were lined with “art,” which included
macrame hanging plants, food vendors, the
musical and folkloric stage and the boxing ring.
Kiwanis Club members were pleasantly sur -
prised by the number of people who came early.
An hour into the event, SW 8th Street was so
crowded that the trolley was sent home. The
next day, the Miami Herald headline shouted that
100,000 had attended Calle Ocho!
Since then, Calle Ocho has grown into the
two-week festival called Carnaval Miami. It was
at the behest of tourism offices that the event
expanded, and it was television that made it
known all over the Hispanic world. In 1981, the
Mexican television show called Siempre en
Domingo brought big name talent to Calle Ocho,
including Julio Iglesias, and the show was televised
to Latin America and the United States.
Latin music stars have since then performed in
Carnaval Miami events at the Orange Bowl and
Bayfront Park. Landmarks have included the
world’s largest Conga line (with over 119,000
dancers) and the cancellation one year of the
entire Carnaval Miami in honor of The Brothers
to the Rescue planes shot down by Cuba.
Carnaval Miami has grown into the largest
Hispanic festival in the United States, and Calle
Ocho is known as the biggest block party anywhere
in the world. Most importantly, it brings
Miami’s multi-cultural community together for
a joyous celebration.
Leslie Pantin, Jr. is founder and president of The Pantin Partnership, a leading public relations firm. He was born in Havana, Cuba, attended elementary
school in Coral Gables and graduated from Florida State University business school. One of the founders of the “Calle Ocho” festival, he has
also chaired the Orange Bowl Committee and co-chaired the Miami Centennial. A member of many community and statewide boards, he received the
Miami Herald’s “Spirit of Excellence” Award in 1998.
82 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

The fresh water spring called “The Devil’s Punch Bowl,” bubbling up in a coral rock cliff by Biscayne Bay, has been sought out for centuries by Indians, pirates, pioneers and tourists. This landmark
is behind a home in the Cliff Hammock neighborhood. (COURTESY OF THE FLORIDA STATE ARCHIVES)
CLIFF HAMMOCK
B Y J ULIA H ODAPP C OHEN
The spot where I found Col. Harney camped could, with very little trouble, be converted onto a perfect Eden. The coconut, the banana, the orange, the lime,
the tamarind flourished around us, in the spontaneous growth of the soil. Swarms of deer abounded in the forests close by; and the most delicious spring water
flowed from the rock under the bluff of the shore. This was indeed the land of flowers, and no wonder the Seminoles desired to remain....
—Jacob Rhett Motte
By the mid 1830s,when Jacob Rhett Motte
wrote the above description upon first seeing
the “land of flowers,” South Florida was
embroiled in the Second Seminole War, the
longest Indian war in U.S. history. The area was
still largely undeveloped, and largely untamed.
The ‘Eden’ to which Mr. Motte alluded,
however, was already a legendary site because
of the freshwater spring that bubbled through
it. The lure of springs on the mainland had
attracted mariners from the Caribbean and
Europe for hundreds of years. They came in
search of the fountain of youth, or, if that
failed, casks of fresh water that would allow
them to journey across the ocean for trade. The
most famous of these springs was the Devil’s
Punch Bowl (or the Pirate’s Punch Bowl),
which is said to have attracted travelers ranging
from the Tequesta Indians (a tribe native to
Southeast Florida prior to the first Spanish
invasion) to Captain Cook and other smug -
glers, buccaneers, and pirates.
The Punch Bowl occupied a spot in what was
once dense hammock on Biscayne Bay, in what
is now the Cliff Hammock neighborhood, one of
the most beautiful in South Florida. Mention of
the Punch Bowl appears in accounts by white
Bahamian farmers who settled here in the 1800s
at the behest of the Spanish government, by later
soldiers of the Seminole wars, and by tourists
who came to Miami in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. Over the years, the site
has become less known to the general population,
but is still of interest to historians. In addition,
it is part of the traditions of the Miccosukee
and Seminole tribes, who crowd the site for a
nighttime ceremony every year.
In the 1870s, the Brickell family, major
landowners, embarked on a buying spree that
would encompass property from Coconut Grove
to the Miami River, including the Cliff Hammock
neighborhood. In 1896, the same year Miami was
incorporated, they converted the footpath that
had once led to Coconut Grove into a wagon trail.
In 1911, Mary Brickell, the matriarch, created
Brickell Avenue, which ran from the Miami River
south to today’s 15th Road. The road boasted a
median (which she called a central park) and
soon became the preferred address in the city.
South of 15th Road, however, remained a
dense hammock, with the original wagon road
as the only land access. The “rubberneck wagons”
(tour wagons) that went down the trail were
popular with tourists, who turned out in droves
to look at the Devil’s Punch Bowl and to listen to
the enterprising, if not always accurate, tour
wagon guides. One of the many tourists to come
through was Mary Baird Bryan, wife of William
Jennings Bryan, who was one of the most famous
politicians in the United States at the time.
CHAPTER XXI ✧ 83

Vizcaya, an Italian Renaissance villa and gardens, was designed by architects F. Burrall Hoffman, Paul Chalfin and Diego
Suarez. Constructed from 1914-1916, Vizcaya is considered one of the most beautiful estates in America. Open to the public
as a museum, Vizcaya is treasured by tourists and residents alike. (COURTESY OF VIZCAYA MUSEUM AND GARDENS)
In the winter of 1911,the Bryans were vacationing
in Jamaica. However, Mr. Bryan was
called up to the north in February, and Mrs.
Bryan came to Florida to explore the area with an
eye to building a permanent winter home. After
getting off the boat in Tampa and taking the train
first to Orlando and slowly down the coast, she
stepped off the train in Miami, then still a small
village. She said “The railroad station was...a
bower of flowers…. As soon as I breathed the
balmy air of Miami, I knew this was the place.”
When Mrs.Bryan took the rubberneck
wagon, she was so charmed by the hammock by
Biscayne Bay that she hired a surveyor the next
day, and they spent two days together cutting
though the undergrowth with a machete. When
Mr. Bryan came and saw the town and the land
his wife had selected, he was equally entranced.
He soon purchased property between W.S.
Jennings, who was the former governor of
Florida (and Mr. Bryan’s cousin), and J.L.
Billingsly, then City Attorney for Miami and later
United States Attorney for South Florida. Mr.
Bryan’s arrival delighted the citizens.
Today, Mr. Bryan is remembered, and often
reviled, for his role in the Scopes trial, wherein
he represented Tennessee in the state’s fight
against the teaching of evolution. However, in
1912 he was a respected elder statesman, a
three-time presidential candidate, and a moral
leader. His presence affirmed Miami as a place
where exciting and fashionable things were
happening. On any given Sunday morning in
the winter of 1912, several thousand people
crowded into Royal Palm Park to hear the
Sunday school class Mr. Bryan taught.
In December of 1912, Bryan returned to
Miami and began to break ground for “Villa
Serena.” The jungle atmosphere was one of the
land’s attractions, and he went to some lengths
to preserve it, declaring that “nature is the best
landscape architect when all is said and done.”
He went to Budge’s Department Store downtown
and bought an axe, which he used to
clear ground and to help W.S. Jennings build a
seawall along their properties and the property
of J.L. Billingsly. A Hollywood film crew
recorded the two men in action.
By January 1913, preliminaries were underway,
and Villa Serena was going up. The house
was made of concrete strengthened with a steel
understructure and was designed to capture
Famous for his oratory, William Jennings Bryan is shown here teaching Bible class in the Royal Palm Park on December l7, 1922.
(COURTESY OF THE FLORIDA STATE ARCHIVES)
the maximum breeze from the bay. By
December of 1913, Mr. and Mrs. Bryan had
moved in. While Mr. Bryan oversaw the building,
Mrs. Bryan had spared no effort on the
details. She selected the roof tiles personally at
a factory in Cuba. The doorknockers were also
selected there. The enormous mantle pieces
were rescued from a condemned mansion in
Washington D.C.
Although these events were capturing the
attention of the city and the country, the most
important project in the city’s architectural
development was only getting started. In
November of 1912, just a month before the
work began on Villa Serena, James Deering
bought 130 acres of bay front land from Mary
Brickell for a thousand dollars an acre. He
demanded that the road which ran through his
property be closed, which angered the Coconut
Grove Taxpayers’ Guild. Mary Brickell and
James Deering, who had previously argued bitterly
over the cost of the land, now joined forces
to lobby for road closure. In the end, Mary
Brickell built a new road, now Miami Avenue,
at her own expense, and Brickell Avenue was
closed off at Deering’s property.
Deering originally intended to build a
small, secluded retreat in the middle of the
wilderness, only large enough for his inti -
mates—a counterpoint to his house in Paris,
his mansion in Chicago, and his flat in New
York. The extra land would serve to protect his
privacy. He chose the jungle between Miami
and Coconut Grove, turning down an offer of
free land on Miami Beach from his friend Carl
Fisher. He selected Paul Chalfin, a young New
York designer, to put up the small, Spanishstyle
home he envisioned.
Chalfin’s vision was different. He teamed up
with a young architect, F. Burrall Hoffman, Jr.,
and together they presented Deering with a
plan for an Italianate villa, sprawling and airy.
The home would be more than a masterpiece;
it would be an architectual fantasy, designed to
look as if it truly had been sitting on the shores
for centuries, inhabited and furnished by a
dozen generations. To this end, Deering and
Chalfin went off on two trips to Italy, bringing
back wrought iron gates, frames for the
immense doors, several statues, and purchasing
boatloads of furniture, accessories, and
even building materials from Europe.
While in Florence, Paul Chalfin met the
man whom he would later commission to do
the formal gardens. The man was Diego
Suarez, who was born in Bogota, Colombia
and educated in Italy. The gardens were modeled
after the Italian style, and are designed on
a slant running down to the villa on the bay.
Suarez’s job, and the jobs of all of the builders,
84 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

A view of Vizcaya from the terraced gardens. (PHOTO BY DEBORAH TACKETT)
was complicated by Deering’s insistence that
the builders not cut down a single one of the
great trees in the hammocks. Today, the visitor
wanders through the dense growth on his or
her way to the gates. The villa is designed
around a central, covered patio, which allows
air to circulate throughout the house.
At the height of production, the project
employed about a third of the working men in
the city, and was by far its biggest employer.
Artisans came from all over the country. James
Orr, the first contractor brought in, traveled all
up and down New England, on his honey -
moon, looking for the last of a breed now all
but extinct in the United States—artisans who
still worked with hand tools. Paul Chalfin’s
relentless perfectionism, which spread to the
rest of the major workers, did not allow for the
use of machines for jobs that could be done by
men. This painstaking effort delayed the com -
pletion of Vizcaya. The project was also delayed
by the outbreak of World War I in Europe; even
though the U.S was not yet in the fighting, the
The magnificent Renaissance Hall at Vizcaya. (COURTESY OF VIZCAYA MUSEUM AND GARDENS)
cost of imports from Europe had skyrocketed,
and some things were unavailable altogether.
Deering arrived at Vizcaya by yacht on
Christmas Eve, 1916. The dramatic entrance
he made was not, however, typical of his personal
style, which ran towards the intimate
dinner party or luncheon. Members of
Deering’s inner circle of friends, whom he
called the “regular,” included the Bryans and
Jennings, as well as William K. Vanderbilt and
his wife. The public was given tours of the
house and grounds in the winter, and the gardens
were open in the summer. The place
became such an attraction that some citizens
complained that the walls blocked their view
of the house! Deering was loath to have his
house displayed from the road, but he did not
wish to offend the public. The compromise
was the beautiful wall, with hand-etched
designs and sconces for fountains, which still
runs along part of Bayshore Drive.
About the time Deering moved into Vizcaya
in 1916, J.L. Billingsly’s “Indian Spring” was
completed, at the north end of Villa Serena.
Although he did not have an actual spring on
his property, he compensated with a swimming
pool, which was a rare luxury in that era, especially
in south Florida, where much of the land
was only a few feet above sea level. After
Stanley Joyce bought the house in 1920, he
replaced the pool with a new $200,000 pool
and grotto, a present to his future ex-wife,
Peggy Hopkins Joyce. Mrs. Joyce herself was
one of the most interesting—not to say notorious—of
the street’s residents. A barber’s daughter
turned showgirl turned famous love interest,
the eventual Peggy Upton Archer Hopkins
Joyce Morner Easton Meyer was perhaps the
This watercolor of James Deering, who built Villa Vizcaya
as his winter home, was painted in 1917 by John Singer
Sargent. (COURTESY OF VIZCAYA MUSEUM AND GARDENS)
first “modern” celebrity, a person famous for
her private life. During the 1920s and 1930s,
she amassed five millionaire husbands and
lovers who ranged from Walter Chrysler to
Charlie Chaplin. She was a household name,
but she died in obscurity in 1957, having been
unlucky enough to outlive her sex appeal.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the
neighborhood continued to be a fashionable
one, and several beautiful homes were built
during the period. The house to the north of
“Indian Spring,” 3029 Brickell, was built in the
Spanish style in 1928, and 1935 saw another
home directly north of that, which includes, at
its eastern edge, the famed Devil’s Punchbowl.
In 1932, the widowed and crippled Mary Baird
Bryan sold the Villa Serena to William F. Cheek,
one of the heirs to the Maxwell House fortune.
James Deering died in 1925 aboard the S.S.
France, having only spent nine years at
Vizcaya. His heirs, Mrs. Cyrus McCormick and
Mrs. Richard Danielson, both grand-nieces,
donated the house and 50 acres of the land to
CHAPTER XXI ✧ 85

the city of Miami in 1952. Besides being a
major tourist attraction, the home is open to
civic groups and private individuals for parties,
which helps to cover the cost of the upkeep.
Besides the donation of Vizcaya, the history
of the neighborhood is neither particularly
interesting nor particularly well documented
during the middle part of the century.
However, the 1970s brought some changes. In
1971, the Cheek estate sold the Villa Serena to
Gaspar Nagymihaly for a reported $275,000.
In 1975, Richard Danielson, the son of James
The handsome residence of Adrienne Arsht and Michael Feldman, designed by architect Jose Gelabert-Navia, has replaced
the “Indian Spring” estate, though the original pool and grotto have been restored. (PHOTO BY JULIA COHEN)
Old Brickell Avenue still retains a shady, park-like ambiance. (PHOTO BY JULIA COHEN)
Deering’s niece, built a mansion at 100
Southeast Thirty-Second Street,on a small portion
of the land once owned by Deering. The
1970s also saw the establishment of Alice
Wainwright Park at the north end of the neighborhood.
The land had originally been zoned
for construction, but the efforts of Claire
Weintraub, a resident, and others stopped the
building, which would have damaged much of
the area’s beauty.
The 1990s saw the neighborhood going
through yet another flowering. Richard
Danielson’s home was bought and occupied for
a time by actor Sylvester Stallone and model
Jennifer Flavin. In the 1990s, Mr. Stallone was
in negotiations with a condominium developer
who wished to build there, but the property
was instead bought by businessman Leonard
Abess and his family.
Another celebrity to live on the street for
awhile was Madonna, the singing star, who
bought 3029 Brickell in 1992, and who recently
sold her home to a rock band which is
rumored to be using it as a headquarters. 1992
also brought Hurricane Andrew to the area,
86 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS
which rendered Indian Spring unlivable. The
current owners, Adrienne Arsht and Michael
Feldman, have built a magnificent new house
on the site and were able to salvage and restore
the elaborate pool and grotto that Stanley Joyce
gave to his bride.
Another change in the neighborhood came
at Alice Wainwright Park, which had become
a center for drugs and vice during the 1980s.
Through the determined efforts of a neighborhood
association, the park has been once
again made a safe place for the citizens of
Miami to play. The adjoining hammock is kept
as a conservation area and is one of the last
such places on the South Florida coast.
Opposite it on the street, the Villas of Vizcaya,
a group of luxury homes, will bring new residents
into the area without damaging the
ambiance. With the exception of Indian
Spring, the historic homes have remained
intact, and the visitor can still drive along the
wide, divided road, still much as Mary Brickell
intended it. It is hoped that the Cliff
Hammock neighborhood will remain a
reminder of the richness of Miami’s history.
The pool of Ca ’Ziff, one of the latest additions to the Cliff Hammock neighborhood, shimmers surrealistically,
overlooking Biscayne Bay. (PHOTO BY DEBORAH TACKETT)
Julia Hodapp Cohen has lived in Miami Beach all her life. She is currently a political science and economics student at Macalester College in Minnesota.

The Housekeeper’s Club was organized in 1891 by Flora McFarlane as “a bit of civilization in the wilderness.” It evolved into the Coconut Grove Woman’s Club. (COURTESY OF ARVA PARKS & COMPANY)
COCONUT GROVE
B Y D AVID B URNETT
Until the mid-19th century the area of
Coconut Grove was more commonly known as
the “Little Hunting Grounds,” a Seminole
appellation describing its remarkable abun -
dance of tropical wildlife on land and sea. Most
early settlers of the Little Hunting Grounds
immigrated from the islands of the Bahamas
and earned a modest living from the sea or in
trade with a sizable population of Seminole
Indians who exchanged pumpkins, sweet
potatoes, venison and plumes for cash, manufactured
goods, or hunting supplies.
On November 14, 1868, Edmund
“Alligator” Beasley submitted the first application
for a claim of 160 acres of prime waterfront
land located south of the Miami River. His claim
included all of present day downtown Coconut
Grove from 27th Avenue to Royal Road in addition
to one and a half miles of waterfront land.
Soon after, John Frow, a former keeper of the
Cape Florida Lighthouse, purchased a 160-acre
tract for $100 and almost immediately began to
subdivide it into smaller lots. His claim com -
prised all the land from present-day Frow Street
to Grand Avenue in the north. Lastly, John and
Edward Pent, the sons of a former lighthouse
keeper, claimed a homestead in the area north of
Grand Avenue adjacent to the Beasley grant.
These three homesteads comprise the center of
present-day Coconut Grove.
On January 6, 1873 this dispersed collection
of homesteads was christened “Cocoanut
Grove” when Dr. Horace Porter, a Civil War veteran
leasing land from the widow of Edmund
Beasley, opened a post office by that name.
Beyond this, Porter had little influence on the
future development of Coconut Grove, aban -
doning his lease one year later and all evidence
of the post office disappearing. It was a northern
sailing enthusiast, Commodore Ralph Munroe,
and two English immigrants, Charles and
Isabella Peacock, who transformed Coconut
Grove into a vibrant local community and exotic
tourist destination for northern visitors.
Arriving from London in 1875, the
Peacocks first earned a modest income, like
most pioneers, in processing starch from the
coontie root, a staple of the Caribbean diet that
grew wild in the pinewoods of south Florida.
In 1877 the Peacocks made the acquaintance
of Munroe during his first sailing trip to south
Florida from New England. Although the trip
lasted only one month, Florida made a pro -
found impression upon him. Munroe found
there what he called a “simple and genuine
life.” Munroe returned to Florida in 1881, hoping
that the mild climate would rejuvenate his
wife who was dying of tuberculosis. In spite of
the generous care of Charles and Isabella
Peacock and the friendship that developed
among them, his wife died within the year and
Munroe returned to his home of Staten Island.
With the encouragement of Munroe, who
promised to bring visitors, the Peacocks purchased
31 acres from John Frow for $100 and
during 1883 built the first hotel on the south
Florida mainland, the Bay View House, which
was later renamed the Peacock Inn. Located on
a ridge overlooking the bay, the Peacock Inn was
CHAPTER XXII ✧ 87

The Barnacle, located on Main Highway in downtown Coconut Grove and now a Florida State Historic Site, was built by
Commodore Ralph Munroe in 1891. In 1908 Munroe raised the one-story wooden house to accommodate a lower story of
rusticated concrete block. (COURTESY OF ARVA PARKS & COMPANY)
88 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS
actually a large home with extra rooms for
guests, a store, and a post office. During 1884
Munroe discovered in an old postal guide that
10 years earlier a post office called “Cocoanut
Grove” had existed four miles south of the
Miami river. Reasoning that it was easier to reactivate
a discontinued post office than to apply
for a new one, Munroe re-christened the com -
munity “Cocoanut Grove.” Within two years the
Peacock Inn became a tourist attraction for distinguished
northern visitors who spent the winter
months exploring a tropical frontier. These
visitors included writers, naturalists, intellectu -
als and preachers, many of whom later made a
permanent home in Coconut Grove. The success
of the Peacock Inn necessitated its expan -
sion and replacement by two larger buildings in
1895. Until its closing in 1902, the Peacock Inn
was the nucleus of the fledgling pioneer com -
munity of Coconut Grove.
In search of hotel employees, Charles
Peacock traveled to Key West, where he hired
Mariah Brown, a native of the Bahamian island
of Eleuthera. Mariah Brown initially lived in a
building on the grounds of the Peacock Inn
and later moved to a nearby settlement located
on a back road that linked Coconut Grove with
the more remote farming community of Cutler
towards the south. This road through the
Peacock, Frow and Munroe homesteads was
first called Evangelist street due to its abun -
dance of churches. It was later renamed
Charles Avenue by Joseph Frow, who sold its
subdivided lots to a growing population of
Bahamian immigrants of African descent who
came to work at the Peacock Inn. Charles
Avenue was the first African-American settle -
ment in south Florida.
Teaching easterners how to live in the tropics,
the Bahamian pioneers of African descent
made an enormous contribution to life on the
Florida frontier. They supplied labor for development,
introduced many early species of edible
fruits and vegetables, explained how to cultivate
agriculture in the rocky soil, and demonstrated
how to build durable wood-framed
structures capable of withstanding hurricanes.
Their humble dwellings on Charles Avenue
perpetuated the vernacular architectural tradition
of the Bahamas.
Ebeneezer Woodberry Frank Stirrup was
among the most influential early residents of
Charles Avenue. He arrived in Key West from
the Bahamas in 1888 at the age of fifteen. After
working as a carpenter’s apprentice, Stirrup
moved north to Cutler, where he labored on
pineapple plantations by day and cleared land
by night. Paid in cash and land, he prudently
saved this income. Honoring a deep personal
conviction that every man should possess a
home and garden, Stirrup invested his savings
in land on Charles Avenue, where he built over
one-hundred dwellings including his own in
1897. Through the sale and rental of homes at
a modest cost, Stirrup established an important
precedent for African-American property ownership
that directly contributed to the stability
and survival of the Charles Avenue neighborhood.
In the historic Charlotte Jane Memorial
Cemetery on Charles Avenue, Bahamian-style
gravesites commemorate the many contribu -
tions of generations of African-American residents
to the cultural life of Coconut Grove.
Among the earliest surviving buildings from
the pioneer era of Coconut Grove is a Sunday
School building constructed in 1889 on land
donated by Ralph Munroe with funds raised by
Isabella Peacock, who spent two years collecting
donations from hotel guests. Built entirely
of lumber salvaged from wrecked ships, the
Sunday School is a simple one-story one-room
wood frame structure with a gable roof covered
in wooden shingles. Its architectural details are
a direct response to the exigencies of a tropical
climate. Wooden shutters protect window
openings from the high winds and driving rain
The first Coconut Grove schoolhouse was built in 1889 and was moved to the grounds of Plymouth Congregational Church
in 1969. (COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
of tropical storms, and cladding of vertical
board and battens facilitate the drainage of rainwater
from the walls.
From 1889 to 1894 the building was leased
to the school board, which organized there the
first public school in Dade county, with a total
enrollment of ten students. After 1902 the original
Sunday School building had a succession of
owners until Ryder Systems purchased the
building in 1969 for $75,000 and, one year later,

transferred ownership to the Plymouth Church
to insure its preservation. During the restoration
process, additions built over the course of many
years and many uses were removed and the original
school bell was reinstalled.
Among the most sophisticated vernacular
buildings of the pioneer era is the residence of
Ralph Munroe, known as “the Barnacle.” After
1883 Munroe returned every winter from Staten
Island to Coconut Grove until he finally decid -
ed to make it his permanent home in 1889.
Having already received four acres of land from
the Peacocks as a token of appreciation for his
assistance in the construction of the hotel,
Munroe purchased an additional 40 acres south
of the Peacock Inn from John Frow for $400.
The first African-American settlement in South Florida was composed of Bahamians who resided on Charles Avenue in
Coconut Grove. They are shown here in front of the Peacock Inn in the 1890s. (COURTESY OF THE FLORIDA STATE ARCHIVES)
E.W.F. Stirrup was an influential early resident of
Charles Avenue who built over l00 dwellings. He
constructed his own house, shown here, in 1897 of pine
cut from the site and milled at the Munroe sawmill. The
original Bahamian style porch across the front was
removed and an-L shaped wing was added in 1912.
(COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
Before his death on August 30, 1933, Ralph
Munroe made many contributions beyond
architecture to life in Coconut Grove. In her
seminal work, The Forgotten Frontier, historian
Arva Moore Parks has eloquently chronicled
these achievements. Munroe developed a
national reputation as a designer of shoal-draft
sailboats. His photographs provided the
American scientific community with its first
visual documents of the unique subtropical
flora and fauna of south Florida. His outspo -
ken advocacy for the preservation of the natural
environment kept alive the pastoral tradi -
tion of Coconut Grove long after the end of the
Pioneer era.
The future survival of the Barnacle was
uncertain after the death of Ralph’s son, Wirth
Munroe, in 1968 due to mounting economic
pressure for real estate development. Civic
spirit prevailed, and his heirs sold the Barnacle
to the State of Florida in 1973 for a fraction of
its market value to ensure its future preservation
as a historic site and museum
The Pagoda of the Ransom-Everglades
School is another outstanding building in the
vernacular tradition. Its builder, Paul Ransom
initially visited Coconut Grove in February of
1893, following the advice of his physician
that he seek a mild climate to prolong his life.
During a winter visit to Coconut Grove,
After completing the construction of a twostory
boathouse with upstairs living quarters in
1889, Munroe built the first sawmill on the
bay, the “Factory,” in 1890. One year later,
Munroe constructed a home on a bayfront site
with the advantages of a trail cleared through
hammock land and a grove of exotic flowering
and fruit trees.
The Barnacle is a reflection of Munroe’s
extensive knowledge of naval architecture. Built
of wood salvaged from shipwrecks and cut to
size, the original Barnacle was a one-story
wooden frame structure covered by a large hip
roof with generously overhanging eaves.
In 1908 Munroe enlarged the Barnacle to
accommodate his growing family. Ingeniously,
Munroe jacked the original house one-story
higher on temporary wooden stilts while he
built a new first floor underneath. Concrete
piers replaced the original wood foundation.
Later, the exterior was stuccoed, wooden roof
shingles replaced with tile, indoor bathrooms
and a new kitchen installed, and in 1913 a semidetached
library added on the northeast side.
Plymouth Congregational Church was organized in 1897 by prominent citizens of Coconut Grove. Constructed of oolitic
limestone, or coral rock, the sanctuary was erected in 1917 in a style inspired by a Spanish mission in Mexico.
(PHOTO BY DEBORAH TACKETT)
CHAPTER XXII ✧ 89

The “Pagoda,” at 3575 Main Highway, was built in 1902 and is now part of Ransom Everglades School.
(COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
Ransom decided to open a winter camp for
boys he had been tutoring. It proved to be the
perfect vehicle for his enthusiasm for educa -
tion and his reverence for the unspoiled out -
doors. By 1901, improving health and increasing
enrollment prompted Ransom to transform
his winter tutoring camp into a full-fledged
school. Ransom purchased seven and one-half
acres of bayfront land covered in mangrove
swamp along its coast and a forest of palmetto
and pine further inland. He named the site
“Pine Knot Camp” to commemorate these natural
endowments.
The most significant building constructed
during campus improvements of 1902 is commonly
known as the “Pagoda,” in reference to
its stack of hip roofs that vaguely resemble the
The clubhouse of the Coconut Grove Woman’s Club, which evolved from the Housekeeper’s Club, was designed by architect
Walter DeGarmo in 1921. It is located on Bayshore Drive between the Coconut Grove Library and towering highrises.
(COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
massing of an Asian reliquary. Designed by
Green and Wicks of Buffalo, New York on the
basis of sketches submitted by Ransom. The
Pagoda became the nucleus of the resulting
Florida-Adirondack School.
Following the death of Paul Ransom in 1907,
his widow and a board of trustees assumed leadership
of the school until it closed temporarily in
1942 and re-opened in 1949 as the Ransom
School. In 1974 the institution merged with the
nearby Everglades School for Girls to become
Ransom-Everglades School of today.
The construction of the first bridge across
the Miami River in 1903 facilitated the expansion
of residential subdivisions to the outskirts
of the newly founded City of Miami. Among
the earliest suburban neighborhoods for middle-class
residents arriving via the railroad was
the Bayview Road Subdivision in Coconut
Grove. It supplied winter residences to
Northern investors in a speculative real estate
venture known as the Sunshine Fruit Company,
founded in 1910 by Harold Debussy Justison
from Cleveland, Ohio. A professor of forestry at
the University of Miami by the name of John C.
Gifford, who had been designing and building
bungalows in Coconut Grove since 1903, convinced
Justison of the potential profitability of
owning, operating and managing the fruit
groves of absentee landowners. Gifford himself,
in collaboration with Beverly and Margarita
Peacock, platted and developed the neighborhood
of Silver Bluff in the northern portion of
Coconut Grove.
In 1911 the Sunshine Fruit Company purchased
a lot from the original Ewan home -
stead, platted the Bay View Road subdivision,
and built several bungalows for employees.
With its broad central avenue lined by
Washingtonian palm trees and terminated in a
circular court, the Bay View Road subdivision
reflects the influence of the City Beautiful
Movement of early 20th century America. The
original Sunshine Inn, which provided temporary
lodging for prospective investors between
1915 and 1929, has survived to the present as
a campus building of the Vanguard School.
“El Jardín,” built in 1917 as the winter residence
of the president of the Pittsburgh Steel
Company, John Bindley, is one of many
bayfront estates built by American business
tycoons along the coast of Coconut Grove after
the railroad. Others include the “Anchorage,”
home of William Jennings Bryan (1908), and
the “Four Way Lodge,” home of William
Matheson (1911). The construction of magnificent
resorts and residences to suit the taste of
the magnates of industry brought the profession
of architecture to south Florida. In their
adaptation of European precedents to subtropical
Florida, architects introduced an academicism
previously unknown on the frontier.
El Jardín is considered to be the earliest
example of Mediterranean Revival architecture
in southern Florida. It illustrates dramatic
changes in the patronage, function and aes -
thetics of architecture after the railroad.
El Jardín was the first project in Florida
designed by the Pittsburgh architectural firm of
Kiehnel and Elliott. Its chief designer, Richard
Kiehnel (1870-1944) also designed the Scottish
Rite Masonic Temple in downtown Miami (1922),
the Coral Gables Congregational Church (1925)
and the Barclay Plaza Hotel of Miami Beach
(1936). Since 1961, El Jardin has been used as a
campus building of the Carrollton School for Girls
by the Convent of the Sacred Heart.
90 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

The Coconut Grove Theater, located on Main Highway, first opened in 1926 as a movie palace with three floors of retail space.
Architecturally altered over the years, it remains an important landmark for the community. (COURTESY OF ARVA PARKS & COMPANY)
The construction of Plymouth Church from
June 1916 to August 1916 by a congregation
which only two decades earlier had regularly
assembled in a one-room wooden building is
further evidence of changes brought by the
railroad. In 1915 the Reverend George
Spalding, with the assistance of George E.
Merrick, the developer of Coral Gables,
acquired land in the center of Coconut Grove
along Main Highway. To raise money for the
construction of a new building to replace two
outgrown chapels, the congregation subdivided
and sold lots on the southernmost edge of
its property. This neighborhood is known
today as “Admiral’s Row,” in commemoration
of the four retired admirals who purchased
those lots.
Designed by the New York architectural
firm of Clinton McKenzie, Plymouth
Congregational Church is among the earliest
examples of Mission architecture in Florida.
The aged and weathered appearance of the
wall surfaces is the work of Felix Rebom, the
stonemason who single-handedly laid the
stonework of the building with primitive tools.
In the years following 1947, growth of the
congregation necessitated the physical expan -
sion of the church. The architect Robert Law
Weed performed a major renovation of the original
single-aisled church, transforming its plan
into a cruciform by the addition of a transept in
1954. Five years later, classrooms, offices and a
fellowship hall were built adjacent to the original
church to create an open courtyard.
In 1921 the Coconut Grove Woman’s Club
also replaced their meeting house, erected only
four years earlier, with a new one in the vocabulary
of Mission architecture. This venerable
social institution traces its beginnings to the
Housekeeper’s Club organized by the schoolteacher
Flora McFarlane in 1891 with the mission
to gather the women of Coconut Grove
together in study and fellowship.
The designer of the Woman’s Club was
Walter Charles De Garmo, who was among the
earliest and most skillful professional architects
in south Florida.
In 1919, citizens voted to incorporate the
“Town of Coconut Grove,” finally correcting the
original spelling of Dr. Porter and dropping the
“a” from “Coconut Grove.” The real estate developer
Irving J. Thomas was elected as the first
mayor. During the Florida Land Boom of the
early 1920s, as real estate prices ballooned and
negative publicity regarding land speculation
gained momentum throughout America, the
Town of Coconut Grove hired the Philadelphia
architect John Irwin Bright to devise a comprehensive
urban plan for its downtown.
More than just an enticement to lure northern
investors, the Bright Plan was a sincere
expression of unbridled optimism regarding
future economic prosperity. It proposed the
creation of a grand city on the edge of Biscayne
Bay with wide boulevards, reflecting pools and
a crescent-shaped block of civic buildings in
the Mediterranean tradition. It also proposed
to transform the entire neighborhood of
Charles Avenue into a golf course and relocate
its inhabitants to a site west of the railroad
tracks in a planned community. In its handling
of ornament, the Bright plan was a decisive
rejection of the austerity of Spanish Mission
architecture for the pomp and rhetoric of the
competing Mediterranean Revival style.
Ultimately, the Bright Plan was the victim of
its own ambition, being too impractical and
elaborate to fully implement. Nevertheless, a
few roads were widened and a few buildings
were actually built in accordance with the Bright
plan, such as the Coconut Grove Theater. The
municipal independence of Coconut Grove
ended abruptly on September 2, 1925 when it
was annexed by the City of Miami along with
Allapattah, Buena Vista, Lemon City and Silver
Bluff. A later series of local and global misfortunes
such as the 1929 Stock Market Crash in
New York, the bust of the 1920s Florida Real
Estate Boom, and the Hurricane of 1926 retarded
the pace of development in Coconut Grove
until the post WWII era. These misfortunes also
precipitated the demise of the Mediterranean
Revival language of architecture.
The original Coconut Grove Theater, a culmination
of the Mediterranean Revival style,
was designed by the firm of Kiehnel & Elliott.
Located at 3500 Pan American Drive, the City of Miami’s City Hall was originally the Pan American Seaplane Base and
Terminal, built in 1931. (COURTESY OF ARVA PARKS & COMPANY)
CHAPTER XXII ✧ 91

The streets of downtown Coconut Grove, lined with shops and sidewalk cafes, are a favorite spot for tourists and residents alike.
(PHOTO BY DEBORAH TACKETT)
It contained three floors of retail space and
one floor of penthouse apartments in addition
to the main theater. By the early 1950s the
novelty of the theater had waned, and it
resorted to second-run movie shows before
declining attendance eventually forced its
closing in May of 1954.
The entrance to the Javanese-inspired house,The Kampong, built in 1928 at 4013 Douglas Road, overlooks Biscayne Bay.
The land was homesteaded in 1892 by Captain Simmons and his wife, Dr. Eleanor Galt Simmons, South Florida’s first
woman doctor. The estate was the home of the internationally renowned horticulturist Dr. David Fairchild, who planted
tropical plants from around the world on the property. It was later owned by Dr. Katherine Hauberg Sweeney, who donated
it to the National Tropical Botanical Garden. (COURTESY OF THE KAMPONG)
One year later, the Coconut Grove Theater
was purchased by Stanley Engle, who spent
over one million dollars renovating it. He hired
the architect Alfred Browning Parker, who
reduced the size of the auditorium, refurbished
the lobby interior, relocated the administrative
offices, and transformed the residential apartments
into guest suites for visiting performers.
On January 3, 1956 the new Coconut Grove
Playhouse officially opened with the premiere
American performance of Waiting for Godot by
Samuel Beckett. Seven years later, the Playhouse
made an additional contribution to the bur -
geoning arts community of Coconut Grove by
sponsoring a sidewalk art sale which has
evolved into the contemporary annual Coconut
Grove Arts Festival.
In June of 1928 Pan American Airlines
moved its base of operations from Key West to
the City of Miami. From its airport on NW
36th Street, Pan Am launched its land-based
planes, and from a channel in Biscayne Bay off
the coast of Coconut Grove, its amphibian seaplanes.
Commercial aviation brought an
unprecedented scale of development to the
Coconut Grove waterfront which has continued
in the postwar era.
Only two years earlier, Pan American
Airways had been founded by Juan Terry
Trippe, a charismatic twenty-eight-year-old
pilot who opened for business with two planes
and twenty-four employees. The birth of commercial
aviation was a byproduct of the sponsorship
of international air mail delivery by the
United States government during the 1920s.
Pan Am was the first company to receive a
lucrative government contract for international
mail carriage between Key West and Havana.
Being a shrewd businessman, Trippe located
the Pan Am seaplane operations on Dinner
Key in Coconut Grove, because infrastructure
for air transport had been built there ten years
earlier by the United States military during
World War I. During the pioneer era, Dinner
Key was nothing more than a tiny spit of land
barely above the water where sailing parties
stopped to enjoy picnic dinners. On October
20, 1917 the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps
assumed custodianship of Dinner Key, then
permanently joined it to the mainland with
infill of sand and marl, transforming it into a
thirty-one-acre peninsula with over twentyfive
buildings, including four hangars for seaplanes.
Thousands of WWI military pilots
trained at Dinner Key. Immediately after the
war, Coconut Grove residents lobbied for the
closing of the air station on the grounds that its
noise, air and water pollution posed a serious
hazard to local real estate values and quality of
life. The government complied and abandoned
Dinner Key in 1919.
After ten years of dormancy and one serious
hurricane, Dinner Key needed refurbishment.
Trippe spent over one million dollars in upgrading
infrastructure, renovating existing buildings,
and constructing three new airplane hangars.
He was generously assisted by the U.S. Army
92 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

In 1933 Pan Am finally decided to invest in
a permanent passenger facility. At the time of
its construction, the Pan American Seaplane
Base and Terminal Building was the largest and
most modern marine air base in the world,
serving as a model for later seaplane bases in
Rio de Janeiro, New York and San Francisco.
The new terminal, designed by the New york
firm of Delano and Aldrich is a masterpiece of
Art Deco design.
By the end of World War II, Pan Am had
flown over 90 million miles to fifty airports in
fifteen nations for the U.S. government from
Dinner Key. Immediately after World War II,
Pan Am vacated Dinner Key, making its final
landing of a Clipper ship on August 9, 1945.
Seaplane aviation had been eclipsed by the rise
in landplane usage during the war. In 1946, the
City of Miami purchased the Dinner Key property
for $1.1 million and transformed it into a
marina, converting one hangar built by the
Navy during WWII into the Dinner Key
Convention Hall and using other hangars as
dry-dock storage for small boats. In 1954, City
Hall relocated to the Pan Am terminal building.
During the 1960s skyscrapers began to
appear along the edge of Dinner Key. During
the 1970s, the Mayfair shopping complex
opened in downtown Coconut Grove, later followed
by CocoWalk. In the last two decades,
the regional identity of Coconut Grove as a village
apart has been steadily challenged by the
forces of economics and population growth.
Looking back on a lifetime in Florida and, having
witnessed the bewildering growth of Miami
from a remote town to a bustling metropolis,
Marjory Stoneman Douglas astutely perceived
the ultimate dilemma facing contemporary
American neighborhoods in 1967; a dilemma
that still faces the urban and architectural identity
of Coconut Grove today.
In Florida, especially, the people are
being called on to choose between a blind
obedience to the sheer increasing pressure
of population and the vital necessity for
building finer cities in a balanced and preserved
natural background which alone
can give them meaning and value. The
future lies in them and in the strength with
which man himself can set his powers of
creation against his impulses for destruction.
Perhaps this is the unending frontier.
The Coconut Grove Arts Festival, which was started as a sidewalk art sale by the Coconut Grove Playhouse, is now a
world-class annual event. (COURTESY OF THE COCONUT GROVE ARTS FESTIVAL)
—Marjory Stoneman Douglas,
Florida the Long Frontier
Corps of Engineers, which dredged a one-milelong
channel in Biscayne Bay for seaplane
launches and landings. Trippe also invested over
three million dollars in a fleet of “clippers,” huge
passenger seaplanes that set a new standard of
luxury in commercial travel. The name “clip -
per,” borrowed from 19th century sailing ships,
captured the spirit of romance and adventure
that surrounded early aviation. With gourmet
meals, exquisitely designed passenger cabins
and a staff of impeccably dressed flight atten -
dants, the clipper rivaled the contemporary
ocean liner in its pampering of travelers.
Between 1928 and 1931 Pan Am took over
the routes of dozens of smaller airlines to
become the undisputed leader in international
aviation, regularly flying to destinations in the
Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South
America. Known as the “gateway to the
Americas,” Dinner Key served as a laboratory
for the development of commercial aviation.
With its frequent and unpredictable tropical
storms, the Caribbean was the most challenging
aviation territory in the world. The fledgling
Pan Am hired the aviation pioneer Charles
H. Lindbergh to assist in the charting of potential
air routes between the United States and
Latin America. He was greeted by a crowd of
50,000 spectators upon his arrival at Dinner
Key on February 4, 1929 in a twin-engine
amphibian seaplane. The expertise cultivated
by Pan Am in transatlantic travel from Dinner
Key laid the groundwork for its later domina -
tion of Pacific and Atlantic routes.
Coconut Grove resident Marjory Stoneman Douglas,
world-famous environmentalist who wrote the best-selling
book, The Everglades, River of Grass, stands at the door
of the cottage she built in 1926 on Stewart Avenue. The
house is being managed since her death by the Land Trust
of Dade County, which is restoring it as a museum.
(PHOTO BY NESIE SUMMERS)
David Burnett received a master’s degree in architecture from the Graduate School of Design of Harvard University. He is currently a visiting lecturer on the
faculty of the School of Architecture of the University of Miami.
CHAPTER XXII ✧ 93

Ralph Munroe’s sharpie glides along Biscayne Bay in this vintage photo. Sailing was once a necessity to reach Key Biscayne; no bridge connected the island to the mainland until 1947.
(COURTESY OF THE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHERN FLORIDA RALPH MUNROE COLLECTION)
KEY BISCAYNE
B Y J OAN G ILL B LANK
Perhaps few other communities in the
vicinity of Miami are characterized by so long
a history of insularity as the barrier island of
Key Biscayne. For more than fifteen hundred
years, island visitors arrived with wet feet; they
had to come by water because no bridge connected
to the mainland until 1947. They also
knew that the risks and the rhythms of life
were different from those on the mainland.
Either instinctively or by learning, they had to
be attuned to the dangers of weather changes,
listening to the wind, observing the skies, following
the ebb and flow of the tides, because
on an island there is no place to hide from the
whirl of a waterspout or a thunderous crashing
of waves or a howling hurricane. Yet the lowlying
coastal island at the top of the Great
Florida Reef, long hailed for its “tropical complexion,”
has been attracting island dwellers
and other visitors to its broad sandy beaches
since prehistoric times.
Because of geographic isolation, islanders
the world-over have traditionally created selfsufficient
communities. The first people to
build on Key Biscayne, members of the
Tequesta nation, arrived at least 1200 years ago
by dugout, one of a number of prehistoric
tribes who fished, hunted and lived in Florida.
A versatile people, they adapted their lifestyle
to different environmental and topographical
conditions, whether sharpedged sawgrass in
the glades, oolitic rock on the mainland, or
coral rock and solid limestone formations on
some of the lower keys. But when they arrived
on Key Biscayne, their bare feet sank into a soft
sandy beach. They were surrounded by salt
water, yet when they dug below the surface,
they found fresh water. Is it any wonder that
they were drawn to the island’s ridges and
coastal hammocks, finding them to be inviting
building sites for seasonal and year-round fishing
villages?
From their island dwellings they launched
their canoes and out-riggers with nets and gear
aboard into the Atlantic Ocean, heading over
crystal clear shallows and colorful underwater
coral reef gardens, even daring to sail far out to
the dark indigo-blue line where the Gulf
Stream drops off for deep water fishing and
whaling. For seafarers, swimmers, divers, and
spearfishermen, the sea became their offshore
“Hunting Grounds.”
When onshore, the ocean beach was their
“Main Street.” Young and old gathered to see
their mariners set off, perhaps at sunrise, or
according to phases of the moon and tides.
When the great sun set in the west, they would
94 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

face east to watch for the return of the fishermen
before darkness descended upon the
waters. Here on the sandy beach, they lighted
crackling fires, held celebrations, and per -
formed sacred rituals.
In fact, prehistoric burial mounds and middens,
known to early observers and confirmed
by the late twentieth century archeological
findings of Robert S. Carr, show that prior to
the arrival of Juan Ponce De León on Key
Biscayne’s shores in 1513, the first villagers had
settled the length of Key Biscayne from Bear
Cut to Cape Florida. Future settlers would
occupy distinct areas of the island.
The island’s first named settler-of-record,
Pedro Fornells (1760-1807), born on Minorca
in the Balearic Islands, met the preliminary
terms of possession for the earliest recorded
Spanish Royal Land Grant made in South
Florida when he landed on the isolated beach
at Key Biscayne in 1805. His original petition
had requested all the land around “Key Buskin
Bay” but was later amended to include only the
island itself.
Fornells brought high hopes, his wife and
family, and a sixteen-year-old African-American
woman, the first recorded black to live on the
island. They stayed for six months, to cultivate
the land and build a wooden house to satisfy
their grant, before making the 330-mile return
sail to America’s and Florida’s oldest Spanish
City, St. Augustine. They left behind one member
of their party to fend off any person who
might try to take over the newly acquired 175-
acre tract. Inside the city walls of St. Augustine,
then a community mostly of Minorcans,
Fornells built a home of coquina rock. Still
standing, it is now a registered historic house.
Perhaps if they had found rock on Key Biscayne
they might have built a lasting home there.
Shortly after the Fornells left, persecuted
Seminoles and their allies, the Black
Seminoles, used Key Biscayne as their springboard
to freedom. Before and after the
Seminole Wars, “escaped Indians and run -
aways” found respite on the island’s beaches as
they awaited sailing ships from the Bahamas to
take them to sanctuary across the Gulf Stream.
When Florida became a Territory in 1821,
its east coast became a valued asset but a sailing
hazard for the new American government. The
US Congress appropriated monies for three
strategically located lighthouses, including one
for Cape Florida. Built in 1825 of brick shipped
by schooner from the northeast, this conical
lighthouse reached 65-feet in height. It was heralded
in the early years by international traders
and foreign pirates alike as a lifesaving naviga -
tional beacon warning of the dangerous off -
shore reefs.
Land for the tower and keeper’s cottage was
purchased out of the 175-acre tract owned by
Mary Ann Davis (1793-1885), who had paid
$100 for the property from heirs of the
Fornells. The “Mother of Key Biscayne” and
her husband cleverly managed to make a profit
from the government, which paid $225 for
only three prized acres at the southernmost tip
of the island.
Interestingly, the first attempt at land development
in South Florida was on Key Biscayne.
In 1839, the Davis family laid out the first
Town of Key Biscayne, which they hoped to
develop as a port and community encircling
the lighthouse. Lots were offered for $500;
they closed on only two. Similarly, Dr. Henry
Perrine’s proposal, set forth in the American
Journal of Medical Sciences in 1841, to turn the
island into a health spa, was unsuccessful.
For some time to come, Key Biscayne
remained a remote island where the lighthouse
keepers’ families built their own self-sufficient
unit, without neighbors, schools or shops.
Beginning in 1825, with the large and the rambunctious
family of the first keeper, John
Dubose, these hardy souls relied on their own
skills and ingenuity for gardening,
fishing, boating, teaching their children,
and, of course, maintaining a
neat lighthouse and grounds. When
Revenue Cutters, forerunners of the
US Coast Guard, appeared on the
horizon, the entire family watched
their approach, hoping for basic
provisions, from supplemental food
stuffs and whale oil for the lanterns
to kegs of gunpowder.
Any real sense of long term community
was maintained by the lighthouse
keepers and their families
(1825-1878), with the population of
the island ebbing and flowing with
temporary influctions of workers.
When the Second Seminole War erupted,
change came rapidly: the lighthouse and cottage
were attacked and burned by warriors on July
23, 1836. The abandoned grounds were taken
over by US troops and a fort and hospital established
(1838-1842) next to the hollowed-out
shell of the tower.
The lighthouse and cottage were rebuilt in
1847, and returned to service. The US surveyors
of the Army Corps of Topographical
W.J. Matheson chats at a chowder party on February 22, 1929.
(COURTESY OF THE MIAMI-DADE PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM ROMER COLLECTION)
Mashta House, overlooking Biscayne Bay, was built in the 1920s by W.J.
Matheson on his 1700 acre Key Biscayne plantation. It was an entertainment
mecca for the elite of Miami’s social colony, including the Vanderbilts, Mellons
and Carnegies. (COURTESY OF THE MIAMI-DADE PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM ROMER COLLECTION)
Cape House, a tropical hideaway which stood 600 feet west of the Cape Florida Lighthouse, was built in the 1890s by
Waters Smith Davis. Its architecture was inspired by Ralph Munroe’s “Barnacle” in Coconut Grove. Sadly, Cape House
burned down in 1957. (COURTESY OF THE LARROCA/DAVIS COLLECTION FROM KEY BISCAYNE BY JOAN GILL BLANK © 1996 PINEAPPLE PRESS.)
CHAPTER XXIII ✧ 95

Engineers headquartered as many as forty men
on the lighthouse grounds from 1849 to 1856,
to reconnoiter and take measure of surround -
ing waters from the keys across the mainland.
Surveyor teams were followed by the arrival of
construction crews, who, under the orders of
Lt. (later General) George G. Meade, raised the
height of the tower to 95 feet and added a second-order
Fresnel lens. Cape Florida was
relighted in 1856.
Mary Ann Davis would been pleased that her
son, Waters Smith Davis (1829-1914), a resi -
dent of Galveston, Texas, returned to the family
property at the end of the 1800s to build him -
self a homestead. He worked with Coconut
Grove pioneer Commodore Ralph Munroe as
his designer, and with a well-known engineer
from Texas, all of them wise in the ways of barrier
island living. The spacious two-story hideaway,
Key Biscayne’s inaugural waterfront home,
had verandas on three sides. “Cape House” was
designed much like Munroe’s own home, “The
Barnacle,” on the waterfront in Coconut Grove
across the bay. Raised on stilts about ten feet
above sea level, the Davis home was built of
solid wood, some salvaged by Munroe from
shipwrecks off Key Biscayne. A prime example
of south Florida vernacular frame architecture,
Cape House and its barn were significant landmarks
to all who approached the island.
When Waters Davis bought back his mother’s
original three acres with the long aban -
doned lighthouse and keeper’s cottage, the
Cape Florida tract once again returned to pri -
vate ownership. The south tip of the island surrounding
the grand old lighthouse, connected
by a coconut-lined path to Cape House with
the grounds landscaped with flowering trees
and palms, became known as “Davis Park” at
Cape Florida. It was not the only part of Key
Biscayne that would become a private estate.
When W. J. Matheson (1856-1930) arrived
early in the twentieth century, the middle and
northern two-thirds of Key Biscayne, both
of which he owned, began to take on the
The oldest standing landmark in South Florida still stands tall and strengthened, a beacon for the future. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the venerable Cape Florida
Lighthouse was originally built in 1825. In 1836 assistant keeper John Thompson and a black assistant, Aaron Carter, were victims of a siege by Seminole Indians from the mainland, who set
fire to the lighthouse. Carter was killed, the lighthouse was gutted, and Thompson barely escaped with his life. The Lighthouse was rebuilt in 1846 and heightened in 1855. By the late 1980s,
its deteriorating condition made it a public hazard. Dade Heritage Trust initiated and led an eight-year-long, $l.5 million “Save Our Lighthouse” campaign to restore the Lighthouse in time for
the 1996 Miami Centennial. Now restored to its 1855-56 condition, the Lighthouse anchors the Key Biscayne Heritage Trail. A replica of the Keeper’s Cottage was renovated with displays and
period furnishings by the Villagers, Inc. of Miami, in partnership with the State of Florida. The Cape Florida Lighthouse, with its coconut-lined walkway paved with commemorative bricks, is
the one historic complex that has survived on Key Biscayne. (COURTESY OF THE BILL BAGGS CAPE FLORIDA STATE RECREATION AREA)
96 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

Birds on a sandbar at Crandon Park share the view with condominiums. (COURTESY OF THE BLANK COLLECTION)
character of a South Seas island. Matheson
established a coconut plantation and trans -
formed the island community with acres of
cultivated palms and a plant nursery for agricultural
experimentation. Botanist Dr. David
Fairchild advised him in the introduction to
North America of many tropical plants and
trees from the rain forests and other regions of
the Americas, Asia and Africa, continuing a tradition
of tropical plant introduction first begun
by Dr. Henry Perrine at the Cape Florida lighthouse
station in the early nineteenth century.
(Several huge specimen trees stand tall on the
present day Key Biscayne Village Green, wit -
ness to the past.)
Matheson’s “Mashta House,” with its
unmatched view of Biscayne Bay and great
sunsets, was built during the Roaring Twenties
to serve as a gracious and exotic entertainment
mecca. It was Moorish in design and style, its
grand ballroom covered with a domed ceiling,
Fighting an endless battle: A beach renourishment project in 1987.
(PHOTO BY JOAN GILL BLANK, FROM HER BOOK KEY BISCAYNE ©1996 PINEAPPLE PRESS)
A Key Biscayne plantation cottage damaged by Hurricane Donna. (PHOTO BY SANDY JORDAN, COURTESY OF THE BLANK COLLECTION)
the arches of its loggia overlooking an azure
atoll ringed with palm trees, with the bay just
beyond. The Mathesons hosted the elite of
Miami’s social colony who arrived by yachts,
including the Vanderbilts, Mellons and
Carnegies, to party on Key Biscayne, signaling
the opening of the Winter Season. Many took
the time to tour showcase gardens and coconut
palm cultivation from bay to beach.
The Mashta House estate included 1700
acres, a big tile-roofed plantation barn, bath
houses, lath houses, coconut-husking houses,
packaging sheds, docks, water wheels, windmills,
Dade County Pine houses, a commissary,
a school house, cottages where black Bahamian
workers lived with their families, and a
Hurricane House constructed after the 1926
storm. No one in the 1920s and ’30s would
ever have imagined that these all would vanish
by the end of the twentieth century. If this
complex had survived, it would be a unique
historic pioneer village or district of great longterm
interest and value. The last plantation
buildings, with the exception of the relocated
CHAPTER XXIII ✧ 97

“Stiltsville,” a collection of weekend-retreats built in the waters of Biscayne Bay off the coast of Key Biscayne, dates back as a
community to the 1930s. By 2000, only seven were still in existence. (PHOTO BY BECKY ROPER MATKOV)
This map depicts the Key Biscayne Heritage Trail,
created by Joan Gill Blank with grant support from the
Village of Key Biscayne and the Bureau of Historic
Preservation, Division of Historical Resources, Florida
Department of State. It offers a self-guided tour of the
island’s historic, cultural and environmental sites.
Bahamian bachelor dormitory and school
teachers cottage, were demolished in the 1980s
to make room for a resort and oceanfront
hotel. (These sites are marked on the Key
Biscayne Heritage Trail by bronze markers put
in place in 1997. The Crandon Park Master
Plan designates the building of a model of the
coconut plantation in Crandon Gardens,
allowing a site for the two remaining frame
structures, listed on the Dade County Register
of Historic Places.)
The Plantation was inherited by W.J.
Matheson’s three children, Finlay, Hugh and
Anna, who negotiated with the county to
donate the northern one-third of the island for
public parkland. The gift of the prime oceanto-bay
parcel, 808.8 acres, included magnificent
coconut groves, two miles of palm-fringed
Atlantic beach, hardwood hammocks and
ancient mangrove forest. It followed a bold
proposal from County Commissioner Charles
H. Crandon, who offered to build a causeway
connecting the Key to the mainland. The deed
was handed over in 1940, stipulating that the
parcel be used for public park purposes only.
Crandon Park (named after the commis -
sioner) was opened in 1947. At last, visitors
could come by automobile over a seven-mile
long causeway (named after flying ace Eddie
Rickenbacker) and two bridges spanning
Biscayne Bay and Virginia Key. It was an exhilarating
drive to the long-mysterious island of
Key Biscayne. A carousel, a zoo and a minia -
ture train ride complemented ocean swimming
and picnicking in this serene setting with its
rows of tropical palms.
Following the opening of Crandon Park,
the Mackle Brothers, who purchased land from
the Mathesons in the mid-section of the island,
built one hundred single-story cement block
homes, followed by 250 more, a small shopping
center, and an elementary school. This
marked the beginning of residential development
on Key Biscayne. Some envisioned Key
Biscayne in the 1950s as a middle-class version
of George Merrick’s Coral Gables. Churches,
restaurants, and services were added, and custom-built,
one-and two-story homes expanded
the neighborhood. The Mackles’ own key
Biscayne Hotel and Villas was the forerunner of
oceanfront resorts along the tranquil beach.
By the time President Richard Nixon chose
the island as his Winter White House, it had
become a special, out-of-the-way destination,
just a twenty-minute drive from the Miami airport,
ideal for the discriminating traveler.
Some decided to stay year-round or buy vacation
homes. The first of many highrises was
built precariously close to the water in 1964,
on the beach several miles north of the old
lighthouse that had always been the tallest
building in town.
No open road led into the southern onethird
of the island where the Cape Florida
Lighthouse, in spite of serious erosion and long
neglect, still stood. The property had been sold
a number of times, and, after the bridge was
built, it was billed as the largest tract of undeveloped
ocean and bay frontage in the Miami
area. Each time, some difficulty befell the
developer and nothing was built.
Then, in 1950 bulldozers and chain saws
denuded all but a fringe of the entire historic
tract, covering ancient native plants and wildlife
habitats, desecrating prehistoric burial grounds,
and covering ancient Tequesta fishing village
sites and middens. Natural contours were leveled,
wetlands and freshwater ponds filled with
bay bottom, in preparation for building a
bustling new resort city on the Cape. But it did
not happen. As the land lay exposed, stripped of
its native growth and canopy, the tenacious
exotic Casuarinas (Australian pines) began to
grow into an unchecked forest of whispering
pines which would be completely swept away
by a future hurricane, Andrew. Few noticed in
1957 when Cape House, an architectural landmark
from the 1890s, went up in flames.
In 1964, when “a touch of paradise” was
advertised for sale, the visionary editor of the
Miami News, Bill Baggs, led a movement to
purchase all Cape Florida with its irreplaceable
tower. Community leaders, historians and others
joined until forces. They triumphed in
1966 when the entire 510 acres, plus some
470 acres of submerged land, was bought by
the State of Florida from the widow of Cuban
exile Jose Aleman, with Baggs serving as
matchmaker. For his key role, the area was
named for Bill Baggs. The boarded-up tower
was renovated, the keepers cottage replicated.
Opened to the public in 1967, it is known
today as Bill Baggs Cape Florida State
Recreation Area.
Both ends of the barrier island of Key
Biscayne were now held in public trust. In the
inhabited mid-section (with a population of
over 4,000), construction workers cleared more
land designated for residential/resort or com -
mercial development. Key Biscayne was gov -
erned by Dade County. Citizens were aroused
when the County Commission seemed to be
overly generous granting building permits with
zoning variances, suggesting to many that the
future held traffic and density challenges, matters
of grave concern. “For sheer anti-highrise,
anti-traffic, and environmental militancy, there
was no more hard-nosed bunch then the
defenders of Key Biscayne,” wrote Charles
98 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

Whited in the Miami Herald about the rising
resistance to urban development.
A brief respite occurred in 1972 when a
building moratorium was enacted for the Key
Biscayne beachfront. When a condominium
developer, caught in the delay, agreed to underwrite
a new water and sewer system, building
resumed. The following decades saw buildings,
condominiums and hotels steadily rise like castles-in-the-sand
on the east side of the middle
section of the island, and the tax base rose across
the island as the value of home real estate soared
on the small 1.25 square mile monopoly board.
In 1991, with a population of nearly 9,000,
residents managed enough votes to incorporate
as an independent village. Key Biscayners elected
a council, then a mayor, and selected a strong
manager form of government, with its own
police and fire-rescue departments. After the
devastation of Hurricane Andrew, only one year
after incorporation, there was much rebuilding,
replanting and a new apparent understanding of
the risk, including economic and environmental
dangers, of choosing to live on a barrier island.
An aerial view of Miami-Dade County’s Tennis Center at
Crandon Park with a full center court.
(COURTESY OF THE BLANK COLLECTION)
The Palm Walkway to the restored Cape Florida Lighthouse begins with a path of commemorative bricks sold by Dade
One of the early and important actions the
Council took was to purchase a central area of
9.5 acres as a Village Green. The area quickly
became a site for play, sports, festivals and concerts,
or just quiet contemplation by all ages of
citizens. Among planned capital improvements
are a community center and a village hall.
During the last years of the twentieth century,
the limited remaining supply of real estate
on this half-mile wide island led to intense
development. Affluent new buyers knocked
down “humble houses” like “Mackles” and
other early CBS tract homes, as well as less
modest custom designed and award-winning
homes. These older homes were replaced with
more pretentious structures that some see as
incompatible in a once homogeneous neigh -
borhood. Others say that a more international
population and less indigenous architectural
style have not only raised the island’s profile,
but have met new elevated flood plain requirements.
Few argue that as the skyline crowds
the sky as never before, concrete and population
density are increasing and the land-tohuman
ratio is decreasing. But the Village of
Key Biscayne is acquiring new open spaces, the
County and State Parks have both undertaken
major ecological and historic restorations, and
the new protected waters around the island
may act as a safeguard against further exploitation
of natural assets and resources.
On Key Biscayne, where environmental
wounds and legacy are inseparable, islanders are
giving time and expertise to plan for the future
health of the island. There is a renewal of a sense
of islandhood, understood by the native people
one thousand years ago, which is sparking a
commitment to the past and future. Despite the
impacts of overbuilding and burgeoning populations,
despite hurricanes or storm surges, citizens
are starting to shore up for coming generations
Key Biscayne’s cultural, historical and environmental
resources, lest they be washed away
on the tides of indifference.
Heritage Trust. (COURTESY OF BILL BAGGS CAPE FLORIDA STATE RECREATION AREA)
Joan Gill Blank, a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, has been a resident of Key Biscayne since 1951, raising her children in a 1917 Dade County pine cottage
on the Matheson coconut plantation. She is married to Dr. Harvey Blank, founder of the Department of Dermatology at the University of Miami School of Medicine.
As a writer, lecturer and environmentalist who was befriended by Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, she has been committed to interpreting, protecting and preserving
Florida’s rich cultural, ecological and historic heritage. She is the author of Key Biscayne: A History of Miami’s Tropical Island and Cape Florida Lighthouse; The
Florida Historical and Environmental Calendar/Day Book and Born of the Sun, the Bicentennial history book of the State of Florida. Her preservation projects
have included working on the Save Our Lighthouse Committee for Dade Heritage Trust, the Lightkeeper’s Cottage Restoration Project for the Villagers, Inc., and the
State of Florida’s Half Moon underwater archeological preserve. She originated and designed the Key Biscayne Heritage Trail, a self-guided trail of historic, environmental
and cultural sites, for which she received a 1998 award from the American Association for State and Local History.
CHAPTER XXIII ✧ 99

The Coral Gables Congregational Church was built in 1923-25 on land donated by George Merrick, whose father had been a Congregational minister. It was the first church in Florida to be
placed on the National Register of Historic Places. (COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
CORAL GABLES
BY E LLEN J. UGUCCIONI
A well planned city, beautiful homes,
widest range of scholastic activities, with
the material, the communal, the municipal,
and the cultural phases of life fittingly
rounded out by those religious organiza -
tions, so especially a part of the foundation
of American life and outlook—the whole
developing a highly conscious citizenship.
That is Coral Gables.
—George Edgar Merrick,
Coral Gables Facts, 1927
Defining the City of Coral Gables as a
neighborhood is a pleasurable task to undertake.
Identities of neighborhoods can hinge
upon the common characteristics of its resi -
dents or the distinctive character of the place
itself. I would suggest that the most compelling
reason to set an area apart is a combination of
personalities and place, leavened by a strong
sense of shared history. And what a history it
was! One runs out of superlatives when dis -
cussing this unique city. The City of Coral
Gables is deserving of its reputation, for the
virtuosity demonstrated by its creators is
unparalleled in the context of all other “Boomtime”
communities.
“Highly restricted, intelligently zoned, architecture
and landscaping coordinated and con -
trolled, every modern utility, recreational facilities,
and hotel accommodations unsurpassed.”
This was how the creators of the City of Coral
Gables described their new enclave, which,
while not incorporated until 1925, was begun in
1921. The control of design in the development
of a town or city is a luxury afforded very few
communities. However, few communities were
led by as beneficent an autocrat with as clear a
vision as that held by George Edgar Merrick, the
insightful poet of the tropical experience.
Merrick had come to South Florida with his
father, the Reverend Solomon Greasley
Merrick and family in 1899. Beginning with a
homestead of 160 acres, the Reverend Merrick
began to farm the land and live off the profits
from the sales of the produce. He envisioned
the offer of similar “retirement packages” to
other clergy who were ready to leave the ministry.
When Reverend Merrick died in 1911,
those plans would be changed and replaced
with something on a far grander scale.
Twenty-five-year-old George Edgar Merrick,
who was away at law school in New York when
his father passed away, returned back to the
plantation to direct its operation. He was soon
to become enmeshed in local real estate transactions
in Miami, which would provide him the
opportunity to refine his ideas for what would
become a community uniquely his own.
That community, which would become the
City of Coral Gables, was controlled at every
stage, with no digressions from the strict standards
initially set out. T. H. Weigall, a British
journalist who worked as a publicity writer for
George Merrick, offered this portrait of him:
Mr. Merrick, cloistered in his office high
above the Central Administration Building,
that office from which he could look out
over almost the whole of this unbelievable
creation that was his own, retained control
with an iron hand. Nothing could be done
without his approval, nothing could be
held back when once he had ordered it
should go forward. His will was absolute
and immutable. (Boom in Paradise, 1932.)
The guiding principles of the development
were the spacious plazas, the long, winding
boulevards, the vistas created by buildings set
well back from those sweeping roadways, and
the Mediterranean designs which made reference
to centuries-old buildings in Italy, the French
and Italian Riviera, the north coast of Africa, and
Spain (both Castilian and Moorish). These were
a product of the “ruling class,” a group of architects,
artists, planners, engineers, landscape
architects, and visionaries who set the priorities
and insured that the developmental goals of the
city were met. While first and foremost a residential
community, the planners set aside a business
area and a Crafts Section, so that the day-today
needs of the citizens could be met.
100 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

The destiny of Coral Gables was guaranteed
by this studied, programmed approach. But it
was not solely the designers who can be cred -
ited with the visual cohesiveness of this development.
It was, in fact, the first City
Commission, largely composed of officers of
the Coral Gables Corporation, who advanced
the continuity of design and development
through regulation.
In August of 1925, under the flamboyant
Mayor Edward E. “Doc” Dammers, the City codified
its first Building Code, which addressed the
construction, rehabilitation, and (even at this
tender age) demolition, of all buildings within
the city. The provisions of this Code included a
ban against frame construction, requirements
that all doors, windows and vents be arched and
that walls be constructed of coral rock or con -
crete of “Spanish type,” and a requirement that
all roofs be covered with clay or concrete tile.
From the very beginning, all designs were
required to have the approval of the City’s
Supervising Architect Phineas Paist, and, by
1925, that review was made a mandatory part
of the city’s permit process. Every set of plans
was scrutinized by Paist to insure that they met
with the strict design standards established for
the development.
Paist was a native of Philadelphia who had
attended the Drexel Institute of the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He
came to Miami in 1918 at the request of Paul
Chalfin, who asked him to become the supervising
architect for James Deering’s winter
estate, Villa Vizcaya. Soon thereafter, Paist was
employed in the building of the new city of
Coral Gables, first as the “Supervisor of Color”
and later as “Supervising Architect”.
Paist, writing for the National Builder in
October 1924, had this to say about his employer:
The Biltmore Hotel, built in 1925 as the centerpiece for Merrick’s planned city of Coral Gables, is a National Historic
Landmark and one of Florida’s greatest architectural treasures. (COURTESY OF THE BILTMORE HOTEL)
George Merrick, whose remarkable
business instinct and, strangely enough,
whose inner self is mixed with poetry
(actual saleable poetry) deserves commendation
from architects, builders, and material
men for the opportunity of building a
town, a designed town, architecturally harmonious,
and a town intelligently different
from the average horribly discordant aberrations
that are usual in new developments.
He has had the vision and has obtained
results for holding control of all architectural
and landscape schemes and finally of
all the local color of the town.
Fairchild Tropical Garden was founded by Col. Robert Montgomery, who donated the first 58 acres of land in 1938. Located
along Old Cutler Road, the garden was designed by landscape architect William Lyman Phillips and is renowned for its
collection of palms. (COURTESY OF FAIRCHILD TROPICAL GARDEN)
Every detail of the city was carefully considered,
and “quality of life” amenities were keys to
its success. Toward that end, Merrick promised
that his community would offer the finest of
educational, recreational, institutional, and religious
facilities. His were not just promises, but
convictions supported by actual investment.
In a letter to the School Board dated June 5,
1923, Merrick offered the land to build the
Coral Gables Elementary School, valued at over
$76,000, for only $10,000. He justified his
most generous offer by explaining that the
school was intended as a key building in a
group of civic and community center buildings,
which would include a library, bank, post office
CHAPTER XXIV ✧ 101

The Coral Gables City Hall, designed by Phineas Paist and
Denman Fink, was erected in 1927-28 and is listed on the National
Register of Historic Places. (COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
and a $100,000 Community Congregational
Church (Coral Gables Congregational). The
master plan by architect Richard Kiehnel was
“to be of such character and of such artistic
architecture and setting as to be entirely unique
among American communities.”
George Merrick’s father, Solomon, built this home in the
early 1900s out of oolitic limestone, or “coral rock,”
covering its multi-gabled roof with coral-colored
Ludowici tiles and naming it Coral Gables. George
Merrick would later use the name for his 1920s real
estate development. Coral Gables House, located at 907
Coral Way, is now a museum.
(COURTESY OF THE MIAMI-DADE HISTORIC PRESERVATION DIVISION)
When the Riviera Section of the development
was announced in May, 1925, one of its principal
features was “a great open-air University.” One
hundred and sixty acres (coincidentally the same
number of the original plantation) were set aside
by the Coral Gables Corporation, and Merrick
personally endowed the University with five million
dollars. The University of Miami was pro -
jected to cost some fifteen million dollars, consist
of twenty-two buildings and overlook an impressive
lake. Phineas Paist, the “dean” of Coral
Gables’ architects, Paul Chalfin (the artistic director
for Villa Vizcaya) and Denman Fink (that
remarkable painter and illustrator whose images
on canvas were transformed in three dimensions)
were all appointed to the Board of Consulting
Architects for the University.
Not surprisingly, the original architectural
theme for the University was inspired by
Spanish and Italian prototypes. (The collapse
of the Boom and subsequent Depression
stalled or prevented many of Merrick’s building
projects from their realization. In the case of
the University, which began in earnest following
the Second World War, the campus was to
be realized but in a decidedly International
style, reflecting the then current aspirations
and philosophy of its leaders.)
The Riviera Section was also to include Coral
Gables’ most venerated historic landmark, the
Biltmore Hotel. After having directed his attention
to creating ideal homes and educational
and institutional facilities, Merrick began his
plans for a grand hotel and country club. As
early as February, 1924 Merrick announced his
plans for the complex, illustrated with a draw -
ing of the hotel by architect Martin Luther
Hampton. When the prominent John McEntee
Bowman, president of the “Bowman-Biltmore
Hotels Corporation,” agreed to partner with
Merrick some nine months later, the architec -
tural firm of Schultze and Weaver was commissioned
for the final design. The hotel opened
with a dazzling spectacle on January 15, 1926.
The Riviera Section has another part to its history,
which today is unfitting and conflicts with
our ideas about Merrick’s insightful and inspired
efforts to create an ideal community. One can
only acknowledge that during this stage of the
nation’s history, prejudice against African-
Americans was across-the-board, and, while this
was an unconvincing and emotionally unsatisfactory
response, that was just the way it was. The
Riviera Section was home to many black pioneer
families who made possible the construction of
many enduring monuments. In 1925, Merrick,
recognizing the requirement to segregate these
families and maintain a cohesiveness to his development,
offered a land swap to African-American
home owners and moved the community just
south of US 1 at LeJeune Road to an area platted
as the MacFarlane Homestead Subdivision. Many
of the homes can be characterized as either a bungalow
or shot-gun type, reflecting the vernacular
traditions of their builders. All of the deeds for
homes constructed in the city had this provision:
That no unlawful or immoral use
shall be made of the premises hereby
agreed to be conveyed nor, shall the same
nor any part thereof nor any interest
therein, be sold, leased or otherwise conveyed
to any person other than of the
Caucasian race, provided that nothing
therein shall prevent the keeping and
maintaining of servants on the said property
for reasonable family use.
This abhorrent regulation has long since
been abolished, but its consequences are an
important part of our history. That fact has been
recognized by the city in the local historic landmark
designation of the MacFarlane Homestead
Subdivision Historic District. Later, as a result of
a neighborhood initiative, the Federal government
conferred the venerable status of National
Register listing to this unique “neighborhood
within a neighborhood.”
Coral Gables Deverloper George Merrick discusses marketing plans with the straw-hatted “Doc” Dammers in an early office
located in Downtown Miami. Even the “Coral Gables Water” cooler touts the benefits of the new city.
(COURTESY OF THE SAM LAROUE COLLECTION)
Always it seemed to me that there should
be the same class of houses and surroundings
which were along the shores of the
Mediterranean. Geographically and climactically
South Florida is identified with Spain,
North Africa, and all that lies between them
and the South Sea islands.
(George Edgar Merrick, 1925)
102 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

While the architectural theme of the city
overall was Mediterranean in character,
Merrick introduced the idea of theme villages
to add color diversity and a little surprise. In
July 1925, Merrick conveyed title to large
tracts of land earmarked for residential development
to the Myers Y. Cooper Company,
architect and builder for the American
Building Company, both headquartered in
Ohio. Although we commonly refer to all of
these enclaves which have a specific architectural
heritage as villages, some were originally
referred to only by “type.”
The Colonnade Building on Miracle Mile was built in 1926 as George Merrick’s sales office and was used for a pilot training
center during World War II. The original building has now been incorporated into the highrise Colonnade Hotel complex.
(PHOTO BY DEBORAH TACKETT)
There has been much ink spilled, and
countless intellectual arguments conducted, as
to the proper term to describe the architecture
of Coral Gables. Merrick himself is frequently
quoted as describing the designs as “Spanish,”
while others on the original team wax eloquent
on the subject of Italian precedents. Clearly, the
compositions by the original architects rely
heavily on examples of buildings in the coun -
tries that border the Mediterranean Sea.
Because the expression of their art is extrapola -
tion rather than invention, the term most widely
applied is Mediterranean Revival, indicating
the source of the inspiration, and acknowledging
the long history of precedents that influ -
enced the designs. The architects could easily
have copied from centuries-old prototypes, but
did not find it necessary.
In an interview with Merrick by S.M.
Shelton published in the November 1923 issue
of Suniland Magazine, Shelton observes:
In making Coral Gables a faithful reproduction
of the best that is to be found in
Old Spain and other countries on the
Mediterranean, Mr. Merrick has employed
a staff of architects familiar with European
subjects…. From this it should not be
judged that Coral Gables is copied exactly
from the Spanish cities. The best ideas
which could be obtained there have been
brought to Florida and subjected to careful
study…with the result that while modifications
have frequently been made, the type
of building has been preserved and numerous
features have been added which have
increased the comfort of the Spanish style
houses of Coral Gables and added to their
attractiveness. In other words, Coral
Gables has neither borrowed or stolen, but
it is the original work of skilled craftsmen
who know how to combine the best.
An example of the successful “hybridization”
that occurred in the city is the Coral Gables City
Hall Building. The building was designed by
Phineas Paist and Harold Steward. The cornerstone
was laid in November, 1927 and was formally
opened on February 28, 1928. The most
striking feature of the building is its two-story
portico which is oriented towards a major intersection.
The colonnaded porch turns back to
ancient Greek and Roman examples, and indeed
comes by way of a Neo-Classical tradition.
Phineas Paist, who was born, raised and educated
in Philadelphia, must have been tremen -
dously impressed by the Merchants Exchange
Building designed by William Strickland (1788-
1854) at Third and Walnut Streets, and completed
in 1824. The building, which housed the
stock exchange and post office, has a more than
striking similarity to Coral Gables’ City Hall.
While the resemblance to the basic form of the
Philadelphia structure is obvious, it is the subtlety
with which Paist and Steward handle the detail
that illustrates its transcendence into the subtropical
realm. The Corinthian is exchanged for the
Ionic order; a copper roof is replaced with tile,
and a cylindrical cupola is replaced with a threestage
rectangular bell tower, Coral rock, the
indigenous stone of the area, clads the base of the
building. Perhaps the most striking parallel is the
significance placed on the siting of the building.
Philadelphia’s Exchange Building occupies
the focal point of a vast plaza within the intersection
of three streets. The rotunda serves to
direct one’s attention to the apex of that intersection,
focusing the broad avenues as befits a structure
of this symbolic magnitude. Similarly, Paist
uses a triangular parcel of ground at the intersection
of Coral Way, LeJeune Road and Biltmore
Way to achieve a vista where the building can be
seen in its most striking pose. The Philadelphia
building has been transposed so that it boasts a
provenance uniquely Coral Gables.
Venetian Pool, at 2701 DeSoto Boulevard, was built in 1924-
25 out of a quarry pit used to mine the oolitic limestone used
in many of the early Coral Gables structures. William
Jennings Bryan often gave speeches here, and orchestras
provided entertainment for the crowds at the romantic
lagoon. The pool is still a favorite recreational spot.
(PHOTO BY DEBORAH TACKETT)
Douglas Entrance, built in 1925-27 at Douglas Road and
Tamiami Trail, is the most grand of Merrick’s gateways to
Coral Gables. It consisted of a tower, gateway, shops,
galleries and apartments. Slated to be demolished for a
parking lot in the 1960s, it was saved by preservationists and
is now part of a multi-use center blending the old and new.
(PHOTO BY DEBORAH TACKETT)
CHAPTER XXIV ✧ 103

The Chinese Village, along the 5100 block of Riviera
Drive, was designed by Henry Killam Murphy in 1926.
(PHOTO BY DEBORAH TACKETT)
Blocks and blocks of land were set aside for
the creation of these “anomalies.” Unfortunately,
construction began at the end of the Boom, and
fewer homes were constructed than planned.
Those homes that were built are especially treasured,
and are remarkable in their design and
ornamentation. They are the Florida Pioneer
Type (often referred to as the Southern Colonial
Village) on Santa Maria Street, designed by John
and Coulton Skinner, and the French 18th
Century Village Type on Hardee Road. While
the entire length of Hardee was to have con -
tained these types, only two distinct villages
were actually built, and we have used the adjectives
city and country to distinguish the more
formal examples from those that have a more
rustic character. The French City Village in the
1000 Block of Hardee Road was designed by
Mott B. Schmidt and the French Country Village
in the 500 Block by Frank Forster, Edgar
Albright, and Phillip L. Goodwin.
The other villages that were built include
the Chinese Village, designed by Henry Killam
Murphy, south of U.S. 1 at the 5100 block of
Riviera Drive; the French Normandy Village
designed by John and Coulton Skinner on
Lejeune Road at Viscaya Avenue, the Dutch
South African Village designed by Marion
Syms Wyeth on LeJeune Road at Maya Avenue,
and the Italian Village, (600 Block of Altara
Avenue; and non-contiguous locations in the
4200 and 4300 Block of Monseratte Street,
4100-4400 Blocks of Palmarito, and sites on
San Esteban and San Lorenzo Avenues),
designed by John and Coulton Skinner, R.F.
Ware, A.K. Klingbeil, and Robert Law Weed.
The villages that were never built offer a
glimpse into the fantastic variety and infinite
creativity of the plan. They were the
Neapolitan Baroque Type, the Spanish Bazaar
and Town Type, the Persian Village type, the
Mexican Pioneer or Hacienda type, and the
Tangier Village type.
Another great plan that was never realized
was the most ambitious the development
would offer: the Biscayne Bay Section, a sixmile
stretch of bayfront property that con -
tained over six thousand acres of land. Merrick
and the design team had plans for another
magnificent hotel (to be even bigger than the
Biltmore), wide boulevards, lakes, and the construction
of twelve islands that would be connected
to the mainland by a series of bridges.
The interior of this Coral Gables home, which predates the Mediterranean style of the 1920s, features beamed ceilings and
coral rock walls. (COURTESY OF MEL REA MAGUIRE AND JOSE GELABERT-NAVIA)
The French City Village, built in 1925-26 along the l000
block of Hardee Road, was one of George Merrick’s
themed “villages” scattered throughout the city to add
architectural diversity to his predominantly
Mediterranean-styled town. (PHOTO BY DEBORAH TACKETT)
Though we can only imagine what that completed
plan would have meant to Coral Gables,
we can get a glimpse of what it would have
been like through the legendary Tahiti Beach.
Tahiti Beach was intended to provide guests
from the Biltmore Hotel with a saltwater beach,
and was connected to the hotel by the water -
ways. When it opened in February 1926, guests
were treated to the exoticism of the South Seas
with thatched huts, an open-air dance pavilion
and dining room. When these were destroyed by
hurricanes, Tahiti Beach was a public swimming
area until it was closed in the early ’70s when the
land became the site of Cocoplum, one of the
city’s most exclusive subdivisions.
There are two enduring masterpieces in the
Biscayne Bay subdivision that date from a later
period in the City’s history: Matheson
Hammock Park and Fairchild Tropical Garden.
Matheson Hammock was the first public beach
dedicated to the people of Dade County. The
original 84 acres (later expanded to 520 acres)
were a gift of William Matheson in 1930. In
1933, under the New Deal’s Economic
Recovery Act, the Civilian Conservation Corps
(CCC) began dredging the swimming lagoon,
quarried the native coral rock and built the
bath house, concession buildings and bridges.
Colonel Robert Montgomery and his wife,
Nell, had an overwhelming interest in plant collecting
(particularly palms and cycads), which
led to the purchase of an estate in the southern
part of Coral Gables. In 1938 Montgomery
donated the first fifty-eight acres of land for the
internationally renowned Fairchild Tropical
Garden, named for David Fairchild, a friend of
the Montgomery family and the first director of
104 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The garden
was designed by William Lyman Phillips, and
the grounds, walls and Gate House were laid
out and constructed by the CCC.
While the grand scheme for Coral Gables as
envisioned by George Merrick never saw completion,
what was finished was sufficiently masterful
to endure as a lasting monument to suburban
design. In his book Boom in Paradise, author
Weigall lamented: “It was rather unfortunate that
the architectural restrictions of almost all of the
‘ideal’ cities tended to prevent the evolution of any
essentially Florida tradition.” Ironically perhaps,
the exponents of the City’s boom have now
become the standards upon which we have begun
to judge “good” architecture, for those early buildings
represent an historical truth, judged today
from a substantial seventy-five year perspective.
For as changing artistic values, burgeoning immigration
and unyielding demands of growth have
witnessed the erosion of a common tradition and
uniform set of objectives, those early architectural
masterworks have assumed a special importance.
In fact it could be argued that the exponents
of the master architects of the Boom spawned a
tradition that could be considered archetypal.
The reasons for this conclusion come not only
from the individual examples of residences,
public buildings, commercial buildings, educational
and religious institutions, but also from
those “impractical” and costly amenities such as
plazas, entrances, fountains, landscape, special
street lighting, pigmented sidewalks and boulevards
with one hundred foot medians. Those
elements reflected the paradigms of high-minded
city planning.
Largely due to the carefully orchestrated
marketing campaign. Costing over five million
dollars and conducted during the six months
between October, 1923 and March, 1924,
seven million dollars worth of property was
sold. During that time, more than six hundred
homes were constructed, sixty-five miles of
roadway of crushed coral rock were laid, and
over eighty miles of sidewalks were added. In
addition, fifty thousand trees, shrubs and flowering
plants were planted, and a system of
lighting installed which covered over twentyeight
miles of the city. Coral Gables experi -
enced the phenomenon of a land boom which
reflected the disposable income and aspira -
tions of a public deeply ensconced in the pursuit
of the American ideal.
The identity of Coral Gables was further
reinforced by creating at its edges monuments
Matheson Hammock Park and Marina, located off tree-lined Old Cutler Road in South Gables, features a beautiful bayfront
beach, a bike path through the mangroves, and picnic grounds in a natural oak hammock. The original 84 acres were
donated to Dade County by William Matheson in 1930. (PHOTO BY BECKY ROPER MATKOV)
that would act as portals to convey the visitor
into this special place. Denman Fink, whose
official title was “Artistic Advisor,” is credited
with the concept of these great entryways.
They are the Douglas Entrance (8th Street and
Douglas Road,) the Commercial Entrance
(Alhambra Circle and Douglas Road,) the
Granada Entrance (Granada Boulevard and 8th
Street,) and the Country Club Prado Entrance
(Country Club Prado and 8th Street), which
were completed before the end of the Boom.
Tracing the history of the Boom in South
Florida is similar to watching a soaring comet
explode into the sky and then just as quickly
disappear. When building materials failed to
reach their destinations because of over-crowded
railroad yards and harbors, when clouded
titles resultant from the unrecorded multiple
exchanges of property continued to be valued
higher and higher so that their real value was
over-inflated, when infrastructure improve -
ments were unable to be made, when negative
publicity started to come from outside of
Florida, and when the hurricane of September,
1926 struck, the Boom communities went into
abrupt decline and, by 1927, virtually every -
thing had come to a standstill.
The phenomenon that is Coral Gables,
and which set it apart from neighboring
boom-time communities, is that the leaders
who brought back the financial stability after
the collapse recognized the aesthetic imperatives
established by the creators. They understood
that continuing that tradition was a
sure way to proven success, and they chose
not to diverge from a strictly regulated course.
Other communities simply fell apart as their
originating principles were not of such a comprehensive
type and failed to capture suffi -
cient interest.
As we move further into this new century,
the task will be to continue a discerning attitude
when making decisions that address
preservation and development issues. The City
of Coral Gables offers a unique opportunity to
encourage the retention of its neighborhood
character, which so beautifully reflects the aspirations,
values, and ideals of its creators. Our
task will be to maintain the continuum of time
treating with judicious respect the exponents of
our past, and the expressions of our future.
The Biscayne Cafeteria on Miracle Mile in Downtown
Coral Gables has been a landmark for generations of
residents seeking plentiful Southern cooking.
(PHOTO BY DEBORAH TACKETT)
Ellen J. Uguccioni directed the historic preservation office of the City of Coral Gables for fourteen years, serving as its first Director. She has lectured
extensively on the subject to national, state, and local audiences. Ms. Uguccioni is a prodigious author, having written numerous articles throughout her
career. She is the co-author (with Samuel D. LaRoue Jr.) of Coral Gables in Postcards. Ms. Uguccioni has served three terms as the Architectural Historian
for the Florida National Review Board and has been a member of the adjunct faculty of the University of Miami’s School of Architecture for ten years.
CHAPTER XXIV ✧ 105

Master salesman “Doc” Dammers is shown selling Coral Gables land in 1921. Note the woman in the left front holding grapefruit,a popular promotional gift.
(COURTESY OF THE FLORIDA PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVES)
CENTRAL MIAMI
“THE LOST PART OF CORAL GABLES”
BY S AMUEL D. LA R OUE, JR .
By 1924, the Florida land boom had
reached an all-time high with seemingly no
end of the good times in sight. Legendary land
salesman Edward E. “Doc” Dammers, who was
at the height of his career selling Coral Gables
real estate, decided it was time for a change.
Instead of acting as a salesman for other developers,
he himself would become the developer
who sold his own land.
Dammers was born in Chelsea,
Massachusetts, the son of Army Colonel James
Dammers. He worked as an optician, where he
earned the title “Doc,” and as a treasurer of a circus
before going into the sale of real estate by auction.
He sold much of the land around Los
Angeles, California and Long Island, New York
before coming to Florida in 1905. He then sold
land in West Palm Beach, Miami Beach, Miami,
and Coral Gables.
For his own “pet” project, Dammers chose
an area of approximately two square miles. It
was located immediately west of Coral Gables,
between Red Road on the east and SW 75th
avenue on the west, Coral Way on the north
(with the exception of Schenley Park and Coral
Way Heights, which he did not own) and Bird
Road on the south. He dubbed his new development
“Central Miami,” and insisted it would
soon become the center of Miami.
This land had not previously been devel -
oped under the all-important Homestead Act
of 1862 because it was determined ineligible.
The land was mainly low-lying prairie and was
subject to seasonal rains, with flooding. This
was also the case in much of what is now
Greater Miami until reclamation of swamp
lands began in the early 1900s under the provisions
of Federal legislation. Construction of
drainage canals, which began along the southeast
coast of Florida in 1907, soon turned previously
uninhabitable land into prime real
estate. By the early 1920s, the land was dry
and ripe for development.
In October,1924, Dammers announced the
formation of the Edward E. Dammers Realty
Corporation, a million-dollar firm with a “sales
force of 100 widely experienced real estate
men.” Dammers was president, and vice president
was Charles Flynn, then vice-president of
the Bowman-Biltmore Hotel Company and
responsible for the construction of the Miami-
Biltmore Hotel. The new development was
contiguous to Coral Gables but was not viewed
as a competitor since Coral Gables developer
George Merrick himself had a financial interest
in Dammers’ project. “Doc,” of course, was also
still closely involved with the sale of Coral
Gables real estate and went on to be the new
city’s first mayor.
Central Miami was officially platted on
December 13, 1924. The survey was done by
Coral Gables surveyor W.C. Bliss. While Coral
Gables was designed on a more or less
north/south axis, Central Miami would be oriented
east/west along the Coral Gables
Waterway, which had been dug by George
Merrick. On each side of the waterway, west of
Red Road, a main thoroughfare called North
and South Waterway Drive would take advantage
of the scenic water view. At approximately
SW 59th Avenue, the waterway would
widen out to the north and south to form a
yacht basin. West of SW 72nd Avenue would
be what “Doc” Dammers called the “Lake
Section,” an area of subsidiary canals forming a
large “island area” and a nearby fifteen-acre
Central Lake. The lake is not easily visible
today because of the homes surrounding it.
106 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

The Miami Chamber of Commerce strongly
objected to the name “Central Miami” because
of its location outside the city limits and even to
the west of Coral Gables. They feared this name
might mislead visitors who were not familiar
with the Miami area. According to the minutes
of the Chamber of Commerce: “Chamber
President E.G. Sewell reported that he had spoken
to George Merrick and Telfair Knight about
changing the name, but these gentlemen did not
seem to desire to do so. The Executive Board
moved that the President be so authorized to
impress on Merrick and Dammers the immediate
need for a change of name.” Dammers was
unmoved by these objections and continued to
advertise that the center of Miami was going to
be at Coral Gables and west of Coral Gables.
(This claim has been proven uncannily accurate,
as today, the Central Miami area is nearly the
center of population in Miami-Dade County.)
Part One of the new development consisted
of 525 lots and was offered for sale in January,
1925. In an amazing eight hours all of the lots
were sold. Dammers had promised that for
every dollar sold, he would spend three in the
development of Central Miami. Several weeks
later, on February 5, 1925, Part Two of Central
Miami, consisting of 330 lots, was offered for
sale, with only about one-half of the offering
being sold. The remainder was withdrawn when
questions were raised as to why development
work had not begun on February 2nd as prom -
ised. Evidently “Doc” had been caught up in the
delays of the delivery of building materials, one
of the factors that ultimately led to the end of the
land boom. The Southern Construction
Dredging of the Coral Gables Waterway transformed low-lying, flood-prone land into prime real estate. This photo was
taken March 27, 1924, looking east at Red Road. (COURTESY OF THE FLORIDA PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVES)
Company, hired by Dammers, was ready to
work, but had nothing to work with. By
September, however, Parts One through Five
had been sold, and Part Six, known as the “Lake
Section,” was scheduled for sale.
As promised, some of the money collected
from land sales was put into construction of a
grand entrance to the new development. Most
probably the entrance was designed by the
well-known artist and illustrator Denman
Fink, who was George Merrick’s uncle and the
artistic advisor for Coral Gables. Fink is credited
with the design of the Coral Gables
Entrances, the Venetian Pool, and the Desoto
Fountain. His lyrical paintings, turned into
advertising images, were a great reason for the
success of Coral Gables.
Built in 1925, the entrance which used the
Coral Gables Waterway as its center-piece featured
a coral rock wall set back from the west
side of Red Road, punctuated by eight
medieval-looking towers. Towers flank the
Coral Gables Waterway at the center and SW
“Doc” Dammers walking in Central Miami after the 1920s land boom had ended. Much of the area looked this way until
after World War II. (COURTESY OF THE HISTORICAL MUSEUM OF SOUTHERN FLORIDA)
34th and 35th streets to each side of it. The wall
then curves forward toward Red Road, terminating
with two additional towers. The space
encompassed by the wall creates a park in front.
The square towers are a rough-textured
stucco on a base of oolitic limestone (coral
rock). The towers are not identical, as each terminates
in its own unique way. The two central
towers that flank the waterway have slightly
projecting parapets with round turrets on all
four corners. The pairs of towers on 34th and
35th streets have their parapets pierced by
three hearts on each side, while the end towers
beside Red Road originally had conical roofs
covered with shake shingles. The connecting
walls have shallow concave arches punctuated
by square piers with pyramidal caps. This
design implies the crenellated tops of medieval
battlement walls. Now known as Coral Gables
Wayside Park, this entrance feature was designated
as a Dade County Historic Landmark in
October, 1987, and was listed in the National
Register of Historic Places in 1988.
By late 1925, contracts had been let to the
Coral Gables Construction Company for one
hundred homes and to the Coral Gables Utilities
Company for electrical and water service. Plans
were announced for an extension of the Florida
East Coast Railway and the Seaboard Air Line
Railroad through Central Miami, with the
Seaboard building a station near the intersection
of SW 72nd Avenue and Coral Way. The Coral
Gables streetcar line would be extended west on
Bird Road, then north through Central Miami
along SW 68th Avenue and west on Coral Way
to the new station.
At this time, because of Dammers’ intimate
association with Merrick, Dammers assigned to
him over a million and a half dollars’ worth of
contracts for purchase of property in Central
Miami. These contracts would serve to underwrite
two million dollars’ worth of first mortgage
bonds for the construction of the Miami-
Biltmore Hotel.
Everything was going well, but then the
inevitable happened. The overheated Florida
land boom began to rapidly collapse. Northern
CHAPTER XXV ✧ 107

Central Miami’s signature entrance towers flank the Coral Gables Waterway, with SW 34th and 35th Streets on either side.
Built in 1925 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the towers are now in need of restoration.
(PHOTO BY ANTOINETTE NATURALE)
bankers in newspaper ads advised against
investment in Florida. The sources of money to
buy and build began to shrink. Speculators
became more cautious, and when the hurri -
cane of September, 1926, struck, it was nearly
the final blow to the great ideas and ambitious
plans of Merrick, Dammers and others.
Individuals who had purchased much of the
land for little actual cash investment began to
miss mortgage and tax payments. “Doc”
Dammers, whose health had begun to fail in
the late 1920s, became less involved in the
project, and found himself, like Merrick, in
financial difficulty.
In an apparent effort to bolster the potential
tax base of Coral Gables and to make the
Central Miami development more desirable,
Merrick, in May, 1927, brought the entire
Central Miami subdivision within the city limits
of Coral Gables. The area became identified
on maps as “Coral Gables Western Section.”
For all practical purposes this move had little
positive effect. With the exception of the
grand entrance, some sidewalks and a handful
of homes, little would happen in this area until
after World War II.
The year 1929 saw, also to little avail, the
Edward E. Dammers Realty Corporation reorganize
and change its name to the Central
Miami Corporation. In March, 1930, “Doc”
Dammers passed away at his summer home in
Cochituate, Massachusetts, as the result of a
stroke. During 1931, the Whitney Central
Trust Company of New Orleans, Louisiana, as
trustee of the mortgage bonds for the Miami-
Biltmore Hotel, foreclosed on all of the Central
Miami lots that had been pledged as collateral
in 1925 to build the hotel. Payments on the
mortgage had not been made. By 1934, Coral
Gables was in desperate shape financially.
Finding itself in bankruptcy, the City needed to
reduce its liability for city services to areas outside
the original city boundaries. Therefore, in
1934, through a lawsuit, Central Miami was
divorced from Coral Gables, and became a part
of unincorporated Miami-Dade County.
Finally, in 1936, it was all over. George
Merrick and Telfair Knight as corporate trustees
dissolved the Central Miami Corporation, and
turned over its only tangible asset, the 1.4-acre
grand entrance, to Dade County for perpetual
use as a park. It was at this time that Dade
County Commissioner Charles Crandon (1886-
1979) purchased a 25-acre tract of land on the
west side of Red Road between SW 36th Street
and SW 40th Street which had not been included
in the Central Miami subdivision. It was here
that Crandon, who was a successful business -
man and, for many years, a county commissioner
best known as the “father” of the Dade County
parks system, built his estate, a large Southern
colonial style house he called Whitehall.
In the late 1930s, individuals such as
Charles Moon and J.J. Lamb began to acquire
the various lots and clear the ownership of
mortgage and tax liens.
Thus, by the end of World War II, the
Central Miami area was ready for the phenomenal
building boom brought on by soldiers
returning home and buying houses through
US Veterans Administration guaranteed lowinterest
financing. Home builders eagerly
sought out this previously undeveloped land.
The Mackle Brothers, for example, built
dozens of homes as one of their first post
World War II developments.
Other development in the area included the
City of Coral Gables warehouses and incinerator
on the west side of SW 72nd Avenue. At the
corner of SW 72nd Avenue and Coral Way was
a football stadium for high school games. It
was best known to students at the time as the
“Garbage Bowl” due to its proximity to the
incinerator. Later it was transformed into the
current baseball fields known as the “Brothers
to the Rescue” Memorial Park. Along SW 34th
Street just west of Red Road was the City of
Coral Gables plant nursery.
In 1955, Charles Crandon took the land he
owned on the northwest corner of Red Road
and Bird Road (SW 57th Ave and SW 40th
Street) and built one of the first modern suburban
shopping centers that he called
“Crandon Corners.” It was later sold to Arthur
Vining Davis and the name was changed to
Red Bird Shopping Center. Crandon died in
1979, and his home, Whitehall, was later
demolished to build a development of upscale
homes called The Forest.
Today, Central Miami is a fully built area of
well-kept homes. It is a very desirable area to
live in due to its central location convenient to
shopping, expressways, Metrorail, and the airport.
“Doc” Dammers, who was famous for his
predictions, would be proud that Central
Miami has lived up to his promises.
This charming Central Miami residence is located on Red Road.
(PHOTO BY ANTOINETTE NATURALE)
Samuel D. LaRoue, Jr. is the Director of Admissions and Registration Services at Miami-Dade Community College. He is an avid local historian who has written
Coral Gables in Postcards (with Ellen Uguccioni); A Sixty-Fifth Anniversary History of the Church of the Little Flower; and The Biltmore Hotel—A Legacy
Restored. He has served as treasurer of Dade Heritage Trust and as a trustee of the Historical Association of Southern Florida.
108 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

Dante Fascell Park on Red Road near North Kendall Drive is a popular South Miami recreational area. (PHOTO BY DEBORAH TACKETT)
SOUTH MIAMI
B Y S USAN P ERRY R EDDING
What is now the City of South Miami, located
southwest of the greater Miami area, was at
the turn of the twentieth century part of Dade
County’s last frontier. At the time pioneer settlers
began to arrive in the region, “civilization”
extended from Coconut Grove along the
bayshore to Cutler. A wagon road that was later
to become part of the Ingraham Highway
extended as far south as Cocoplum Plaza. From
there to Cutler was only a path.
Early settlers during the period from 1884
to 1896 included James Nugent, Adam
Richards, the Trapp family, John Hinton, the
Kingsley family, the Hardees, John Rogers,
Captain Simmons (whose wife was a medical
doctor), A.F. Long, the Ramseys, Captain J. J.
Hayden (for whom the Hayden mango is
named), and John Burtashaw. It was through
John Burtashaw, Wilson Larkin’s father-in-law,
that Larkins and his family came to the South
Miami area.
Wilson A. Larkins was born in 1860 in
Tennessee. Wilson arrived in Rutland, Florida in
his mid-twenties looking for work. Among the
people he met there were the Burtashaw family
and brothers, Archie and Marshall Ramsey.
Wilson courted Katie “Essie” Burtashaw and
married her in 1888, while Essie’s sister, Mary
Comfort, married Archie Ramsey. The families
farmed and entered other business ventures
together as the years passed.
In February of 1896, Central Florida’s citrus
crop was completely wiped out by a late freeze.
Wilson took his young family back to Tennessee,
while the Burtashaws went south to the Miami
area. John Burtashaw found work setting out a
grove for Joe Jennings, so he bought a house on
the west side of the trail to Cutler, just south of
today’s Sunset Drive. In January of 1897, Wilson,
Essie, five children, sixteen cows, three horses
and all their household goods arrived in Miami
by passenger and freight cars. Wilson later built
a house on the east side of the Cutler Trail at 80th
Street (Davis Drive). A barn for the horses and
mules was built just to the west. A year later,
Wilson built a store/trading post near the circle at
Sunset Drive. Roads in Dade County were merely
dirt trails through the trees and brush.
Since settlers had to go to Cocoanut Grove for
their mail and supplies, Wilson petitioned the
government for a post office at the trading post
he had established, and, when it was granted, the
settlement was given the name “Larkins.” Wilson
preferred “Manila,” “Cocoaplum” or “Elizabeth,”
but accepted the government’s choice. On July 6,
1899, Wilson Larkins was confirmed
Postmaster, and Mattie Lou Burtashaw became
the first postal clerk.
Wilson, a tall man, had a special bicycle
which was fitted with tanks to deliver milk and
solid rubber tires to avoid blowouts. His major
customer was the Royal Palm Hotel, and deliveries
were made twice a day—morning and
evening. The children fed the chickens and hogs
even when they were still in diapers. All family
members had chores, as their home was a farm,
grove, dairy, moving company and trading post
all in one. Life was hard but rewarding. There
were no paved roads, no electricity—only the
abundance of land and warmth.
An earlier settler, Adam C. Richards, bought
186 acres from the U.S. Government for seventy-five
cents an acre in the late 1880s. As there
was no school in the area, Richards deeded one
acre to Dade County for a school in 1896. This
was at the southwest corner of Sunset and Erwin
Roads. Later the school was moved to its present
site at Sunset and SW 52 Avenue.
The second acre south on Erwin was deeded
to Pinewood (or Cocoaplum) Cemetery Trustees.
Wilson Larkins, Arthur Lang and Arthur
Kingsley were the original trustees. It has been
said that the land was unsuitable for farming,
and was therefore used as a cemetery. Indeed,
most graves were dug with dynamite, which
shook the neighbors’ homes. Some years later,
three more acres were added to the private cemetery.
As years passed, the cemetery fell to vandalism
and overgrowth. The last known burial was
in 1944. However, since 1983 a strong effort has
been made to restore Pinewood, and it is now a
designated historic site. Exotic growth has been
removed, native trees and shrubs have been
CHAPTER XXVI ✧ 109

A beach party taking to the waters in style. (COURTESY OF THE HISTORICAL MUSEUM OF SOUTHERN FLORIDA)
planted, and the replacement of markers and
headstones continues. Through exhaustive
research, most of which was done by Harriet
Stiger Liles, 180 early pioneers have been found
to have been buried there.
When Henry Flagler extended the Florida
East Coast Railway south from Miami to
Homestead, it marked the beginning of the present
South Miami. Weekly freight service began in
1904, and two years later, Wilson Larkins bought
property at the intersection of US 1 and Sunset
Drive to take advantage of the rail transportation.
Gables. Merrick gave permission to workmen to
dismantle the house and reuse the lumber. That
job became impossible because of the strength of
the pine and solid construction. The house
would not come apart, so it was bulldozed.
The town of Larkins grew and thrived near
the railroad station. Fruit and vegetable packing
houses were full and busy. John Opsahl built a
store and the Southern Pines Hotel. The Dorn
brothers from Chicago built a drug store, bank
and the new post office. The bank never opened
because of the many bank failures at the time.
Highway between Sunset and Red Road. The
façade of the building had wide terraced steps
and three arched entrances. The small archways
on either side opened into stores, one occupied
by Harold Dorn for his fruit crating and shipping
business. The central arch opened into the theater,
which had a gently sloping floor down to a
cross aisle that led to side exits. The auditorium
had padded seats for about 200 people. The
exposed ceiling beams were painted in a vine
motif. Unique floor tiles depicted various scenes
in the story of Don Quixote and his squire,
Sancho Panza. The pair appeared in nine oblong
tiles and six square ones surrounded by a border
of Moorish tiles in conventional design.
The South Miami area was for many years referred to as
Larkins, for the general store established in 1906 by Wilson
Larkins at U.S. 1 and Sunset Drive near Flagler’s railroad.
Shown here, a Larkins basketball team ready to play.
(COURTESY OF THE HISTORICAL MUSEUM OF SOUTHERN FLORIDA)
At the left of the auditorium, in front of the
stage, was an imposing electric organ—the
largest south of Atlanta—even larger than the
Olympia’s in downtown Miami. Mr. Dorn had
advertised for an organist in the northern papers,
and the man he selected arrived two days before
The rocky terrain of the early South Miami area made it a challenge to travel by horse and wagon.
(COURTESY OF THE HISTORICAL MUSEUM OF SOUTHERN FLORIDA)
He established a grocery and general supply store
located on the site of what is today the historic
Dorn-Martin Building. The railroad created an
economic boon for all sorts of trade in produce
and supplies for the growing community.
Eventually, the center of the settlement moved
west, and Larkins sold his house and farm to
George Merrick as part of the new city of Coral
Harold Dorn married Mable White in 1912, and
Robert Dorn married Mary Wheeler in 1914.
The Dorns invested heavily in the area and urged
many others to come to Larkins. The Dorns also
grew avocados and mangos, sold grower’s supplies,
and also sold insurance of all kinds.
Robert Dorn’s most elaborate venture was a
large luxury theater building that faced Dixie
A student works at a blackboard in the one-room
Larkins schoolhouse.
(COURTESY OF THE HISTORICAL MUSEUM OF SOUTHERN FLORIDA)
110 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

The beautiful Riviera Theater, opened in 1926 by pioneer Richard Dorn, featured the largest organ south of Atlanta. It closed
after only a year when the Florida real estate boom collapsed. In 1934, the Fuchs family bought the building as the home for
their Fuchs Baking Company, making Holsum Bread there until the company moved to Medley in 1983. The building was
demolished and is now the site of The Shops at Sunset Place. (COURTESY OF THE HISTORICAL MUSEUM OF SOUTHERN FLORIDA)
the opening of the theater. When he sat down to
play, people from all over the town crowded the
theater to listen. The theater opened on time,
September 4, 1926, with the premiere of
Universal Studio’s picture, Her Big Night, starring
Laura LaPlante. The theater operated for about a
year, until the boom went bust and the theater
closed because no one could afford a twentyfive-cent
movie.
For every pioneer who came to South Florida
and stayed, there were at least three who gave it
a try and left. Francis Infinger came at the end of
the Civil War. He was elected sheriff and tax collector
of Dade County. John Perry Dowling
worked for the Florida East Coast Railway and
built the first house in what is now South Miami.
Robert Shelley married Sue Ramsey and erected
a building on Sunset Drive with an arched
arcade. J.W. Barrs, a Dowling son-in-law, built
the first store on the west side of the railroad
tracks—The White Palace Grocery.
In 1909, the Erwin family came from Indiana
and bought the western half of Adam Richards’
homestead, from Sunset to Davis Road. Mac
Foster came in 1910, looking for a place for his
wife’s parents, the Jordans, and purchased ten
acres from Richards east of the Erwins. Robert
Erwin built their home, which was purchased a
few years later by the Dorns. John Opsahl took
over the post office from Wilson Larkins, and
bought the stock from his store. He then built his
own store across the street—the first concrete
block building in the area. William Laesch and
his wife Katherine came from Michigan in 1899.
They were soon growing guavas but were not
able to sell or ship their fruit because it spoiled so
fast. They later became wealthy and famous
around the world for their guava jelly.
South Miami has experienced stormy politics
from its beginning. On March 6, 1926, an incorporation
committee headed by J. Lamar Paxson
succeeded in getting 69 of the 85 qualified electors
in the proposed corporate limits to attend a
meeting at the Methodist Episcopal Church. The
first act of the assembly was to change the name
from Larkins to South Miami. Judge W.A. Foster
was elected mayor, and J.L. Paxson, John W.
Barrs, J.B. Janes and Harold Dorn were elected
aldermen. George Airey was appointed town
clerk. The boundaries at incorporation were six
square miles from Bird Road south on Red Road
to 104 Street and North Kendall Drive, and west
to Palmetto Road. Ten days after the 1926 hurricane,
the train station burned to the ground and
was not rebuilt except for a loading platform.
A new charter was granted on June 24, 1927,
changing from the Town of South Miami to the
City of South Miami. Unfortunately, the stock market
crash of 1929 turned many fortunes to dust.
City coffers became dangerously low, and citizens
were allowed to secede one property at a time. In
1931, the residents voted to abolish the City of
South Miami. However, in 1932, several citizens
got a court order to force the City back into exis -
tence, claiming there was no provision to take care
of the existing debts incurred by such things as the
new American LaFrance fire engine and the outstanding
bills for street lights. It was later learned
that J.L. Yarborough, who would become mayor in
1935, had hidden the fire engine in his garage to
keep it from being repossessed.
In 1933, with a population of 1500 residents
and 32 businesses, the City of South Miami’s area
was trimmed to approximately four square
miles. Other actions since then have changed the
size of South Miami further. From Miller Road
north to Bird Road, the city border resembles a
checkerboard with few other than residents
knowing whether their property is in or out of
municipal jurisdiction.
The population of South Miami in 1933 had
grown to approximately 1,500, and the community
was in need of a public park or recreation
center. On January 1, 1935, the City Council
passed ordinances dedicating land and appropriating
$2350 for the purchase of materials and
equipment for a community center. To cover
labor costs, the city applied for funds from the
Federal Emergency Relief Agency (FERA), one of
President Franklin Roosevelt’s “alphabet soup
agencies,” instituted to get the economy moving.
About 16,000 Miamians received assistance from
the agency, which was later known as the Works
Progress Administration (WPA). (As a result of
the WPA, many new buildings were constructed,
including the Miami Beach Post Office, Miami
Shores Golf Club, Coral Gables Fire and Police
Station, Shenandoah Junior High School, Coral
Way Elementary School, and an additional building
at Jackson Memorial Hospital.)
City Council minutes indicate that the
Rhinhart-Vernet Company supplied the lumber
and other building materials, while the American
Terrazzo Tile and Marble Company installed the
terrazzo flooring. The community center was
located on shady grounds, where supervised
play was arranged for children. It was equipped
with an auditorium, stage, dressing rooms, a
The Holsum Bakery was elaborately decorated every Christmas from 1940 through the 1970s, as seen in this 1949 postcard.
(COURTESY OF THE SAM LAROUE COLLECTION)
CHAPTER XXVI ✧ 111

The 1932 “Doc Thomas House” at 5530 Sunset Drive is now the headquarters for the Tropical Audubon Society.
(PHOTO BY ANTOINETTE NATURALE)
complete kitchen and sanitation facilities. The
rental fee for an evening was $2.
The building soon became the hub of social
and civic activity. It has served as a meeting place
for Boy and Girl Scouts, the Chamber of
Commerce, the Woman’s Club, and a U.S.O.
center for dances during World War II. It became
the public library in 1958, and in 1977 reverted
to its original use. In May of 1979, the City
Commission unanimously voted to rename the
center for long time resident and former city
clerk, Sylva G. Martin.
Sylva Graenicher Martin came to South
Miami following her parents’ move in 1917.
Her father, Dr. Graenicher, had a Ph.D. in biology,
and received his M.D. in obstetrics and
pediatrics. For their retirement, her parents
bought ten acres on Sunset Drive. Sylva was 22
years old when she first arrived, and she soon
married Ray Martin, the local pharmacist at
Dorn-Martin Drugs. The marriage did not last
long, and Ray then married Helen Stang, sister
of the prominent banker Omar Stang. Sylva
was appointed city clerk in 1936, and retired in
1957. She was also the tax assessor and collector.
She knew everyone in town and all that was
going on. The city was her family. Sylva stayed
quite active in city life after her retirement and
wrote a history of the city in 1947 for the Police
and Fire Association’s Benefit Minstrel Show.
A small area west of the railroad was designated
a “Negro Settlement” by the City Council
in 1926. Most black people living in the area
worked for the railroad. The first black to buy
land in Larkins was Marshall Williamson, a
Georgia State College graduate and a carpenter.
He came to the area in 1912 and later donated
land for St. John’s A.M.E. church and for the
J.R.E. Lee School. Williamson was known as
the “Little Mayor” of South Miami, and worked
constantly for the betterment of his people. In
1975, a small park near the school was created
in his honor.
112 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS
Sally Brown had the first grocery store in the
section, and Sally’s cousin had the first baby born
in Larkins—James Richardson, who later
became a Pullman porter on the Florida East
Coast Railway. C.D. Lawrence, a minister, and
his wife Regina, a nurse-midwife, were also early
arrivals. Regina worked with the white doctors of
Larkins and delivered most of the babies in the
neighborhood. Others came, stayed, and still
have family in South Miami, notably, Lewis and
Marie Richardson in 1913, Oubell Holmes in
1922, Paul Lumpkins in 1921, John and Sarah
Mozell in 1922, Abraham and Annie Mae Lamb
in 1923 and John Kelly in 1923.
The history of South Miami could never be
complete without mention of the Fuchs Baking
Company and its most famous product, Holsum
Bread. Karl Theodor Fuchs was born in
Germany, and moved to New York as a teenager.
There he met and married Anna Theresa Linke.
About 1895, the family moved to Milan,
Tennessee, an area known as Germantown. In
1903, Papa Fuchs was able to buy his own bakery,
and later added a delicatessen. By 1910, the
German residents of Milan were leaving, and
while Fuchs’ health was not good, he was tempted
to also leave. About this time, his wife’s brother,
Fred, contacted them after many years of
absence and said he was going to Florida and
wanted the Fuchs to come along.
The two men got off the train at Naranja in
1912. Fuchs fell in love with the area, and bought
a house near Homestead on Avocado Drive.
Fuchs’ entire family moved south with him in
April of 1912. He tried farming for a while, but in
1913, opened Linke and Fuchs Homestead
Bakery and Meat Market. Fuchs’ son Charlie
came to South Miami in 1934 and negotiated the
purchase of the Riviera Theater building, which
had long been vacant. It became the new home of
Fuchs Baking Company, making Holsum Bread.
For many years, Fuchs Bakery sold hot bread
right out of the oven. When the bread was baking,
the aroma stopped traffic on Dixie Highway.
Every Christmas, from 1940 until the 1970s, the
old theater entrance was decorated with an elaborate
Yule scene with costumed, animated figures
in snow scenes. Holsum moved to new quarters
in Medley in 1983, and the beautiful theater lost
its life forever to a mall that failed and was also
demolished after only ten years. This is now the
site of the popular Shops of Sunset Place.
At the end of the twentieth century, only two
South Miami locations, the Sylva Martin
Building and the Orr House, are designated as
“historic.” Others have been lost, and with constant
changes in county politics and demographics,
many more may be lost.
The Sylva Martin Center, located at 6130 Sunset Drive, was constructed of local oolitic limestone in 1935 and has been a
hub of social and civic activity ever since. (PHOTO BY ANTOINETTE NATURALE)
The first historic designation was the George
Orr House. The five acres on Sunset Drive and
SW 64th Court were originally owned by W.V.
Webb, who had purchased them from George
Merrick’s land company in 1917. The property
was sold several times in the early twenties, until
George E. Orr purchased it in 1926. The Orrs

The Shops at Sunset Place, covering the block from South Dixie Highway to Sunset along Red Road, have brought chain stores and
nightlife to South Miami for the 21st century. (PHOTO BY DEBORAH TACKETT)
were a well-known family whose members
played prominent roles in Miami’s political and
social affairs. Originally from Glasgow, Scotland,
the family settled in Miami circa 1911. The three
Orr brothers, George, Alexander and John, were
all involved in the construction business in one
aspect or another during South Florida’s real
estate boom in the mid 1920s. John B. Orr,
probably the best known of the three, was a talented
stonemason. His company specialized in
cutting and sculpture work of the beautiful
Florida keystone. John worked on the Biltmore
Hotel, Vizcaya, Douglas Entrance, the Scottish
Rite Temple and several hotels on Miami Beach.
He may be best remembered for his crime-fighting
spree as chairman of the “Committee of
100,” an organization that attempted to remove
from the area such elements as the Al Capone
mob. Orr was the Dade County Grand Jury
Foreman when mobster Al Capone lived near
him on Palm Island. One night, during an
ambush, Orr was severely beaten, dying months
later, at age 46.
John’s oldest son, Jack, served as a representative
in the Florida Legislature during the late
1950s and was elected Mayor of Dade County in
1972. His youngest son, George, was an assistant
state attorney and later became circuit court judge.
Another Orr brother, Alexander, was a
plumbing and heating contractor. He served on
the Miami City Commission, and, in 1940, he
was elected Mayor of Miami. He was reportedly
the richest of the Orrs, and socially prominent all
his life. George E. Orr, the youngest of the brothers,
was also a building contractor, as well as
superintendent of John’s masonry company. He
was the least known of the three, but nonetheless
had a beautiful home built for him and his wife,
Elizabeth, in 1935. It is a fine example of a home
constructed using random-cut keystone, with
many unique details. The property surrounding
the home was later developed into a gated residential
community. The Orr house has been
beautifully renovated and is today a showplace.
This area grew and prospered because the
Larkins/South Miami pioneers were a hardy lot.
They all had much to do each day, with few conveniences.
Still, they found time on Sunday to go
to church, eat hearty meals together, and visit.
The women even found time to socialize at the
“Thimble Club” after washing loads of clothes in
a tub using a pitcher pump. Mosquitoes, snakes
and wild animals greeted each of them, and still
they stayed.
Today, the City of South Miami, known as the
city of “pleasant living,” is a fully modern municipality,
respecting its past while dealing with
today’s multi-faceted growth issues.
The city’s founders, Wilson Alexander Larkins
and his wife, Katie Estelle Burtashaw, had fifteen
children—eleven of whom lived to adulthood. At
a family reunion in South Dade in 1997, there
were seventy-five descendants of the Larkins
attending—still reveling in their heritage.
The George E. Orr House was built of random cut keystone in 1935. The home has been renovated in the last few years and
is the focal point for the “Orr’s Pond” gated residential development on Sunset Drive. (PHOTO BY DEBORAH TACKETT)
Compiled by Susan Perry Redding with the generous assistance of Patricia Larkins, granddaughter of South Miami’s founder; Joan Yarborough, daughter of the fifth mayor;
and Doris S. Silver, chronicler of the Fuchs’ family history.
Susan Redding is a native Miamian, granddaughter of Mabel Davis and Cleveland H. Jones, Sr., founder of Jones Boat Yard on the Miami River; and Mary Emaline
McWilliams and George Lafayette Perry, pioneer builders and yachtsmen of Coconut Grove. She has lived in South Miami since 1972 and helped create the Historic
Preservation Board for the city.
CHAPTER XXVI ✧ 113

Inspired by English cottage design, this estate was built in 1926 by Florida pioneer John Warwick. Wild monkeys, foxes, bobcats, raccoons and possums roamed the grounds. Following Warwick’s
death in the 1950s, “Forest View” was subdivided in 1962 and developed by Harril C. King into the residential neighborhood of “Devonwood,” which borders Old Cutler and Ludlam Road. King
sought to maintain the area’s beauty by preserving as much as possible of the natural hammock. Many Devonwood homes are literally sculpted into the native foliage and coral rock.
(PHOTO BY BECKY ROPER MATKOV)
PINECREST
B Y G EORGIA T ASKER
The Village of Pinecrest is one of Miami-
Dade County’s newest municipalities. It bor -
ders South Miami and Coral Gables, nestled
just south of Kendall Drive and north of
Howard Drive, SW 136th Street. On its western
border is busy US 1, Dixie Highway—
where the Suniland Shopping Center has been
its main commercial district for over thirty-five
years. To the east is Red Road, following along
the Snapper Creek Canal, and Old Cutler.
Once a land of large avocado and mango
groves carved out of pinelands, in the 1950s
the area became a suburb of low, sprawling
ranch homes. People were attracted by the lure
of large residential lots—many an acre or
more—and the visions of green lawns, dogs
and ponies, and poolside cookouts. Airline
pilots could live within five miles of the airport
and fifteen miles of the city without the urban
clatter—and with good schools for the kids,
including Pinecrest Elementary and Palmetto
Elementary, Middle and High Schools.
Lawyers, doctors, business executives and
sports figures live in Pinecrest, as once did
Florida’s Governor Jeb Bush and his family.
As Miami-Dade was transformed over the last
half of the 20th Century, the area’s increasingly
upscale residents felt the need to preserve a tranquil
and secure way of life. Increased crime—the
bane of contemporary America—zoning issues,
frustration with governmental unresponsiveness,
and a desire for a community identity other than
“unincorporated Dade” galvanized the area’s
18,000 residents to act. After a political battle, in
1996 the Village of Pinecrest won its independence
and was incorporated.
Running through the heart of the village are
two thoroughfares that speak of the past:
Montgomery Drive and Chapman Field Drive.
The first honors Col. Robert Montgomery, the tax
executive who founded Fairchild Tropical Garden
in the 1930s. The second is named for Chapman
Field, the Army air base started in 1918 that sits
just outside the village boundary and now is a
USDA Subtropical Horticultural Research Station.
In its short official history, the Village has
drastically reduced crime, has planted thou -
sands of trees along its streets and has purchased
and transformed a trailer park into a landscaped
public park. Plans call for the construction of a
Town Hall. And on the docket is the purchase of
one of its defining attractions, Parrot Jungle.
Parrot Jungle, begun in Depression-era
Miami, is world-renowned for its exotic birds
and tropical gardens built in a cypress slough.
The owners of Parrot Jungle are planning to
relocate it in the near future to Watson Island
in downtown Miami. Plans call for the current
site to become a park, paid for partly by the
Village of Pinecrest, which has set aside bond
money and determination to buy the 22 acres
in conjunction with Miami-Dade County.
It was here at Parrot Jungle in 1946 that
Winston Churchill posed with a sulfur-crested
cockatoo named Butch, here that innumerable
lesser-known children and grandchildren have
posed with parrots on their heads and shoulders,
here that flamingoes once marched on
cue around a lake and thrilled visitors from
around the world.
Only fourteen of Parrot Jungle’s acres are historic,
yet Pinecrest Mayor Evelyn Greer plans for
the Village to purchase all 22 acres because of the
need for open space. With it, the community will
get a vision of a garden: winding paths through
cypress and heliconia; southern live oaks fes -
tooned with lavender, pink, and white orchids; a
dramatic succulent garden; a magnificent talipot
palm and dozens of beautiful understory palms.
Parrot Jungle was begun by Franz Scherr,
an Austrian who emigrated to America in 1911
114 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

when he was 25. He worked as a carpenter,
moving around the country as a young man,
working in construction in Chicago before
coming to South Florida during the land boom
of the 1920s.
That land boom was followed by a bust,
and Scherr and his family worked preparing
fruit and vegetables for market in Homestead.
Eventually, he started a feed and supply store
there. Scherr, who loved hiking and nature,
was known to spend Sundays in South Dade’s
parks. He knew Joseph DuMond, owner of
Monkey Jungle, where monkeys chittered in
the trees as tourists gawked at them behind
wire enclosures.
Chapman Field was a U.S. Army air base and gunnery range established in 1918. It was named for Manual Chapman, the
first American aviator killed in battle in World War I. In 1923, Chapman Field’s 850 acres were turned over by the military to
the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a subtropical horticultural research station. Today, 210 acres, bordering on Old Cutler
and Ludlam, are still used for agricultural research, and Chapman Field Drive is a major residential street in Pinecrest.
(COURTESY OF ARVA PARKS & COMPANY)
Britain’s great World War II leader Winston Churchill visited
Parrot Jungle in 1946. (COURTESY OF PARROT JUNGLE AND GARDENS)
Miami author and historian Helen Muir
wrote about Parrot Jungle for the Saturday
Evening Post in 1951. She described Scherr as
“advising” DuMond on how he could improve
his attraction by creating trails for tourists and
guides to describe the vegetation. DuMond, who
had been sitting up all night with a sick monkey,
said impatiently, ‘Oh, go start your own jungle!’”
Taking parakeets and lovebirds from his
feed store in Homestead, and adding parrots
from Texas (a first shipment of the birds died
and a second group had to be supplied hastily
for the opening), Scherr did indeed start his
own jungle. He mortgaged his home, bought
the site of a nudist colony and began to work.
A nature trail was carved through the
cypress slough—it remains the largest cypress
slough south of Lake Okeechobee—and surrounding
hammock. Parrot Jungle opened its
doors in 1936, a year after Monkey Jungle and
Cypress Gardens premiered as consummate
Florida tourist havens.
Today, there are more than 1000 birds and
four daily shows: the trained bird show, a
wildlife show, a rainforest adventure, and an
educational show on primates. But for many
Parrot Jungle, with its beautiful flamingos, parrots, alligators and wildlife and its lush tropical landscaping, has been a
favorite attraction since it opened in 1936. (COURTESY OF PARROT JUNGLE AND GARDENS)
The original entrance to Parrot Jungle was built by Franz Scherr during the Depression. Though a new entrance was added in 1955,
the coral rock building remained a favorite stop for cyclists and joggers along the Red Road bike path until recent times. A fire and a
rain-damaged roof have now left this landmark in danger of collapse. (COURTESY OF JOHN WITTY III)
CHAPTER XXVII ✧ 115

Orchids bloom in a sunken garden at a Pinecrest home
located on the coral rock ridge near Old Cutler Road.
(PHOTO BY BECKY ROPER MATKOV)
A 1930s house on Red Road once owned by Parrot Jungle
now houses the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Pinecrest Station.
(PHOTO BY BECKY ROPER MATKOV)
After the war, the Army quit using the facility,
and it was a “military reservation.”
In 1921 Fairchild began a campaign to
acquire it for the United States Department of
Agriculture. Fairchild had initiated the Office
of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction section
of the USDA, opening a small garden on
Brickell Avenue at Southeast 13th Street in
1898 on seven acres donated by Henry Flagler,
the railroad and oil baron. As the introductions
grew in number and size, more than seven
acres were needed, and Charles Deering put up
25 acres in 1914 in Buena Vista. Still, a test
orchard, arboretum, and open land were called
for. When the airfield was abandoned after
World War I, Fairchild wrote letter after letter.
Finally, in 1923, Secretary of War John Weeks
agreed to turn over the 850 acres to the USDA
years, Parrot Jungle was devoted solely to the
birds—cockatoos, macaws, toucans, tou -
canettes, love birds, cranes, and flamingos.
By 1950, the Flamingo Lake had been dug.
The flock of flamingos began its daily march in
1955, the same year the main entrance and
parking lot were added. Hibiscus, bougainvillea,
allamanda, and flame vines came on the
scene in 1950 as well, and the jungle began its
gradual transformation into a botanical garden.
The famous banyan tree, which stretches
across 125 feet, was planted in 1945 by Ralph
Ruhle, who then supervised the grounds. Nat
De Leon, who married Franz’s daughter Eileen,
followed 10 years later as horticulturist, and
under his care, the nature trail began to sprout
De Leon’s famous hybrid aglaonemas, beautiful
dieffenbachias, and orchids in the trees. More
than 2,000 species of plants now comprise the
gardens, including the state’s champion pond
apple tree, a huge talipot palm with the plant
kingdom’s largest leaves, and the famous
sausage tree, which dangles its enormous
sausage-like fruit from ropy stems.
Franz Scherr died in 1973. His son Jerome
(Eileen’s twin brother) was general manager—
following a childhood spent giving tours on
weekends and growing up among parrots and
flowers. The flamingos stopped marching in
1980 and began breeding, with the first chicks
hatching in 1983. Gradually more than birds
were needed to please the crowds, and a petting
zoo was added in 1990. Hurricane
Andrew blew away 60 percent of the canopy in
1992, but chief horticulturist Jeff Shimonski
righted many of the oaks and cypresses and by
1998, the visitors numbered 320,000.
Jerome Scherr died in 1998. But even prior
to Jerome’s death, the place had been sold to a
partnership that included Dr. Bern Levine. It is
Levine who intends to move the attraction to
Watson Island.
Parrot Jungle’s stone building, its trails and
gardens have brought pleasure to generations,
not only of tourists but of the locals who often
come just to have breakfast in the restaurant and
watch people feed the birds. It is little wonder
that Mayor Greer says Pinecrest has informally
agreed to commit $2 million, in addition to
bond money, to preserve the landmark location.
A second landmark in the Pinecrest area sits
just outside its borders, but feels very much a
part of the neighborhood: The Subtropical
Horticultural Research Station, known locally
as Chapman Field.
Begun in World War I as an Army airfield
and gunnery range, Chapman Field was
named for Manual Chapman, the first
American aviator killed in battle in that war,
according to the letters of David Fairchild.
Large lots and quiet roads provided plenty of space for
children and horses, as seen in this 1960s photo of Helen
Harrison Witty and friends on 63rd Court.
(COURTESY OF HELEN HARRISON WITTY)
under a “revocable license”: Should the War
Department ever need it again, it could have it.
On the original airfield site there were 195
acres of pine and 655 acres of lowland, of
which eight were filled. Fairchild described it
The produce stand on Red Road, which opened in 1948, is still a favorite stopping place to buy fresh fruit shakes.
(PHOTO BY BECKY ROPER MATKOV)
116 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

as “one of the warmest spots on the whole
peninsula.” Buildings included a hospital with
an 80 by 20 foot ward, officers quarters and
two mess halls. Today, those historic buildings
are still in use. Several hundred acres of the
land were leased by the University of Miami,
and ended up being sold. There are 210 acres
still used for agricultural research directed by
the Agriculture Research Service of the USDA.
The National Plant Germplasm System was
formed in 1980, and Chapman Field’s “mis -
sion” was modified from plant introduction to
conservation of germplasm, tissue that can be
used to reproduce plants. The genetic information
needed for the task can be in the seeds,
bulbs, plant parts or plant cells. The seeds of
temperate plants, which often remain viable for
years, are stored at some of the other seven
germplasm centers in the national system, but
seeds of tropical plants often are viable for only
a few days or weeks, so the plants themselves
are kept growing as a way to keep them for
future needs.
The neighborhood schools, like Pinecrest Elementary,
have long been a source of academic pride to residents
of the area. (PHOTO BY BECKY ROPER MATKOV)
At the Miami station, germplasm is kept for
mangoes, avocados, bananas, plantains,
annonas, tripsacum, sugarcane, palms, lychees,
guavas and carambolas.
Some of the earliest mangos were trans -
planted from the Brickell Avenue garden or
sent to the station by Fairchild from his many
travels. The Ameeri, brought to the United
States in 1902 by Fairchild from Bombay,
India, is still on the rolls. The Chino, planted
in 1931, was collected from Cuba by Tom
Fennell Sr., who was an early director of the
During the 1990s a wide variety of architectural styles began to appear on the streets of Pinecrest, a trend which is
accelerating. (PHOTO BY BECKY ROPER MATKOV)
station. The late fruit expert Wilson Popenoe
sent a mango called Aroemanis from
Honduras—as well as many of the avocados.
Fruit isn’t the only thing at Chapman Field,
however. In its early years, tropical ornamental
plants were sent from foreign shores to be
planted and tried here. Ray Schnell, the station
director, says there are some 60 species of ficus
trees now at the station, and 40 rubber trees
that are left from a World War II rubber-growing
project. Nursery owners and homeowners
in the region have many plants because they
were introduced at Chapman Field: the Hong
Kong orchid tree, the white Geiger, flame-ofthe-forest
and African tulip tree among them.
In 1994, a budget proposal to shut the station
sent a scare not only though the scientific com -
munity, but the entire South Florida area. One of
19 stations proposed for closure around the country,
Chapman Field was said to have been crippled
by Hurricane Andrew and unworthy of restoring.
It took two years of letter writing, campaigning
and negotiations, much of which was coordinated
by the late Frank Smathers Jr., a banker and tropical
fruit aficionado, to save the place. An organization
called Friends of Chapman Field was
formed and continues to serve as liaison between
the research station and the community.
Today, $13 million has been earmarked for
improvement of the facility. Schnell, the
research leader, says ornamental plant intro -
ductions again are a part of the station’s mis -
sion. Maintaining the gene bank for tropical
crops continues as a responsibility—with
genetic fingerprinting playing a big and important
part in identifying such useful traits as disease
resistance, cold tolerance in citrus, and
flood tolerance in sugarcane.
Another endeavor has been the improve -
ment of “post harvest” treatments, so that crops
such as grapefruit and carambolas, once
picked, are insect and disease free and can be
shipped to markets around the world. This
unit will focus on crop pests in the Caribbean
and Central America and how to protect
Florida farms from off-shore threats such as
pink hibiscus mealy bug and the West Indies
fruit fly. In addition, Chapman Field has a
totally new hydrology unit that will look at
water, and how agriculture and restoration of
the Everglades can be sustained in the future.
As David Fairchild wrote in 1923:
Our children will see that we planned
[the station] on a big scale and with an eye
to the great future of this remarkable civilization
down here, for that’s what it really
is…. If we can build its intellectual center
and train its youth and open the door that
hides from the eyes of young America the
wonders of the tropics, this will be the
intellectual center of tropical horticulture.
Georgia Tasker has been the garden writer for The Miami Herald since 1979-80. A cum laude graduate of Hanover College in Hanover, Indiana, she joined The Miami
Herald in 1969, covering a variety of beats and writing features. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for her stories about the loss of tropical forests and possible
solutions. In 1987-88 she was a Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University and received an award by the Population Institute for the best individual reporting effort
on population issues. In 1990 she went to El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua at the invitation of UNICEF to write about the effects of war, poverty and environmental
degradation on children. In 1991 she won a fellowship from the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing to study agriculture in Mexico, Costa Rica,
Venezuela, Colombia and Bolivia. After Hurricane Andrew in 1992, she received the Media Award of Highest Merit from the Florida Urban Forestry Council for her stories
about saving trees. She has written three books: Wild Things, the Return of Native Plants; Enchanted Ground, Gardening with Nature in the Subtropics, and
Florida Gardener’s Guide. In 1998 she received the Barbour Medal from Fairchild Tropical Garden for “vision and unselfish devotion to that vanishing Eden, South Florida.”
CHAPTER XXVII ✧ 117

Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, right, and her sister Maggie as children ride ponies in front of the Reno house on North Kendall Drive in an area now surrounded by apartments
and townhouses. (COURTESY OF ARVA PARKS & COMPANY)
KENDALL
B Y P AUL S. GEORGE
There are at least two Kendalls. In the public
mind, Kendall represents a vast, sprawling unincorporated
area in the southwest environs of
Miami-Dade County that has undergone explosive
growth in the past generation. This region
of hundreds of thousands of residents (and
seemingly even more automobiles!) stretches, in
the public perception, ever more closely toward
the eastern border of the Everglades, which
stands west of Southwest (SW) 177th Avenue,
or Krome Avenue. The federal and county governments,
however, assess the size of Kendall,
officially known as a Census Designated Place,
in far more conservative terms.
Yet there is agreement between these
markedly different perceptions over Kendall’s
northern boundary, which follows the path of
Snapper Creek, running parallel to and just
north of SW 88 Street before breaking in a fortyfive
degree angle in a north-northwest direction
at SW 97 Avenue. There is also considerable
consensus over a major portion of the eastern
border of Kendall, which follows the flow of
U.S. 1, or the South Dixie Highway, as it moves
deep into south Miami-Dade County. Where the
consensus breaks down is over Kendall’s western
and southern borders. For the 1990 census,
the federal and county governments placed the
western border of Kendall at SW 117 Avenue,
and the southern boundary on a diagonal
stretching from SW 152 Street in the east to
about SW 134 Street in the west. The federal
census for 1990 listed just 87,271 residents in
its version of Kendall. Other Census Designated
Places west of Kendall push the western borders
of settlement to SW 157 Avenue.
While the physical definitions of Kendall may
vary, there is little disagreement over the claim
that it represents the mighty northern anchor of
south Miami-Dade County. (Homestead repre -
sents the southern anchor of this region.)
Kendall also possesses each of the major components
of an “edge city,” an intriguing phrase and
concept created by Joel Garreau, a writer and
observer of urban America, used to characterize
a new departure in the nation’s urban development.
Garreau’s “edge city” is a reference to a
cluster of tall, glittering office buildings, hotels
and living quarters, in addition to stores and
other amenities, conveniently placed at the
nexus of a vast transportation network in a suburban
locale far away from downtown. For
Kendall, this network includes Metrorail, U.S. 1,
Kendall Drive, and the Palmetto Expressway. For
Garreau, the “edge city,” which had been farm -
land (and, in the case of Kendall, horse country,
too) only one generation earlier, is virtually a selfcontained
city. As the 1990s have unfolded,
Kendall has increasingly fulfilled this vision of
Garreau’s while the number of “edge cities”
nationally has grown significantly.
The Kendall of yesteryear was, of course, as
different from that of today as is horse country
from the Dadeland Mall. While early peoples
undoubtedly visited and hunted in today’s
Kendall, an historical pattern does not emerge
until the British took possession of Florida from
the Spanish in 1763, as a result of the Seven Years
War. Soon after the changing of flags, William
Legge, the Second Earl of Dartmouh, received
from the British government 40,000 acres of land
in today’s Kendall and points south. This included
118 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

the ridge abutting Biscayne Bay, an area today that
includes the Charles Deering Estate, the premier
location in the county in terms of topography and
location. Lord Dartmouth planned to devote a
portion of the grant toward the creation of the
Cape Florida Society, a community of “twenty
households, made up of honest, industrious and
resourceful” Protestants from several European
countries. The plan, however, failed to materialize,
and Florida soon afterwards again became a
Spanish possession as a result of the Treaty of
Paris, which marked the formal end of the
American Revolutionary War in 1783.
Little is known of the Kendall area in the
century that followed. Besides the flourishing
settlement of Cutler, on the site of today’s
Charles Deering estate, South Dade hosted few
other settlements in that era. In the middle of
the nineteenth century, the United States
Congress enacted into law the Swamp Act of
1850, which awarded each state the right to
select certain areas as swampland and to petition
the federal government to transfer title of
that land to them.
The ramifications of the Swamp Act of 1850
began to manifest themselves in the late nine -
teenth century, setting the stage for vast developmental
activity in the region encompassed in
the grant in the following century. Under the
terms of the Swamp Act, a state could exercise
several options with the land it received from
the federal government. It could sell the land to
individuals, donate it to developers and entre -
preneurs for construction of railways and
canals, or reserve it for state use. All of the land
west of today’s Red Road and north of the
Perrine Grant to NW 7th Street was awarded to
the state of Florida in 1880 and in 1903.
In 1883, the state of Florida sold a vast area
of land obtained under the terms of the act
between today’s North Kendall Drive (SW 88th
Street) and South Kendall Drive (SW l04th
Street) to Sir Edward James Reed and the
Florida Land and Mortgage Company. A member
of the British Parliament, Reed had gained
fame for his role in overseeing engineering and
building projects for the governments of Japan
and Russia. Reed’s land development company
sent Henry John Boughton Kendall, one of its
trustees, to manage its land holdings and operate
company groves in the early 1900s.
By then, a small number of settlers lived
around Snapper Creek on the northern edge of
today’s Kendall. One of them was Count James
Nugent, a colorful, titled gentleman of French-
Irish heritage who was a Cocoanut Grove resident
at the time he acquired the property, in
the 1880s, near the creek. The area of today’s
northern Kendall also hosted two Seminole
Indian settlements at the beginning of the
Shorty’s, described in this old postcard as “10 miles south of Miami on Overseas Highway #1,” has been serving the public
“open pit hickory cooked ribs and chicken and tender sweet corn on the cob” for decades, undeterred by trendy chain
restaurants which have proliferated throughout the Kendall area. (COURTESY OF THE SAM LAROUE COLLECTION)
1900s. The roots from a cycad plant, called
comptie, or coontie, which were processed
into starch, were plentiful in the region, luring
there the Seminoles who were in quest of
them. Still, nothing like the formation of a
community was anywhere near reality.
In April 1896, Henry M. Flagler, a wealthy
industrialist, brought his Florida East Coast
(FEC) Railway to the north bank of the Miami
River from West Palm Beach. The entry of the
railroad into Miami marked the beginning of
the era of modern Miami. For the first time,
Miami, whose population was minuscule until
this point, possessed an overland connection
to the outside world. Three months after the
FEC Railway entered Miami, the community
incorporated as a city of 700 to 800 persons,
and it was soon calling itself the “Magic City.”
In 1901, the long-anticipated extension of
the railroad began, when the first train crossed
the Miami River on its journey south. By 1903,
the rail had entered the area now referred to as
Kendall. In the following year, the train had
reached the edge of the Florida peninsula. All
along its right-of-way railroad towns emerged
with such long ago names as Benson, Key,
Rockdale, Peters, and Princeton, as well as
more recognizable communities like Perrine,
Goulds, and Homestead.
Situated about ten miles south of the Miami
River, Kendall was south Dade’s northernmost
railroad town. Kendall received its name, of
course, from the aforementioned Henry John
Broughton Kendall. Kendall sat on the rim of the
Everglades in a region thickly populated with tall
pine trees. During the summer rainy season,
however, much of Kendall was flooded. In 1904,
the FEC Railway established the Kendall railroad
station near today’s U.S. 1 and SW 98th Street.
Around it arose a small but bustling farming
community. The neighborhood claimed a post
office and general store. One of the community’s
proudest possessions was the Flagler Groves,
seventy acres of citrus crops created by the great
railroad baron on land given to the railroad by
the state of Florida. The groves stood near today’s
Ludlam Road and North Kendall Drive. The
Flagler Groves were designed to illustrate the
value of the agricultural land in the area.
Kendall grew slowly. As late as the century’s
second decade, Kendall still claimed as one of its
most prominent settlements a Seminole Indian
village near the site of today’s Baptist Hospital,
while another, larger Indian village was located
west of there. Between 1915 and 1916, Kendall’s
population rose significantly with the entry of
several prominent residents, including Dan
Killian, J.J. Hinson, and William Mitchell. Killian
and Hinson were businesssmen and members, at
different times, of the Dade County
Commission, while Mitchell was a successful
farmer and retailer. Hinson, a giant of a man
whom Flagler had hired to manage his Flagler
Groves, also operated a popular general store,
The intersection of U.S. 1, South Dixie Highway, and
Kendall Drive, in 1959.
(COURTESY OF THE SETH BRAMSON COLLECTION)
which hosted a tiny branch of the United States
Post Office. Kendall also boasted several packing
houses, a dairy farm, and a variety of other small
businesses, along with the residences of several
farming families scattered throughout the area.
Many of its businesses were located in or near an
emerging community center, which sat east of
the FEC Railway right of way near today’s U. S. 1
and the Palmetto Expressway.
CHAPTER XXVIII ✧ 119

The Rare Bird Farm, with its seven acres of subtropical foliage and exotic birds, was a popular tourist attraction from 1930
until it closed in the 1970s. It was located on South Dixie Highway (U.S. 1) just south of today’s Palmetto Expressway.
(COURTESY OF THE SAM LAROUE COLLECTION)
West of this community center stood the
coontie starch factory of Albert Baxter Hurst.
Hurst had moved the factory from today’s Miami
Shores to Kendall around 1910 because he
wanted to be closer to a larger supply of coontie
starch. By decade’s end, Hurst had erected a
large corrugated iron building with machinery
powered by an old fashioned steam boiler.
Although the chief commercial products
derived from the starch were crackers and cookies,
the armed forces of the United States found
a medicinal use for it in World War I. Victims of
mustard gas, a horrifying weapon unleashed for
the first time by Germany in that war, were
unable to hold down any food except, as the
medical community discovered, coontie starchbased
foods. Accordingly, the armed forces
turned to Hurst and other starch producers. The
Hurst mill operated on an expanded work
schedule in an attempt to meet the orders for
starch from the federal government.
In the decade following World War I,
Florida was swept by the great real estate boom
of the 1920s, a phenomenon that was characterized
by a spiraling rise in the price of land
and grandiose building projects. The boom
Norman Brothers Produce still offers the fresh fruits and vegetables for which Kendall and
South Dade were originally known. (PHOTO BY DEBORAH TACKETT)
began in the early 1920s, crested in the middle
years of the decade, and collapsed in 1926,
when buyers disappeared and paper profits on
real estate transactions were lost as investors
defaulted on their payments. While the City of
Miami was the storm center of the boom, every
part of Dade County, including rural south
Dade, felt its impact. Kendall’s most important
building projects in this era were of an institutional
nature. Through the influence of County
Commissioner Killian, Kendall became the
venue for the Dade County Home and
Hospital. The county also created a prison
work farm in the Kendall area with facilities for
150 inmates. At the end of the decade,
Kendall’s first public school was under con -
struction. Kendall Elementary School, serving
grades one through six, opened in 1930.
Kendall and other parts of vast, sprawling
Dade County suffered greatly from the killer
hurricane of September 1926. The giant
Flagler Groves lost its 7,000 citrus trees. By
then, this community and the rest of the region
had fallen into a severe economic depression.
However, help was on the way in the early
1930s, with the onset of President Franklin D.
Roosevelt’s New Deal, a
far-reaching program
designed to lift the
nation out of its eco -
nomic morass through
government-funded
programs aimed at relief
and recovery.
One of the most
noteworthy New Deal
agencies was the
Civilian Conservation
Corps (CCC), which put
jobless men between
The Dice House, the oldest house in Kendall, today sits behind
a chain link fence, awaiting restoration or demolition. It is
located at 9840 SW 77th Avenue, near the intersection of South
Dixie Highway and the Palmetto Expressway. The frame
vernacular structure was built as a family home in 1920 by
David Brantley Dice, who had farmed in the Little River area
of north Miami from 1910 to 1916. Dice purchased the
Kendall land from early settler John J. Hinson, manager of the
Flagler Groves. Dice opened a store and was considered the
unofficial mayor of the Kendall community for many years.
(PHOTO BY BECKY ROPER MATKOV)
ages eighteen and twenty-five to work in a host
of environmental projects in the nation’s forested
and park areas. Enrollees lived in camps,
and received $30 monthly for their labors, $25
of which was sent directly to their families.
In 1933, the federal government transferred
CCC workers from a camp in Missoula,
Montana, to labor in south Dade County. The
federal government built several wood barracks
in the piney woods to house the workers
in numerous reforestation projects. The camp
stood near today’s George Williamson Cadillac
in Kendall’s Dadeland area. The CCC in South
Dade was responsible for many important forest-related
improvement projects, but its most
prominent achievement was the construction
of beautiful Matheson Hammock, a marina
and beach area located on Biscayne Bay on
property donated to the county by the family
of William Matheson.
In the midst of the work of the CCC, a killer
hurricane carrying winds of 200 miles per
hour bore down on the Florida Keys and on
parts of South Dade. While the worst damage
was in the Keys where hundreds lost their
lives, many groves in South Dade suffered
heavy damage. Kendall’s Flagler Groves again
suffered significant damage from a mighty hurricane,
prompting its owners to abandon it as a
grove and place the land upon which it stood
on the market for sale. Soon the former showpiece
property was converted for housing, with
the construction on large lots of one and twobedroom,
one-bath homes.
Even in the era of the Great Depression,
tourists continued to flock to Greater Miami. The
120 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

county offered a potpourri of tourist accommodations
and facilities. Many visitors traveled on
day-long excursions to South Dade, prompting
the opening there of several new tourist attractions.
Such venues were part of a statewide trend
that saw the opening of new, unusual facilities
aimed primarily at tourists. Located on U.S. 1
south of today’s Palmetto Expressway, the Rare
Bird Farm opened amid seven acres of subtropical
foliage in 1930. This Kendall institution
offered patrons the “World’s Rarest Birds,” and
remained in business until the 1970s.
An attraction of a different kind appeared in
Kendall when, in 1939, two cattlemen, J.
Pendray and George Larkins, established the
P&L Ranch and opened a rodeo arena near
today’s Baptist Hospital on North Kendall
Road. The ranch drew large numbers of people
for different events.
Within the span of less than one decade, the
nation careened from the worst economic
depression in its history to an active role in
World War II, history’s worst war. Several parts
of South Dade hosted different elements of the
war effort. Members of a South Miami unit of
the Civil Air Patrol trained as enemy aircraft
spotters from Brown’s Airport, a small airstrip in
Kendall. Kendall’s Civilian Conservation Corps
camp closed at the beginning of America’s entry
into World War II in 1941. Soon after, the
United States Army Ordnance Department
moved into the old CCC barracks for a shortlived
stay. In 1944, the federal government converted
the facility into a German prisoner of
war camp (POW), one of twenty-two such
installations in Florida in World War II. Two
hundred thirty-one men, captured by Allied
forces in the North African Campaign and during
the invasion of Normandy, were interned
Baptist Hospital on North Kendall Drive opened in 1960, operated by downtown Miami’s historic Central Baptist Church.
(PHOTO BY JOHN J. GILLAN, COURTESY OF BAPTIST HEALTH SYSTEMS)
there. German prisoners labored as plumbers,
mechanics, and farm hands in the area’s fields.
They were not the only group engaged in
agriculture in the area. Seminole residents of
Kendall planted tomatoes to assist with the war
cause, while, they, along with others throughout
the county, stood in lines, awaiting their turn to
acquire ration stamps for restricted goods.
The postwar era brought great changes to the
area, as it did to communities throughout the
nation. Kendall, however, remained largely rural,
while establishing a reputation as the center of
the region’s horse country following the opening
of the South Miami Riding Club in 1945. With
ample facilities for horses, as well as a clubhouse,
the Riding Club held some of the largest horse
shows in the state. Kendall’s image began to
change, however, after aluminum magnate,
Arthur Vining Davis, moved to Dade County in
1948, and began acquiring vast land holdings,
including large portions of land there, as well as
in other parts of south Dade. At the time that
Davis placed thousands of acres of land in deep
South Dade under cultivation, he was also
investing heavily in property along North
Miami-Dade Community College opened its Kendall campus in 1967 and now serves over 20,000 students.
(PHOTO BY PHIL ROCHE, COURTESY OF MIAMI-DADE COMMUNITY COLLEGE)
The Artists’ Showcase is held annually around the lake at
Baptist Hospital. (COURTESY OF BAPTIST HEALTH SYSTEMS)
Kendall Drive. In the decade following Davis’s
death in 1962, his Arvida Corporation would
build large housing developments in Kendall.
As the 1960s dawned, Dade County’s rapid
growth was more than ever before directly
impacting South Dade, especially that region’s
northern sectors. Dade’s population had soared
from 495,000 in 1950 to nearly one million in
1960, and it would increase by thirty-five percent
to almost 1.3 million ten years later.
Kendall grew rapidly in the 1960s, as governmental
planners, institutional leaders, and
entrepreneurs, aware of its location and developmental
potential, weighed the needs of burgeoning
Dade County and planted the seeds
for its explosive development.
Indeed, several major developments would
initiate Kendall’s rapid transformation. In 1960,
the Baptist Hospital, a beautiful Spanish-style
institution operated by downtown Miami’s historic
Central Baptist Church, opened on North
Kendall Drive. In the following year, the
Palmetto Expressway, which bifurcated a section
of east Kendall and was linked to the new
I-95 “superhighway,” was operating.
CHAPTER XXVIII ✧ 121

Dadeland Shopping Center after it first opened in 1962. Critics at the time called it “Deadland” and ridiculed North Kendall Drive as
the “Road to Nowhere.” Dadeland is now the busiest shopping center in the United States, and the sprawling suburb of Kendall contains
nearly 250,000 residents. (COURTESY OF THE SETH BRAMSON COLLECTION)
In 1962, the Dadeland Shopping Center
opened on North Kendall Drive east of the
Palmetto Expressway and one mile north of the
Baptist Hospital. The shopping center stood
near the site of the former CCC and German
POW camps. Many critics scoffed at the opening
of a shopping center so far from a major
population center, branding it “Deadland,”
while ridiculing North Kendall Drive, the thoroughfare
that ran past its entrance, as “The
Road to Nowhere.” But Burdines, south
Florida’s oldest and largest department store,
accurately assessed the area’s potential as a
huge bedroom community and opened a
branch store in the complex.
Soon after the opening of Dadeland, North
Kendall Drive was expanded into a four-lane
highway. By the mid-1960s, developers had
built several affordable subdivisions in
Kendall, and homeowners, attracted not only
by reasonable prices for housing, but also by a
growing road system that made the region
more accessible to downtown Miami and other
areas of heavy employment, were flocking in
droves to the area. Dadeland became a thriving
retail outlet. By the end of the 1960s, Dadeland
had expanded by 300,000 square feet, added
air conditioning, and was enclosed and con -
verted to a mall. The area along North Kendall
Drive was considered, by the mid-1960s,
“Dade’s Fastest Growing Area.”
Adding to the rapid development of
Kendall was the opening, in 1967, of a second
campus of Miami-Dade Junior College along
the Killian Parkway (South Kendall Drive).
Already among the largest and finest commu -
nity colleges in the United States, Miami-Dade
thrived in Kendall. Today, the Kendall campus
serves over 20,000 students.
By the 1970s, Kendall had become Dade
County’s fastest growing community. This trend
accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s, as the sprawling,
unincorporated community moved ever
more deeply into western farmland. Giant housing
developments with appealing names and a
wide array of amenities arose, seemingly
overnight, in former tomato and strawberry fields.
Kendall’s meteoric growth has resulted from
affordable housing, as well as the rush by salivating
developers to take advantage of a strong
demand for housing, and the area’s convenient
access, through roadways and rapid transit sys -
tems, to other areas of the county. By the late
1970s, Kendall claimed more highways and
expressways converging within its environs than
any other area of Dade County. North Kendall
Drive had grown to include six lanes, while the
Homestead Extension of the Florida Turnpike was
completed through West Kendall, setting the stage
for the staggering growth that continues to define
that region today. By 1978, Kendall claimed,
according to one source, over 60,000 residents,
and its population was increasing at a rate of 6,000
new residents annually. By the mid-1990s, according
of those observers who rejected a conservative
western border for Kendall, the sprawling suburb
contained nearly 250,000 residents.
Kendall’s burgeoning population represented
a huge retail market which the Dadeland
Mall, the busiest shopping mall in the conti -
nental United States, has been amply equipped
to serve. Burdines, Dadeland’s flagship store, is
the largest suburban department store in the
nation. Dadeland’s success and Kendall’s
growth spawned numerous strip shopping
centers and office buildings along busy North
Kendall Drive and many of the major western
arteries intersecting it.
In 1984, Kendall was connected more easily
with downtown Miami and the Brickell
Avenue financial corridor, where a sizable
number of Kendall residents worked, with the
opening of the southern leg of Metrorail, a
county-managed rapid transit train system.
The progressive development of Kendall and
other parts of south Miami-Dade County was
temporarily derailed in the early morning hours
of August 24, 1992. The eye of Hurricane
Andrew, a compact, powerful, category-four
storm, carrying winds in excess of 140 miles per
hour and gusts of 200 miles per hour, smashed
into the region, bringing with it unprecedented
damage and suffering. Hurricane Andrew was,
for south Miami-Dade County, “The Big One,” a
killer storm that, in the estimation of many oldtimers,
surpassed all others in terms of its ferocity
and destruction. Hurricane Andrew decimated
Florida City, Homestead, and many other
parts of the area. Even though Kendall stood
much farther away from the eye of the hurricane
than communities to the south, it was devastated,
as one subdivision after another, containing
homes with sparkling facades but with shoddy
construction underneath, lay in ruin. Yet
Kendall has rebounded relatively quickly from
this destruction.
Today’s Kendall stands poised to greet the
new millennium with an even greater gusto than
it has welcomed recent decades. Ambitious
plans have been unveiled for creating, at last,
something resembling a core or town center in
the Dadeland area. Farther west at Kendall Drive
and SW 157th Avenue, the Rouse Company,
whose stunning festival marketplaces have
helped to resuscitate moribund neighborhoods
in many of America’s center cities, has
announced that it will build its own open-air
center, complete with a Main Street of shops and
a town square where residents can socialize.
In between these plans are the ever-expanding
number of new subdivisions and strip
shopping centers opening in the burgeoning
western environs of Kendall, where growth
shows no signs of slowing. Increasingly, this
population, like that of the rest of the county,
has taken on an Hispanic hue. While the city
of Miami has prided itself, since its inception,
on having risen out of a wilderness to instant
city status in 1896, Kendall can make a similar
claim one century later, for explosive growth
has become its dominant theme.
Paul S. George is an associate professor, senior, at Miami Dade Community College, Wolfson Campus. A native Miamian, he is a graduate of Miami Dade
Community College and received a Ph.D. in history from Florida State University. He has taught at FSU, Florida A &M University, Florida Atlantic University and
the University of Miami. The author of eight books and over 100 articles and book reviews, he is editor of Tequesta, the scholarly journal of the Historical Association
of Southern Florida, to which he is historian. He has served as president of the Florida Historical Society, vice chairman of the City of Miami’s Heritage Conservation
Board, and director of the Historic Broward County Preservation Board. He currently is a member of Miami-Dade County’s Preservation Board and is the president of
the Louis Wolfson II Media History Center. He is well known for the thirty-five different history tours he conducts of Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe Counties.
122 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

Samuel H. Richmond sits looking out over Biscayne Bay in this postcard from 1900-1910. In the background is the Richmond Cottage, which he built
in 1900 as the area’s first hotel. A civil engineer, Richmond surveyed 150,000 acres of southern Dade County, including that of the Cutler area.
(COURTESY OF THE ROBERT S. CARR COLLECTION)
OLD CUTLER AND THE DEERING ESTATE
B Y C HRISTOPHER R. ECK
The Deering Estate at Cutler is, in the broadest
sense, Miami-Dade County’s oldest neighborhood.
For more than one hundred centuries people have
lived, worked and died within its bounds.
The first people moved into this neighbor -
hood more than 10,000 years ago, at the end of
the last ice age, known as the Pleistocene Epoch.
South Dade was a very different place at the time
these first residents arrived. Where hundreds of
thousands of acres of the Everglades marsh and
pinelands and hammocks spread into recent
times, there previously existed a largely flat,
broad and grassy savanna stretching from the tip
of the Florida peninsula toward the northern part
of the state.
The dry environment of the time would have
been reminiscent in many ways of the South
African veldt, both in its flora and fauna, though
many of the animals that once roamed here are
now extinct. Mastodon and mammoth, distant relatives
to modern elephants, shook the earth as
they walked while giant condor flew overhead
searching for carrion. Herds of huge bison, llama,
and horses raised large dust clouds as they trampled
by in the thousands. Giant ground sloths,
standing taller than a human, would reach up for
the tender leaves of the few trees that other animals
could not reach, while short-faced bear, giant
armadillo and a pig-like animal called the peccary,
today found in Central and South America,
tramped about on the ground. Keeping this
menagerie in check were apex predators such as
jaguars, saber-tooth cats, Florida panthers, dire
wolves, and, lastly, humans.
We know a great deal about these earliest
inhabitants from a chance discovery in 1979 of a
large solution hole, a naturally occurring welllike
cavity in the surface of the area’s limestone
bedrock. While wandering through the ham -
mock of the Deering estate, a local cutler, David
Simmons, and his wife, Wonda, accidentally
came upon the spot while collecting wood for
making handles for his custom knives. At first
they thought that they had come upon some
hard, strange wood while searching within the
hole. However, upon closer examination,
Simmons realized that he had found a number of
strange bones, that he subsequently took to
County Archaeologist Robert Carr for identification.
Recognizing the antiquity of the animal
bones, Carr shipped the bones for analysis to
paleontologists at the University of Florida,
where they were determined to be from a wide
array of extinct animal species. The find, later
dubbed the Cutler Fossil Site after the area in
which it was found, was a tremendous discovery
for improving the scientific understanding of
South Florida’s ancient natural history.
However, within a few years after its discovery,
the Cutler Fossil Site was threatened with destruction.
The property was being sold for development
and looters were entering the site searching
for fossils and artifacts. Concerned about further
losses, Carr conducted emergency excavations
beginning in 1985 to determine the extent of the
damage and to recover those fossils that might be
most vulnerable to trespassers. He also sought to
reveal whether any human remains or artifacts
were located within the site.
The discovery of human burials within the
solution hole itself brought to light the reverence
and importance of the place to the ancient people.
The human remains had been buried with
numerous stone and bone tools and were in association
with various extinct animal species.
Radiocarbon dating of finds from the discovery
demonstrated that the site was over 10,000 years
old, making it one of the oldest sites known in the
Southeastern United States and in the nation.
With time these predecessors to the Tequesta
adapted to significant changes in their environment.
Shortly after their arrival before 8000 B.C.,
the climate worldwide began to shift from being
cooler and drier to one that was warmer and
moist. The sea levels rose, as did the local water
table, and the great grassy plains of South Florida
turned into the marshy Everglades and broad pine
CHAPTER XXIX ✧ 123

Looking out from the upstairs of the Deering house across the lawn to Biscayne Bay is a memorable sight.
(COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
forests. These changes in the climate and land -
scape brought hardship to the many large animals
of the Pleistocene as their food sources disap -
peared and they became vulnerable to hunting
from a growing human presence. As a result,
many of the larger animal species that had lived
here became extinct and the resulting environ -
ment brought about the plant and animal species
we know today.
The ancient Native Americans, though, adapted
their culture to meet the changes that
occurred. They began to hunt and fish in the fresh
waters of the Everglades, the pinelands, the
coastal hammock, and the waters of Biscayne Bay
and the Atlantic. Their neighborhood along the
ridge was no longer important as merely high
ground to look out across the grasslands for large
game, but became the high and dry wooded
ground that was ideal for living between the rich
resources of the Everglades and the sea.
Today within the Deering Estate, several
archaeological sites exist as mute testimony to the
efficiency of the early Native Americans’ adapta -
tion to their life in the hammock, near the
Everglades, and along the mangrove shore. On a
number of the Deering sites, the decayed remains
of generations of shellfish harvesting (oysters,
mussels, clams, conch, whelk), fishing (mullet,
snapper, drum, shark, whale, sea turtle, lobster,
crab), hunting (deer, rabbit, snake, opossum, alligator)
and other daily activities have helped to
form a thick, dark organic soil deposit known as a
midden. This is where the property’s prehistoric
residents made their homes, built their hearths, ate
their meals, raised their families, crafted their tools
and delicate artwork, and buried their dead.
Though their lives were vastly different from our
own, they were no less meaningful.
Soon after the exploration of Florida by the
Spanish in the early sixteenth century, the
Tequesta people who were living in the area began
to interact with the new arrivals. The Tequesta,
whose chief settlement was along the Miami
River, held sway over a territory that stretched
from Boca Raton to Key Largo. Spanish archival
documents indicate that a tempestuous relationship
existed between the Spaniards and the
Tequesta. Two unsuccessful attempts were made
to establish Jesuit missions amidst the main
Tequesta settlement along the north bank of the
Miami River, the first between 1567 and 1570,
and the second in 1743.
Despite the failure of both attempts at proselytism,
the two people continued to warily interact
with one another for centuries largely as a result of
the disastrous shipwrecks off the coast that cast
crew members, ship passengers and goods ashore
within the Tequesta’s domain. The Tequesta would
sometimes rescue, sometimes ransom, and sometimes
wreak havoc upon wreck survivors. Goods
recovered by the Tequesta, such as iron tools, copper
implements, ceramics and other objects,
would be traded back to the Spanish, among tribal
members, or to other tribes altogether. In 1998,
archaeologist Richard Haiduven found evidence of
the Tequesta’s use of Spanish-made goods while
excavating on the Deering Estate. The recovered
Spanish materials, which included fragments of
both a seventeenth-century decorated ceramic
plate and a glazed clay storage jar and a faceted
carnelian bead, were contained within a Tequesta
midden along with native-made pottery shards.
These artifacts were of the same types as artifacts
found at Spanish colonial sites in both St.
Augustine and the north Florida missions.
Although the Spanish never went to war
against the Tequesta, the ravages of disease and
conflict with other tribes took their toll. After centuries
of living and using the lands of the area, by
the mid-eighteenth century the Tequesta were in
an irreversible decline. Spanish castaways, merchants
and fishermen introduced the Tequesta
and other Florida Indians to a number of diseases,
particularly smallpox, for which they had no
immunity. Additionally, natives allied with the
English in the Carolinas, and later Georgia, began
making deep incursions into the southern part of
Florida as early as 1704 to attack local tribes.
Although no records are known of a particular
conflict with those Tequesta that lived within the
confines of the Deering Estate, the social disruption
that was generally caused by such warfare
and disease would have exacted a heavy toll on
the local population as well.
It was at that time that Spanish officials in
Havana began noting increasingly frequent migrations
of South Florida Indians, such as the Tequesta
and the Calusa, to Cuba. Sadly, the records indicate
that most of those who migrated died of disease,
starvation and alcoholism (since alcohol had previ-
124 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

ously never existed among the Native Americans of
Florida) after reaching the island.
In 1763, Florida passed from Spanish to
English rule as a result of Spain’s alliance with the
defeated French in the Seven Years War. That year,
with diminished numbers and recalling that
English-allied Indians had previously attacked
them, the last remaining families of Tequesta,
Calusa and other remnant South Florida tribes
emigrated to Cuba aboard a Spanish vessel bound
from Key West. For the first time in thousands of
years, Native Americans were absent from South
Florida, including the area of the Deering Estate.
With the Tequesta gone, there no longer existed
any threat of attack. Before long, English
Bahamian loggers, fishermen and wreckers began
moving into the Tequesta’s abandoned lands.
Bahamian loggers had been traveling over to the
Florida coast for decades to harvest choice tropical
hardwoods, particularly live oak and mahogany,
for use back in the Bahamas. Bahamian fishermen
now frequented the teeming waters of Biscayne
Bay for catching fish and sea turtles and setting up
temporary camps along the bay’s shore while away
from home. Lastly wreckers, those people who salvaged
shipwreck materials for a fee or for a share
of the goods recovered, regularly came to the area
because of the numerous maritime accidents that
occurred here. The long elevated and canopied
shore of the Deering Estate undoubtedly served as
a temporary home to many Bahamians who came
to Biscayne Bay in the latter half of the eighteenth
century for all of these purposes.
In 1770-1771, the colonial Assistant Surveyor
General of the Southern District, Bernard
Romans, extensively surveyed the coasts of the
Florida peninsula. His surveying expedition, to
establish accurate land and coast surveys to
encourage the development of colonial East
Florida, led him to the coastal waters of Miami-
Dade County. Throughout Biscayne Bay, Romans
describes seeing evidence of the Bahamian presence:
camps from the loggers, wreckers and fishermen
and turtle crawls or pens on shore. He also
describes a place for ships to acquire “fine fresh
water” on the mainland (probably Deering Creek)
in the vicinity of the estate. Additionally, he noted
the abandoned remains of the Tequesta’s main village
along the Miami River.
Part of the impetus for Romans to survey the
area was the existence of extensive land grants in
Miami-Dade County by the crown. These included
a 60,000-acre grant provided to William
Legge, the Earl of Dartmouth, in 1770 that
encompassed the entirety of the Deering Estate.
Though Lord Dartmouth’s grant was never settled,
there was a serious proposal in 1773 by the
Cape Florida Society in England to establish a
6,000-acre town for French Protestant families
just west of the estate’s boundaries.
Mark Duda and Deering Danielson inspect the archaeological discovery on the Deering grounds in 1985. The solution hole in
the limestone bedrock contained prehistoric human burial remains and the bones of many extinct animal species. Radiocarbon
dating demonstrated that the site was over l0,000 years old, making it one of the oldest in the Southeastern United States.
(COURTESY OF THE HISTORICAL MUSEUM OF SOUTHERN FLORIDA)
From 1783, when Florida reverted to the
Spanish with Britain’s defeat in the American
Revolution, to 1821, when the territory became
part of the United States, only Bahamians and
Seminoles frequented the area around the estate.
Spanish colonists elsewhere in Florida com -
plained to the colonial government of the need to
establish an official presence in South Florida. In
1790, a wealthy St. Augustine resident, Luis Fatio,
wrote to the Spanish crown that the area around
Biscayne Bay and Cape Florida would be ideal for
cultivating crops such as sugar cane “but as there
are no people settled in those localities no one
ventures to risk his negroes and property to the
inroads of the Indians, pirates, and rogues from
the Bahamas who infest all these coasts.”
Fatio had mentioned “Indians” because by the
late eighteenth century Seminoles from northern
Florida were coming down to Miami-Dade
County for hunting and fishing. The Seminoles’
use of the area surrounding the estate for catching
game led it to being called the “Hunting Grounds”
both by the early Bahamians described above and
by the early American pioneers who began trickling
into South Florida after Florida became a
United States territory in 1821.
Interest in the area increased when hostilities
between Seminoles and white settlers again erupted
into conflict. During the Second Seminole War,
which lasted from 1835-1842, Indian warriors
and American soldiers periodically visited the
property while foraging, hunting or on patrol.
Despite the threat from the war, Dr. Henry
Perrine, an eminent American botanist and diplomat,
entreated the federal government to provide
him with a land grant, which included the Deering
Estate, where he could cultivate and study tropical
plants that may have a beneficial agricultural and
commercial purpose for the United States.
Unfortunately, the hostilities between the
Seminoles and white settlers spilt over to Indian
Key where he was living in July 1838. Seminole
warriors killed him and a number of others in a
raid in August 1840, before he was able to properly
develop or settle the land grant.
In 1992, Dr. Janet Matthews, a noted historian
and Florida’s current State Historic Preservation
Officer, prepared an extensive report on the history
of the Deering Estate from the 1840s to the
1920s. Her work noted that in 1843, four men
from the Florida Keys submitted federal Armed
Occupation Act land claims (each 160 acres) to
the land encompassing and surrounding the
modern Deering Estate. The four men, Antonio
Giraldo, Francis Mabrity, Robert R. Fletcher, and
John Walters, are said to have each built houses
on their claims and jointly built a wharf into the
bay. (Congress had passed the Armed Occupation
The Deering Estate at Cutler is now owned by the State
of Florida and managed by Miami-Dade County.
Damaged severely by Hurricane Andrew in 1992, the
estate has been restored and is once again open to the
public for tours and special events.
(COURTESY OF MIAMI-DADE COUNTY PARK AND RECREATION DEPARTMENT)
CHAPTER XXIX ✧ 125

A view of the ballroom of the Deering stone house
through a fisheye lens shows ornate wrought iron gates
and a coffered ceiling.
(COURTESY OF MIAMI-DADE COUNTY PARK AND RECREATION DEPARTMENT)
Act in 1842 to encourage white settlement
throughout Florida and to discourage Seminole
hegemony over the territory by increasing the
white population of men of fighting age throughout
the peninsula.
With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861,
United States armed forces occupied Key West and
imposed a blockade upon local shipping along the
coast. The blockade by the U.S. Navy was intended
to prevent the acquisition of goods by
Confederate forces in Florida (or elsewhere).
Much of the contraband being sought by the
Confederate States was being shipped through the
Bahamas from England. The Bahamas were a part
of the British Empire, which was neutral in the
American conflict and sought to profit by trading
with both governments and their citizens.
Biscayne Bay became a haven for smuggling by
Bahamian vessels known as blockade-runners.
The blockade-runners often relied upon the local
settlers for assistance, many of whom were rebel
sympathizers, but, more often, felt an affinity to
those Bahamians involved in the illicit trade.
Robert Fletcher had two sons join the Confederate
forces during the war and likely supported the
smugglers. Others families along Biscayne Bay
actively aided blockade-runners in landing contraband
on the coast, providing them with foodstuffs
and fresh water, and hiding smugglers from the
federal search parties that came ashore.
Toward the end of the Civil War, in 1864, a
“Florida Cracker” family, the Addisons, settled at
the Deering Estate. Cracker was the nickname
given to families of Anglo-American Southern heritage
that had emigrated into Florida during the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from other
states in the South. John and Mary Addison’s kin
had first come into Tallahassee in the 1820s and
then to Tampa Bay in the 1840s. Each time more
land opened up following the end of a conflict
with the Seminoles, the family had moved further
into the peninsula. John Addison and his wife’s
brother, Dave Townsend, had each served as militiamen
in the Third Seminole War in the 1850s.
Near the end of the Civil War they moved to Dade
County and into the area of the Deering Estate.
The land that the Addisons had entered onto,
though, was still claimed by the Perrine family. The
terms of Dr. Perrine’s original grant required the land
to be surveyed and the grant to be in cultivation
within two years. Due to his death and a personal
appeal by his widow before Congress in 1841, the
federal government permitted the Perrines to
extend the terms of the deadline to eight years after
the end of the Second Seminole War, in 1842. The
original grant provided to Perrine and two others
was for 230,000 acres, or 36 square miles!
In 1847, government surveyors delineated the
Perrine Grant. Following the survey, the Perrine
family declared that the terms of the grant were
being met and that they had settled 36 Bahamian
families on the grant, or one per square mile. The
family later claimed that fighting between the settlers
and the Seminoles had driven the settlers away
in 1848, and it was a subject of debate between
later settlers and the Perrine family whether the
family ever permanently settled anyone. It does
appear that a few people were encouraged to stay
temporarily with the promise that they would be
rewarded with land from the grant claim.
By the end of the Civil War, the Addisons were
the only people living on the grounds. The 1870
census notes that they were farmers and raisers of
livestock. Beyond what they grew (squash, melons,
corn, tomatoes, onions, orange, bananas,
guava) and raised for themselves (pig, cattle,
chicken), the Addisons supplemented their diet
with what they could capture on land or in the bay
(crane, quail, wild hog, deer, oyster, small fish,
shark). In 1873 they are known to have killed a
200-pound panther that was stalking the area.
Already by the 1870s Florida was fast becoming
a tourist destination for those who had read
about its unique environment, climate and
Seminoles. The families of those Seminoles who
had managed to avoid relocation prior to the Civil
War were on good terms with local white settlers
by this time. The Addison homestead was a regular
stop for both Seminoles and for those people
cruising through Biscayne Bay by boat.
In 1876, Henry Perrine, Jr., a lawyer living in
New York and Dr. Perrine’s only son, came to the
Addison homestead intending to settle the grant
as required by Congress. Perrine came with two
sons and a number of intended settlers from New
York who he thought would help him establish
his claim. He called his new settlement attempt
“Perrineville” (locally called “Addisons Landing”)
and spent a miserable year attempting to make it
thrive during 1876-1877. It was a distressful period
for Perrine and his group, marked by a hurricane,
a freeze, hordes of mosquitoes, and poor
food and quarters. By 1877, though he was promoting
his land for speculation, he returned to
“civilization” in New York.
The same year that he arrived, Perrine excavated
the center of a Tequesta burial mound on
the property. Though untrained as an archaeologist,
he did record a description of the mound and
some of its contents. He described it as being built
of limestone rocks and sand and that it contained
a number of fragmentary human remains. This
site was later visited successively by Miami pio -
neer Ralph Munroe in the 1890s (who conducted
a small amateur excavation in it), archaeologist
Clarence Moore at the turn of the century,
botanist John Kunkell Small in the 1920s, and
archaeologist John Goggin in the 1940s.
Despite Perrine’s several month sojourn, the
Addisons continued to carve out a respectable life
for themselves. John Addison had been elected a
Dade County Commissioner in 1868 and continued
to hold the position periodically through the
years. By the 1880s, the Addison homestead had
become a regular stop for visitors, receiving a good
deal of notoriety, and resulting in the family
becoming quite popular. John Addison was particularly
well known for his skill at deer hunting and
for his adept manner of story telling which regaled
listeners with tales from the Seminole War. In
1887, he even took part in a regatta held by local
residents to celebrate Washington’s Birthday.
Addison’s sailboat, Edna, won the race and soon
thereafter he helped Ralph Munroe form the
Biscayne Bay Yacht Club.
In 1883 the man whose surname was eventually
bestowed on the area around the Deering
Estate, Dr. William Cutler, came to South Florida
for the first time. Dr. Cutler was a homeopathic
physician who was descended from an old
Massachusetts family. He first visited the area to
improve his health and so enjoyed the climate
that he purchased 600 acres abutting the Perrine
grant. Cutler became good friends with a number
of families who settled on the Perrine grant as
squatters. In the fall of 1884, when a new post
office for the settlement was approved, the Postal
Service’s name for the settlement became Cutler,
with William Fuzzard, a neighbor of the
Addisons, as postmaster.
Fuzzard was also a native of Massachusetts
who was entreated to settle in South Florida by
Dr. Cutler. One of Fuzzard’s early tasks, besides
setting up the post office for the settlement, was to
blaze a road northwards through the tropical
hardwood hammock along the ridge to the settlement
at Coconut Grove. It was this trail that
became known as Old Cutler Road and linked the
southern part of the county with the area around
126 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

Miami. He also operated a coontie mill for
making starch, operated a general store and raised
pineapples, coconuts, oranges, bananas and other
crops. As with many of South Florida’s early settlers,
no opportunity was too mundane to help
make a living in the “wilderness.”
By the 1890s, the Perrine heirs were taking a
keen interest in the grant and the principal reason
was Henry M. Flagler, developer of the Florida
East Coast Railway (FEC).
The Perrine heirs contacted James E.
Ingraham, who was in charge of land acquisition,
in 1896 about selling their interests in the grant
lands. The problem was that a number of people
were living within the grant. By the mid-1880s,
when the family started making moves to assert
title to the property, about 75 settlers were established
upon the grant. The settlers also formed an
organization called the Squatters Union, the purpose
of which was to lobby the federal govern -
ment to prevent the heirs of Dr. Perrine from
claiming any rights to the grant by recognizing the
interests created in the land by the squatters
through their establishment of houses, farms and
other improvements. The settlers chose Dr. Cutler
to represent their interests in Washington, D.C.
The controversy over the competing claims
between the Perrine heirs and the squatters lasted
for a number of years but was settled by Congress
in 1897. In the end, each Squatters Union family
received 40 acres for their claim. The Addison and
Fuzzard families each received 80 acres in recognition
of the length and substance of their claims.
By 1898, following the settlement and through
Ingraham’s hard work, the FEC had acquired half
the Perrine grant’s total acreage.
One of the persons who became an integral
part of the fledgling community of Cutler was
Samuel H. Richmond. He was a civil engineer and
surveyor by education and training who had
moved to Dade County after losing a citrus farm
in northern Florida in the same devastating freeze
which had driven Flagler south in 1895.
Richmond was soon hired by the FEC to survey
their lands within the Perrine grant.
In April 1896, he wrote to Ingraham that there
was “a small amount of fine hammock land, [and] a
good water front (at Cutler and Addisons).” He also
stated, “There are many nice families, and young
men, located on homestead claims which they hope
to secure if thrown open by the Government, or
placed on market by heirs and assigns.” By the time
that he retired years later, Richmond had surveyed
roughly 150,000 acres of southern Dade County,
including that of the Cutler area.
Not only were there several white families at
Cutler in the mid-1890s, there was also one black
family. E.W.F. “Abe” Stirrup had been born in the
Bahamas in 1873 and lived in the Florida Keys prior
to coming to the settlement at Cutler. In 1888, at age
An aerial view of the Deering Estate in 1962 shows the Richmond Inn and the large stone house added by Charles Deering
in 1922-23. Environmentally sensitive, Deering replanted in the 1920s portions of the native hammock which had been
cleared by earlier property owners. (PHOTO BY JACK GOODIER)
15, Stirrup had moved from Harbour Island in the
Bahamas to train as a carpenter with an uncle who
lived in Key West. Six years later and after his twenty-first
birthday, he returned to Harbour Island to
marry his childhood sweetheart, Charlotte Jane
Sawyer. Soon thereafter they moved to Cutler—
attracted by the “boom” in the development of the
Perrine grant by the FEC and others following the
settlement of claims—and built a house on their
property; in 1896, a daughter was born to them at
the settlement and named Kate Biscayne Stirrup.
Abe Stirrup was industrious and determined
to make a fine life for his family. During the day
he worked in the pineapple fields around Cutler
and at night he helped clear land for others developing
the area. Because cash was scarce, he was
often paid in land. Though by 1898, Abe Stirrup
and his family had moved to Coconut Grove
(eventually making a good deal of money through
land purchases there), they would continue to
maintain an interest in the settlement at Cutler
because, through the 1980s, the family still
owned a lot (and the original handwritten deed)
that Abe Stirrup had received from Dr. Cutler.
Stirrup would also later work for Charles Deering
during his ownership of the estate.
It was also at Cutler that the Dade County Fair
was born in 1897. It was the brainchild of E.V.
Blackman, the editor of the FEC land depart -
ment’s magazine, and underwritten by Henry
Flagler and the FEC. The fair not only showcased
the agricultural productivity of the area but also
promoted the FEC land department’s activities.
Prizes were given out and participants came both
from Cutler and from around the county.
Several months after Dr. Cutler died in May
1899, Richmond was at work building the
Richmond Cottage, the area’s first hotel (attached to
the house he had first built in 1896) and the most
southerly hotel on the U.S. mainland. The hotel
opened on April 7, 1900, and twenty guests registered
in Mrs. Edith Richmond’s large red leather
ledger; nearly all of them worked for the FEC. The
hotel also boasted the area’s first telephone.
Persons, goods and news were brought to the
settlement by two daily steamship routes that
were set up between Cutler and Miami. One ship,
the Lake Worth, made two round-trips each day to
Cutler; the other, the Comfort, made a single daily
round-trip.
By 1901, the settlement had a public school
with 27 white students. A statewide policy of
racial segregation in education led to the area’s few
black students having to travel to study in
Coconut Grove, where 16 children from around
the county were being educated. By 1903
Richmond and FEC workers had surveyed and
laid out the planned railroad town of Perrine,
which was several miles due west of Cutler. Not
long thereafter, children in Cutler would be sent
to school at Perrine.
In the first decade of the twentieth century,
Cutler residents were growing a wide variety of
fruits and vegetables. Coconut, lime, orange,
mango, avocado, guava, and sapodilla were
among the many types of fruit trees cultivated.
The tropical agricultural work envisioned for the
area by Dr. Perrine was finally becoming a reality
and the seeds of South Dade’s importance as the
winter fruit and vegetable market for the rest of
the country were being firmly planted.
The Addisons were still holding on to their
property in the first decade of the 1900s. Mary
Addison died in September 1906, while in her
70s. Within weeks John Addison sold his property
to the Carter family and continued to live there
as a boarder for several years before he died while
visiting relatives in Fort Myers.
In 1913, Charles Deering began purchasing
land at Cutler. He was 61 years old and a suc -
cessful business executive when he began to
assemble his Cutler estate. Educated at the U.S.
Naval Academy, with broad artistic and scientific
interests, his family fortune had been made
through his father’s development of the
International Harvester Company. Charles
Deering’s first purchase at Cutler was 10 acres of
land originally settled by the Addisons. He
acquired the Richmond Inn property in 1915.
Deering was encouraged to assemble his estate
property at Cutler as a result of his correspondence
with botanists John Kunkel Small and David
CHAPTER XXIX ✧ 127

Old Cutler Road, which connected settlers in Coconut Grove with the town of Cutler, is today a scenic roadway lined with
overhanging trees and beautiful homes. (PHOTO BY ANTOINETTE NATURALE)
Fairchild. Small had called Addisons Hammock,
as it was known, “one of the finest natural parks in
the United States ….” In 1917, Small also encouraged
Deering to replant native hammock vegeta -
tion south of the Richmond Cottage down to the
road that ran east toward the bay; access to
Deering’s assembled estate would be restricted by
a long concrete wall that ran parallel to the north
side of the road. The wall still exists today.
By 1917, as Deering’s estate at Cutler steadily
developed, he and friends began to spend more
time there at the remodeled Richmond Cottage.
That year Deering enjoyed the company of John
Singer Sargent, the noted painter and portrait
artist from Massachusetts. Deering had always
enjoyed the company of artists and Sargent painted
a portrait of Deering during his stay. They
remained close friends and correspondents until
Sargent’s death in 1925.
Deering himself was an avid art connoisseur
and collector. An immense and valuable collec -
tion that he had acquired at his estate in Spain,
Mar y Cel, was shipped to the United States
between 1921-1922. The works were intended to
complement what Small called the “rock house”
and what was called by others the “stone house”
or “new addition” that was being built in the summer
of 1922. Much of the stone for the house was
taken from rock walls built by the early settlers of
the property and the village of Cutler. The rock
house, which was to become the centerpiece of
the estate, was designed by the masterful architect,
Phineas Paist. Paist was the assistant architect
for the design of Vizcaya, the Miami estate com -
pleted in 1916 for Charles’ brother, James. The
interior of the rock house was completed in 1923.
Deering had an immense concern for the environment
and the care of the estate’s natural setting.
Besides replanting portions of the native
hammock that had been cleared or disturbed by
earlier property owners, he set about establishing
nests and planting fruit-bearing bushes to encourage
bird life. On his Buena Vista property in
Miami, he had forbidden the use of spiked tree
climbing shoes by workers that trimmed trees lest
beetles and other wood boring insects take hold
and kill the trees. He also continued to work with
Small and continually sought the botanist’s advice
for the Cutler property. Small supervised the
estate’s plantings and structures. In July 1926,
nearing the end of his life, Deering even participated
in a lawsuit to prevent people from filling
1,000 acres of submerged lands off Cape Florida
in Biscayne Bay for development, citing irreparable
damage to not only the scenic views but also
to the natural actions of the ocean and bay waters.
When the great hurricane of 1926 struck the
area, Deering, who was ill at the time, slept.
Although the rock house, made from native rock
drawn from the estate, successfully weathered the
storm, the event prompted his wife, Marion
Deering, to make a large donation of art from the
estate to the Art Institute of Chicago.
Charles Deering died in February 1927 at age
75. He had stayed at the estate nearly continu -
ously from 1924 until that time. At his death he
was one of the wealthiest men in America.
As stipulated in Deering’s will, the estate was to
remain within the family through the lives of his
wife and children. Marion Deering continued to
live on the estate through her death in 1943. A
year-round staff maintained the estate for the family
and cared for its valuable library and art. By the
late 1970s, though, the family was using the property
infrequently and the estate had been closed to
the public since the 1960s.
With the death of Barbara Deering Danielson,
Charles and Marion Deering’s last surviving child
and heir, the 346-acre estate passed to her children.
The Danielson family negotiated a real
estate development contract for the property with
Cutler Development Corporation. Recognizing
the Deering Estate’s uniqueness and the likely loss
of its irreplaceable natural environment, historic
buildings and archaeological sites, county and
state officials moved to purchase the property for
public ownership.
In 1985, the property was purchased for
$22.5 million with funding from the state
Conservation and Recreational Lands (CARL)
Program, the Internal Improvement Trust Fund
and Metropolitan Dade County. A lease agreement
was devised in 1987 that permitted the county,
through its Parks and Recreation Department, to
manage the property on the state’s behalf for the
purposes of environmental protection, public
recreation and other compatible activities.
Not long after the estate opened, after decades
of being closed to public access, it quickly became
one of the most popular parks in southern Florida.
Then the unimaginable occurred. In August 1992,
just five years after the estate opened, Hurricane
Andrew—the costliest natural disaster in American
history—struck. The hurricane hit the area in the
night and wreaked havoc on the estate with a monstrous
storm surge and powerful winds.
With the coming of dawn and the passing of
the storm there was nothing but devastation. Just
as in 1926, the soundness of Phineas Paist’s design
for the stone house withstood its greatest test, but
not without great and unavoidable damage. The
force of the waves and wind had punched right
through the doors and windows of the stone
house, scouring it of much of its contents, but
leaving its walls standing. The near-century- old
Richmond Cottage was virtually leveled, its
wooden walls and timbers cast about around its
foundation like spilt matchsticks. The canopy of
the hammock and pineland—so treasured by
Deering and others—was nearly denuded.
But as with other storms that have swept over
the estate in prior years and centuries, life was
bound to return. Under the direction of the
Deering Estate’s director, Ivan Rodriguez, who
also served as the county’s first Historic
Preservation Division director at the time of the
property’s purchase in 1985, the estate has been
revived to its former glory. In 1999, the park
reopened to the public for the first time since the
storm. Today, anyone can once again roam and
enjoy the ancient ridge, densely tangled ham -
mock, beautiful buildings, and storied grounds of
Miami-Dade County’s oldest neighborhood.
Christopher R. Eck is the director of the Historic Preservation Division of the Miami-Dade Office of Community and Economic Development and has a background in history,
archaeology and law. A graduate of Loyola University of New Orleans, he has a Master of Arts degree from the University of Massachusetts-Boston. During college he became
involved in archeological research in Boston, California and the Carolinas and worked on excavations throughout New England and in the U.S. Virgin Islands. While pursuing a
Juris Doctor degree from the University of Miami School of Law, he founded the Cultural Heritage Legal Society and hosted a symposium to discuss legal issues surrounding shipwreck
salvage off Florida’s coast. After graduating from law school, he practiced law and conducted archaeological and historical research as a private consultant throughout
Florida. He has published numerous articles on historic preservation and has taught preservation law at the University of Miami School of Law.
128 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

South Dade borders on two national parks, the world-famous Everglades, Florida’s “River of Grass,” and Biscayne National Park, the nation’s largest marine park. Each attracts millions of
tourists and is a priceless environmental treasure. (COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE)
SOUTH DADE:
HOMESTEAD, FLORIDA CITY, AND REDLAND
B Y R OBERT J. JENSEN AND L ARRY W IGGINS
The Homestead, Florida City and Redland
communities have rich, but relatively short histories.
The earliest settlers made their way to
the Redland area just over 100 years ago. The
adjoining cities of Homestead and Florida City
owe their birth to the Florida East Coast
Railway. Henry Flagler extended his railroad
from Miami to its terminus in what was to
become Homestead in 1904. Homestead,
incorporated 1913, is today the second oldest
city in Miami-Dade County (after Miami),
while Florida City, incorporated 1914, is the
third oldest.
New settlers had been establishing homesteads
in the Miami area for several years prior
to the FEC Railway reaching Miami in 1896.
After its arrival the wonders of Dade County’s
remarkable climate, and perhaps more impor -
tantly for South Dade, its extended growing season
and rich soil, became widely known. Due in
great part to the efforts of the publicity depart -
ment of the FEC Railway, the land available for
homesteading (as well as land for sale by the
railroad) was heavily promoted to prospective
farmers throughout the country. As the choice
lands available for homesteading nearer to
Miami became exhausted, land-seeking farmers
ventured farther south to investigate the
Redland district. The federal government
opened the area east of today’s Krome Avenue
for homesteading in 1898. Two years later the
area west of Krome Avenue was opened.
Congress passed the Homestead Act in the
mid-1800s as a way to encourage the settlement
of the country. A settler was allowed to file for
up to 160 acres and agreed to improve a part of
the land for agriculture and build a house. After
living there for five years, the settler could
“prove up” the homestead and obtain title to the
land. The homesteader could obtain title sooner
by purchasing the land outright at graduated
prices after he had spent certain amounts of
time living on and cultivating the land.
The community named Silver Palm was the
first to develop and was centered at SW 232
Street and SW 157 Avenue. The earliest settlers
named the area after the small palm with silverbacked
fronds that covered the land. Shortly
after Silver Palm, another settlement called
Redland was established around the intersection
of SW 248 Street and SW 187 Ave.
Redland was given its name by Frank Kanen,
an early homesteader, in honor of the fertile
soil of the area. The redness of the clay and
marl soil came from the oxidation of a small
quantity of iron it contained. “Redland” was
chosen to differentiate it from the then wellknown
“Redlands” section of California.
Eventually the entire area south of Cutler Ridge
became known as the “Redland District.”
By 1902, only a few families had settled in
this area. The early homesteaders would plant
tomatoes or other winter vegetables as a means
of support while waiting the five years for
newly planted citrus trees to mature and bear.
Avocados, another popular crop, also took up
to five years to bear. Prior to the arrival of the
railroad in South Dade, homesteaders had to
transport their harvest by mule cart to Cutler
on Biscayne Bay, where it was transported by
boat to Miami for further shipment by either
train or ship to the markets in the north.
Flagler announced in July 1902 that he would
extend his railroad south to the heart of what
was becoming known as “the homestead country.”
With an assured easier way to ship crops
out, the homesteading pace quickened
throughout the entire southern part of the
county. Late in 1903 the Miami Metropolis
proclaimed, “there were upwards of 100 families
located in the homestead country.”
CHAPTER XXX ✧ 129

Florida City, incorporated in 1914, is the third oldest city in Miami-Dade County. This postcard shows an ice plant and
packing house in Florida City along a canal that was completed in 1914. (COURTESY OF THE SETH BRAMSON COLLECTION)
As the railroad tracks were being laid on the
new extension, Flagler was looking still further
south to Key West. He had surveys completed
(under the supervision of William J. Krome) to
determine whether a better route was via Cape
Sable to Big Pine Key or directly south through
today’s Homestead area to Key Largo. His decision
to proceed south along the route of today’s
US 1, and not the more westerly route, set the
course for the Homestead area to become the
business center of south Miami-Dade and thus
retarded the commercial growth in the more
The Redland Hotel was originally built by William D.
Horne in 1904. It burned in 1913, was immediately rebuilt
and served as Homestead’s most important lodging for
many years. It is now undergoing restoration as an upscale
hotel and restaurant. (COURTESY OF DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
northern Silver Palm and Redland communities.
William J. Krome went on to become the
chief engineer for the completion of the rail -
road to Key West. He decided to make
Homestead his home, purchased land, and,
along with his wife Isabel, became a leading
figure in agriculture.
William A. King, the FEC section foreman,
moved his work camp to the Homestead site in
late 1903 and began construction of the FEC
depot and the homes for the station agent and
the section foreman. The buildings were constructed
of the durable Dade County pine,
which was readily available throughout the
area. They were completed in August of 1904.
The depot was expanded in 1922 to include a
Railway Express office, and along with the station
agent’s house was later moved to 826
North Krome Avenue in Florida City, where
they housed the Florida Pioneer Museum. The
depot was destroyed by Hurricane Andrew but
has since been replicated. The station agent’s
house, still proudly in its “Flagler yellow,” is a
Miami-Dade historic site and listed on the
National Register of Historic Places.
Early survey maps needed to designate the
end of the tracks as a destination, so the sur -
veyors labeled it “homestead country,” and railroad
workers wrote “Homestead Country” in
chalk on railroad cars carrying supplies used
during the construction of the extension.
Homestead was given its name more officially
in January, 1904, by Flagler at the suggestion of
James E. Ingraham, third vice president of the
FEC Railroad. Ingraham had charge of the various
FEC land companies including the Model
Land Company, which had begun selling lots in
the company’s 600-acre plat of Homestead. The
28-mile extension from downtown Miami was
completed when the last rail was laid on July
31, 1904, and the following day the first train
steamed up to the depot.
The first resident of the new town not associated
with the railroad was William D. Horne,
who purchased two lots south of the railway
station. He built a store with living quarters on
the second floor. Upon its completion in
December of 1904, his wife Ida Campbell
Horne arrived by train with their household
possessions. The building burned in 1913 but
was rebuilt the same year. Today known as the
Redland Hotel and undergoing restoration, it
was for many years Homestead’s most important
place of lodging.
A little more than two years after the completion
of the railroad, all available homesteads were
taken up within six miles of the Homestead town
site. Newcomers now had to locate in the farthest
reaches of the Redland area.
The construction of the railroad extension
from Homestead to Key West had begun in
1905, and the resulting economic activity further
boosted the area’s growth. Settlements
were established in South Dade along the FEC
tracks and included Goulds, Modello,
Princeton, and Naranja, as well as Homestead
and Florida City.
Thriving African-American settlements
were begun at Goulds, where William
Randolph homesteaded and made available
land at low cost to other African-Americans,
many of whom worked for the railroad, had
their own farms or labored for other home -
steaders. Black Point and Princeton also had
sizable African-American populations.
Princeton, named for the alma mater of
Gaston Drake, was a company town that grew
up around the massive Drake Lumber Mill.
Drake started the mill in 1904, and by 1912 it
was the largest industrial concern in the county,
employing 175 workers. The company paid
homesteaders $2.50 per acre for the “Dade
County pine” trees on their land. This was
milled into lumber that was especially desirable
due to its high resin content that hardened
as it dried and repelled both rot and termites.
Homestead had 16 or 17 children by the
fall of 1907, enough to qualify for a Dade
County school. The Model Land Company
supplied a lot, the school board furnished the
lumber, and a one-room schoolhouse was constructed.
Two years later, an “L” shaped section
was added for a second classroom.
Early African-Americans settled in the
southwest section of Homestead on land
homesteaded and later subdivided by an
African-American who was one of the mem -
bers of the FEC survey crew that came in 1904.
He donated an acre of his land for the St. Paul’s
Missionary Baptist Church, which today is
Homestead’s oldest church.
The first white church established in
Homestead was First Baptist Church, which
was organized on September 5, 1909 with five
founding members. The Methodist Episcopal
Church South followed soon after. A Methodist
Episcopal Church North was organized in
1914. Homestead became famous in 1929
when the two Homestead Methodist Episcopal
churches became the first to “unite” since the
split of the churches took place in 1844 over
the issues of administration and slavery. This
130 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

uniting began the movement that spread across
the country and is why the denomination is
now known as the United Methodist Church.
The first business district developed along
Flagler Avenue on the south and east side of
the FEC Railway tracks. If one thing later
spurred the development of Krome Avenue as
the main commercial artery, it was the con -
struction of the Bank of Homestead at North
Krome and Mowry in 1912. The building had
a second story added in 1917. It was enlarged
dramatically in 1925 when eighteen feet to the
south was purchased from J.D. Redd and a
large addition was constructed at the rear. The
Bank of Homestead failed in June 1927, was
reorganized twice and finally closed for good
in 1931. A completely separate bank, The First
National Bank of Homestead, was established
in 1932 by Max Losner and other businessmen
who purchased the Bank of Homestead building
and fixtures. Max Losner had foreseen the
problem of state chartered banks clearing
through larger South Florida banks and
planned as early as 1925 for a nationally chartered
bank, which would clear checks through
the Federal Reserve System. Today it is the
home of the City of Homestead Police
Department. The Bank of Homestead failed
not because of its own problems, but because
it had its cash reserves with the Bank of Bay
Biscayne in Miami, which also failed.
The Rev. J.A. Kahl, who helped found the
Methodist Episcopal Church North in
Homestead, established Homestead’s first
newspaper, The South Florida Banner, on March
15, 1912. The paper reported on the 1912
Fourth of July celebration, typical of small
town America at that time, which featured a
Downtown Homestead’s Main Street has been beautifully landscaped since Hurricane Andrew devastated the area in 1992.
(PHOTO BY LARRY WIGGINS)
bicycle race, foot race, egg and spoon race,
sack race, climbing greasy pole contest and
three legged race.
Rev. Kahl was instrumental in the incorpo -
ration of Homestead as a town in 1913. All men
(this was before women’s suffrage) were invited
Built originally in 1904 in Homestead as the residence for Henry Flagler’s railroad foreman, this house was moved in 1964
to Florida City and became the Florida Pioneer Museum. The Homestead Depot was relocated there as well in 1976. All
have been restored following damage by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. (PHOTO BY LARRY WIGGINS)
to a mass meeting in the schoolhouse on
Tuesday, December 17, 1912 to discuss incor -
poration. About forty men attended and all but
one were in favor of incorporation. Rev. Kahl
acted as temporary chairman and A.W.
Chapman as temporary secretary. At the second
meeting on January 27, 1913, 26 qualified voters
responded to the roll call. Twenty-five voters
were required to incorporate. By secret ballot,
21 voted for and five against incorporation.
When the Homestead community was
about six years old, its neighbor to the south,
Detroit, now known as Florida City, was born.
It was a planned development of the four
Tatum brothers of Miami who organized the
Miami Land & Development Company in
1908 and purchased about 25,000 acres to the
south of Homestead. The brothers hired
Edward Stiling, formerly of Detroit, Michigan,
who platted the town site of Detroit just west
of the FEC two miles from Homestead in 1910.
Stiling planned the main east-west artery of the
town, named Palm Drive, as a 100-foot wide
boulevard with a wide median, later planted
with palm trees. Stiling marketed the land to
well-educated, near-retirement-age people in
the Midwest, particularly Detroit, as a “gentleman
farmer” community where, with each 10-
acre tract, purchasers got a town lot thrown in.
The plan called for the farmers to live in town
and farm on outlying land. The farming land
was located on the east glade, a low lying
region east of the town and stretching toward
Biscayne Bay that flooded nearly every year
during the rainy season.
The first group of new residents, about 30
families, arrived in late 1910. They were less
than pleased with what they found. The area
was still virtually wild, and they had to secure
lodging in Homestead and travel to their future
home sites to prepare them to build or plant.
Over the next few years, the MLDC began an
extensive program to drain the east glade lands
by digging a series of crisscrossed ditches. These
ditches drained into a 30-foot wide canal, completed
in 1914, stretching the nine miles from
Biscayne Bay to the town site. The canal provided
a way to ship crops to Miami at considerable
savings over cost of freight via the railroad.
The town grew to include about 41 houses
by 1911, and a town hall was built by public
subscription at a cost of $1,000. A turning
basin was dug at the end of the canal in the socalled
industrial area of the town, and a pavilion
was built over the canal that provided a
swimming hole during the hot summer days.
After Homestead’s incorporation in 1913, its
leaders started looking at the growth of Detroit
CHAPTER XXX ✧ 131

Anderson’s Corner, at 5700 SW 232nd Street, was opened as a general store in the Silver Palm area in 1911. It was restored
as a restaurant in 1985 but received severe damage in Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and has not been used since.
(PHOTO BY ANTOINETTE NATURALE)
Cauley Square, 22400 Old Dixie Highway, is a charming collection of historic buildings which were restored over the years
by Mary Ann Ballard as a shopping village. Cauley Square’s folksy, unique stores are an antidote to big-city mall madness.
(PHOTO BY ANTOINETTE NATURALE)
with an eye towards incorporating its younger
sibling into Homestead. This spurred the residents
of Detroit into incorporating in their own
right rather than be governed by their neigh -
bor to the north. So on December 28, 1914,
voters met in the town hall and incorporated
the town, but not as Detroit. It seems that the
residents were forever having their mail and
other shipments end up in Detroit, Michigan.
To alleviate this, the name Florida City was
chosen, although technically the new municipality
did not have the required 300 voters to
incorporate as a city. The town proudly pro -
moted itself as “The Farthest South Town.”
The Miami Metropolis published a special
supplement to the newspaper on November 2,
1912 called the “Redland Edition.” The paper
pointed out that there were about 300 homesteads
in the region and all the available land
for homestead purposes in the area had been
taken up. Now settlers would either buy land
that was formerly homesteaded or purchase
some of the vast lands for sale by the FEC or
the MLDC.
The invention by Al Lindgren in 1915 of the
scarifier, a tractor device that broke up the rocky
soil, allowed much easier crop planting and thus
larger farms. Prior to the scarifier, dynamite was
used to open up holes in the ground. Another
important use for the scarifier was in helping to
build roads through the district. Trails that had
been followed along township, range and section
lines could now be graded. The early roads
were named for settlers and many streets and
avenues maintain those names today as part of a
compromise between residents and Metro-Dade
who tried to impose the numbering system solely
on the roads in the early 1960s.
Everglades National Park owes its existence
in great part to the Florida Federation of
Women’s Clubs and to the Woman’s Club of
Homestead. May Mann Jennings, wife of former
governor W.S. Jennings, took as a project for her
presidency of the Florida Federation of Women’s
Clubs the preservation of part of the Everglades
as a state park. She was able to convince the
widow of Henry Flagler to donate 960 acres of
land at Paradise Key, just southwest of Florida
City, for the park. The Florida State Legislature
matched that donation. The Woman’s Club of
Homestead was formed in October of 1914 in
large part to support the efforts of the state
organization in forming the park. The park was
dedicated as a state park in 1916. The Florida
Federation constructed a lodge in the park in
1918 and managed the lodge and the state park
until it was made into Everglades National Park
on December 6, 1947.
The 1915 state census showed Homestead
having a population of 721 and Florida City
with 368 residents. Several of Homestead’s wellknown
landmarks today were built during this
time period. Architect August Geiger’s revolu -
tionary-designed, one-story Homestead school
was built in 1913 as the town outgrew its earlier
primitive building. Four years later, four additional
rooms were added, bringing the number
of classrooms to twelve, “all on one floor and an
auditorium around which they cluster.” Now
known as Neva King Cooper School, it is on the
National Register of Historic Places.
The Homestead town hall was built in 1917
with about $5,000 out of a $40,000 bond issue.
This building originally contained the city fire
department and jail. It served the city until
1975; it was the City of Homestead Historic
Preservation Board’s first historic designation
and now serves as a meeting hall, city museum,
and home to the Greater Homestead/Florida
City Chamber of Commerce.
The wood-framed Landmark Hotel, today a
rooming house located at 55 South Flagler,
also has a historic designation. The structure
had its beginnings in Miami on Flagler Street
next to Burdines in 1912 where it partially
housed Capt. Thompson’s Big Fish, an
embalmed 55-foot long whale shark that
became a famous tourist attraction. By 1914 it
had become the Airdome Theatre and in 1916
it was dismantled and brought to Homestead
by train to be re-erected as the Homestead
Garden Theatre.
132 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

Coral Castle, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is one of the most unusual sites in Florida. Singlehandedly
and with limited tools Edward Leedskalnin, a tiny Latvian immigrant, sculpted moons and planets out of stone boulders
weighing several tons each. He settled in Florida City in the early 1920s and began his labors as therapy for a lost love. In
1937 he moved his monumental sculptures, at night, supposedly without assistance, to “Rock Gate,” a 10-acre tract at
28655 South Federal Highway in Homestead, which he opened as a tourist attraction. The perimeter wall around Rock Gate
has a nine-ton movable gate; one of the sculptures weighs 30 tons. When asked how he moved such heavy objects, he said he
had learned the secrets of the Egyptian pyramid builders. (PHOTO BY ANTOINETTE NATURALE)
Charles Fuchs’ Holsum Bakery had its
beginnings in Homestead in 1913. He bought
the existing bakery because “all the local bread
tasted sour.” After relocating several times in the
city, it was moved to South Miami in 1934 and
grew into the largest independent bakery in the
southeastern United States. Its original 1913
home, the first concrete building in Homestead,
was listed on the National Register in 1996.
Another municipal incorporation took place
in 1914, but only lasted for a few years. The town
of Redland was established by a vote of 31 to 6.
John Bauer was the first mayor. Un-incorporation
came a dozen years later when residents decided
that taxes in the town were too costly. Residents
who were widely dispersed in South Dade did
not have the time or necessary transportation to
travel to larger towns for supplies. Local general
stores met the needs of these settlers and served
as gathering places. Anderson’s Corner, built at
Silver Palm in 1912, is the only known example
of these stores remaining in the county.
The Redland Farm Life Consolidated
School was built in 1916 and consolidated several
smaller wooden schools throughout the
region. The curriculum was agricultural based.
Though damaged by Hurricane Andrew, plans
are underway to renovate the building.
Growth in South Dade continued even with
the advent of the country’s entry into World
War I. By 1920 Homestead had grown to 1307
inhabitants. When word reached the infant
cities of Homestead and Florida City that the
war was over, it was celebrated by the ringing
of bells, horns, and firing of guns. An
impromptu parade began at the Homestead
School and traveled to the school in Florida
City and concluded back in Homestead in a
mass meeting with prayer, addresses, and “the
singing of patriotic songs.”
Post-war prosperity began slowly but grew
steadily into the frenetic Florida land sales and
developing phenomenon known as “the Boom.”
Many buildings in Homestead and Florida City
date from this period. In 1922, electric lines were
connected from Homestead’s power plant into
Florida City, giving the latter town electricity.
The year 1922 saw two of Homestead’s more
formidable buildings rise facing each other. The
Horne Building was the town’s first and only
three-story building for many years. Directly
across Krome Avenue from it was the Seminole
Theatre, built to accommodate the growing
crowds of fans of silent motion pictures.
The following year the area got its second
newspaper, The Homestead Leader, as well as
one of its most attractive homes in the
Lindeman-Johnson house designed by H.
George Fink. This house was restored after the
hurricane in 1993 with help from a grant
administered by Dade Heritage Trust for his -
toric buildings damaged by Hurricane Andrew.
It now houses Girard Title.
The Redland District Chamber of
Commerce hosted the first Redland District
Fruit Festival in 1924. The festival was held at
the height of the harvesting season and featured
fruits and vegetables grown in South Dade. A
huge success, it grew into an annual event and
lasted until 1948. The chamber was also
responsible for acquiring land by donation and
condemnation for a right of way for the
Seaboard Railroad. The chamber convinced the
line to extend its tracks from Miami to
Homestead in 1928. The route of this train took
a more westerly track through Silver Palm and
Redland and provided the farmers an additional
means of transportation to ship their crops.
A tourist inspects an exotic fruit at the Redland Fruit and Spice Park, located at 24801 SW 187th Avenue. The park first opened in
1944 and is now run by Miami-Dade County. (COURTESY MIAMI-DADE COUNTY PARK AND RECREATION DEPARTMENT)
CHAPTER XXX ✧ 133

The Homestead Motorsports Complex was built in 1995 and now attracts
thousands to its nationally renowned auto races.
(COURTESY OF THE HOMESTEAD MIAMI SPEEDWAY, L.L.C)
Two of the area’s interesting tourist attrac -
tions got their start during this period. Lee A.
Fennell purchased 20 acres of tropical ham -
mock and planted orchids of breath-taking
beauty in 1923. The following year he opened
his hammock to visitors as Orchid Jungle.
Sadly, the attraction never recovered from the
devastation of Hurricane Andrew. A Latvian
immigrant, Ed Leedskalnin began creating the
stone marvel that would become known as
Coral Castle in 1925, after being rejected by
his “sweet sixteen” fiancée who would not
immigrate to this country to marry him. He
single-handedly quarried and carved the
oolitic limestone on land southwest of Florida
City. In 1937, he single-handedly moved the
structure to its present location just north of
Homestead. This tourist attraction was listed
on the National Register in 1984.
South Dade weathered the depression during
the 1930s with a series of federal programs
that boosted the local economies. There were
several CCC camps and WPA projects. Among
the WPA projects were an airport that was
located near where the Homestead YMCA is
today, the Florida City Farmers Market
(1939), James Archer Smith Hospital (1941),
Homestead’s Lily Lawrence Bow library
(1939), now a city designated historic site,
and the beginnings of Homestead Bayfront
Park. The park was begun after James A.
Sottille, Sr. had acquired the lands of the
MLDC and used diesel pumps to help main -
tain drainage of the agricultural area. He
enticed many Italians to move to the area and
become farmers. Sottille donated 640 acres of
land for a proposed park on the bayfront east
of the area. He also donated 200 additional
acres for a beach for the area’s African-
American population.
Monkey Jungle is another
popular tourist attraction in the
Redland area. It had its beginnings
in 1933 and officially
opened in 1935 with the slogan
“where the humans are caged
and the monkeys run free.”
Homestead’s 1921 Seminole
theatre burned in 1940 and
was promptly rebuilt as the
city’s only Art Deco, Streamline
Moderne-style building. It suffered
for years after Hurricane
Andrew left gaping holes in its
roof, but now a determined
group is planning to convert
the building into an arts center.
In 1940 efforts were begun
to secure an Army or Navy airtraining
field for the area. The
county purchased a one-mile square area east of
Homestead to lure a military airfield. In early May
of 1941 crews began clearing the 600-acre tract.
In November, 1942, the first aircraft, 33
Douglas A20 medium bombers, were sent overseas
via Homestead. The base served to receive,
service and dispatch aircraft being ferried overseas
until the end of the war, when it became a training
base for Air Transport Command, a predecessor of
Military Airlift Command.
Homestead felt the beginning of World War
II perhaps more deeply that any other community
in South Florida as two of its citizens,
Anderson Arrant and Earl Smith, both stationed
on the USS Arizona, were killed at Pearl Harbor.
Both had attended Homestead High School.
Homestead VFW post 4127 was named in
honor of the two.
A prisoner of war camp containing mostly
German captives was established about two
miles east of Homestead. During harvest season
many of the prisoners were made to work
in the fields and packinghouses to help alleviate
the labor shortage caused by the war.
Redland Fruit and Spice Park opened to the
public in 1944 to display collections of subtropical
fruit trees to the pubic. It was created
through purchases and donated land begin -
ning in 1935.
On the occasion of the dedication of
Everglades National Park, Florida City was
chosen to be the site for a First Day of Issue for
a new three-cent postage stamp. Locals still
recall the 500,000 pieces of mail that were
carted about in washtubs and field crates and
that needed to be postmarked and sorted.
The annual Homestead Championship
Rodeo was established in 1949, the year following
the demise of the Redland Fruit
Festival. The rodeo, held in late January, has
grown into a weeklong celebration that
includes a parade and a host of other events
celebrating the pioneering spirit of the area.
The decade of the 1950s brought considerable
change to South Dade as roads were
improved and more and more Americans took
to the road. Tourism began to play a larger role
in South Dade’s economy. Motels, tourist
courts, restaurants and souvenir shops sprung
up along South Dixie Highway to lure visitors
on their way to the Keys or Everglades
National Park. South Dade High School
opened in 1951 to replace Homestead and
Redland High Schools.
Due in part to the Cold War, Homestead Air
Force Base was re-established in 1953, but it
was 1955 before work had reached the point
that the first Strategic Air Command tactical aircraft,
a B47 named City of Homestead, arrived.
The base would see heavy use during the
Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 and during
the Vietnam War. Many retired military
families located close to the base to take advantage
of the military benefits. They inhabited
newly established communities like Leisure
City, a massive planned development that originally
featured flat-topped “Sundeck Homes.”
Later, thousands more retirees, both military
and civilian, flocked to similar developments
like Naranja Lakes and the many mobile home
parks near the base.
The Homestead “by-pass” was completed in
1958 as South Dixie Highway was rerouted
several blocks east of the business section of
Homestead and Florida City. This spurred new
development of shopping centers, fast food
restaurants, motels, and automobile dealerships
along the route while the Krome Avenue
downtown began a long decline.
Agriculturally, the area was stronger than ever,
as South Dade became known as the nation’s
“Winter Salad Bowl,” with 30,000 acres devoted
to winter produce. Avocados, limes and mangos
were also major crops. The largest tomato-packing
house in the world was built in Princeton in
1955; today it is a thriving weekend flea market
and produce stand. More and more tourists and
Miamians began discovering the many U-Pic
fields along Krome Avenue. Upwards of 10,000
largely Spanish-speaking migrant workers, mostly
of Mexican origin, would inhabit the area during
harvest season to work in the fields.
The Homestead Extension of the Florida
Turnpike was completed in 1974, cutting travel
time to Miami and giving rise to the area being
promoted as a bedroom community to Miami.
Foremost in this promotion was the Villages of
Homestead, located on 3300 acres that the city
annexed in 1974. The annexation roughly doubled
the size of the city. The $400 million project,
134 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

targeted to house 35,000 people and slated for
completion in 2015, was the largest planned unit
development in South Florida. Today the project
is still being developed and contains the areas of
the Villages, Keys Gate and the light-industry
Park of Commerce. It was to become home to
Homestead High School, Florida’s largest when it
was built in 1980. In addition, the Homestead
Sports Complex baseball facility, built in 1990,
and the Homestead Motorsports Complex, built
in 1995 and now host to a Winston Cup race, are
located in this section of the city.
Biscayne National Park, the largest marine
park in the country, stretches from Key
Biscayne to northern Key Largo. The 275-
square mile area was created in 1980 and
includes the coastal wetlands along South
Dade’s eastern shore. The headquarters and
main visitor center is located directly east of
Homestead/Florida City. This park, along with
Everglades National Park, gives South Dade
the distinction of being the only area in the
United States bordered on two sides by national
parks. This is a leading factor in the area
being boosted as an eco-tourism destination.
When Hurricane Andrew slammed into the
heart of South Dade just before daybreak on
August 24, 1992, the area had about 90,000 residents.
Its economy was likened to a three-legged
stool supported by agribusiness, tourism, and
the military (both active duty and retired) associated
with Homestead Air Force Base. The hurricane
caused $20 billion in damage and was the
costliest natural disaster to hit the United States
up to that time. In a matter of several hours the
three legs of South Dade’s economy were blown
away. In addition to the area-wide devastation,
mango, lime and avocado trees were destroyed
along with packinghouses and the State Farmer’s
Market in Florida City. The 11,000 jobs indirectly
related to the base were gone as thousands
were transferred out of the area within days.
Many of the retired military were among the
30,000 predominately middle-class residents
who permanently relocated away from South
Dade after the storm. While the area’s rebuilding
over the next 18 months created a brief business
boom, the long-term effects of the storm are still
evident, as the local economy is still struggling.
Currently HAFB redevelopment remains stalled
with two competing proposals, a commercial airport
and an office park with convention center
hotel and golf courses vying for the property.
Biscayne National Park’s Convoy Point Visitor Center offers educational exhibits, lectures and boat trips. Over 200 species
of fish call the Park’s coral reefs home. (PHOTO BY WALLACE, ROBERTS & TODD, COURTESY OF BISCAYNE NATIONAL PARK)
In recent years, the area surrounding the
conflux of the turnpike and US 1 in Florida
City has seen a commercial building boom. The
Florida City Outlet Mall opened in 1994 and a
new Wal-Mart was built in 1999. A Home
Depot is under construction and plans are
underway for a $60 million water theme park.
Homestead saw two large developments
open in 1995, the $30 million fruitbowl-colored
Homestead branch of Miami Dade
Community College and a new state-of-the art
YMCA facility.
The Homestead Antique Federation, established
in 1990, is an active association of the
members in the antique district, located along
Krome Avenue in the several blocks north and
south of the Homestead Old Town Hall.
Chosen as a Florida Mainstreet Community in
1993, the area now contains a growing number
of antique and collectible shops, specialty
stores, and restaurants. Adjacent to historic
downtown is a new development of singlefamily
homes called Pioneer Village. It sits on
the site of many of Homestead’s earliest homes
that were destroyed by Andrew.
The Redland Farming Centennial was celebrated
during 1998. The yearlong series of
events recognized the community’s historic
roots and its 100 years of farming in the
Redland area. Farming, or more correctly
agribusiness, today has a billion-dollar impact
on the Miami-Dade county economy and produces
the equivalent of 23,000 full time jobs.
As farming has grown into a year-round
business, programs are under way to convince
migrant farm workers to give up the migrant
lifestyle and settle down in South Dade now that
work is available in the many orchid, grove and
ornamental plant nurseries located throughout
the area all year long. Mexican heritage and culture
are celebrated in the annual Cinco de Mayo
festival. Many shops and fine Mexican restau -
rants are located throughout the area.
In the non-incorporated Redland communities,
growth pressures are strong and residents
are divided over zoning and development
issues. The area is exploring incorporation as a
means to ensure residents have a strong influence
in its future. South Dade may soon be
home, once again, to three municipalities.
While South Dade’s economy has remained
sluggish since the Andrew rebuilding boom,
there is evidence that it is beginning to
rebound. Population has now surpassed pre-
Andrew levels. The factors figuring into the current
growth are spacious open land and affordable
neighborhoods, free from congestion and
traffic, which allow a peaceful, quiet way of life.
These are the same factors that have fueled the
previous 100 plus years of settlement.
Robert J. Jensen is a retired U.S. Naval officer and a semi-retired officer of The First National Bank of Homestead. Of the twenty-two years he has lived in South
Dade, he has been president of the Florida Pioneer Museum Association twenty years. After serving seven years on the Miami-Dade County Historic Preservation Board,
he moved to the Miami-Dade Cultural Affairs Council, where he is the longest serving member.
Larry Wiggins was born in Ft. Myers, Florida in 1956. He graduated from the University of Miami with an accounting degree and is the controller for the South
Dade News Leader, a local newspaper in Homestead, where he has resided since 1978. He has served on the City of Homestead Historic Preservation Board and is
vice president of the Pioneer Museum of Homestead. His hobbies include genealogy, and he is an avid collector of old Miami and Miami Beach postcards.
CHAPTER XXX ✧ 135

(COURTESY DADE HERITAGE TRUST)
SHARING THE HERITAGE
historic profiles of businesses,
organizations, and families that
have contributed to the development and
economic base of Miami
136 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

The Jackson Family .....................................................................138
Economic Opportunity Family Health Center, Inc. ............................142
Florida Marlins Baseball Club ......................................................145
Fuchs Baking Company/Holsum Bakery...........................................146
Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd. ......................................................148
Miami-Dade County Public Schools................................................150
Town of Bay Harbor Islands .........................................................152
Miami-Dade County Fair & Exposition...........................................154
Antillean Marine Shipping Corporation Miami River ........................156
Kubicki Draper ..........................................................................158
Amtech/TVC Latin America ..........................................................160
Palmer Trinity School..................................................................162
Bal Harbour Village ....................................................................164
Miami MetroZoo .........................................................................166
The Floridean Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.............................168
Assurant Group/American Bankers.................................................170
Salussolia & Associates ...............................................................172
The Sieger Suarez Architectural Partnership GS2 & EGS2 .................174
Miami-Dade Community College....................................................176
Keen Battle Mead & Associates .....................................................177
Dade Heritage Trust....................................................................178
Coconut Grove Playhouse .............................................................179
The Biltmore Hotel, Coral Gables ..................................................180
Maxim’s Import Corporation .........................................................181
Casablanca on the Ocean .............................................................182
Farrey’s Wholesale Hardware Company, Inc. ...................................183
CORT Business Services Corporation ..............................................184
Johnson & Wales University .........................................................185
PineBank, N.A............................................................................186
Florida Auto Rental ....................................................................187
Florida Memorial College.............................................................188
Onyx Insurance Group.................................................................189
Village of Pinecrest .....................................................................190
J Poole Associates, Inc., Realtors...................................................191
The Related Group of Florida .......................................................192
TotalBank ..................................................................................193
The First National Bank of Homestead ...........................................194
McArthur Dairy .........................................................................195
Hyatt Regency Miami ..................................................................196
Turnberry Associates ...................................................................197
The Eaton Family .......................................................................198
Morgan A. Gilbert & Bertha Kitchell Gilbert...................................199
Village of El Portal .....................................................................200
Alliance for Aging, Inc. ...............................................................201
Miami Transfer Company .............................................................202
Bunnell Foundation .....................................................................203
Laura J. Mullaney, Realtor ...........................................................204
Oscar L. Range Funeral Home ......................................................204
Barry University ........................................................................205
The University of Miami John J. Koubek Memorial Center .................205
Gusman Center for the Performing Arts..........................................206
SPECIAL
THANKS TO
City of South Miami
Fair Haven Center
Honor International, Inc.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 137

DR. JAMES M.
JACKSON AND
THE HUTSON
FAMILY
✧
“A Family of Doctors”—under the portrait
of Dr. James Jackson are, left to right, back
to front: Dr. Edward Douglas Hutson and
Dr. Thomas W. Hutson, Jr., Dr. Thomas
Hutson, Sr., and Dr. James Jackson Hutson;
Dr. James Jackson Hutson, Jr., Dr. James
Jackson Hutson (center), and Dr. Mark
Woodward Hutson.
MIAMI’S FIRST PHYSICIAN:
JAMES MARY JACKSON
By William M. Straight, M.D.,
Medical Historian for Dade County Medical Society
In 1885, 19-year-old James M. Jackson hankered
to be a doctor. His physician father, James
Madison Jackson, wanted him to take over
management of the family’s citrus groves near
Bronson (Levy County), Florida. His mother,
Mary Glenn Jackson, nee Shands, thought he
was “cut out to be a doctor.” So in the fall of
1885, she sewed six hundred-dollar bills into
the lining of his best coat, and bade him goodbye
at the Bronson Station of the Florida
Railway & Navigation Company, called the
“Mullet Express” by locals. He was on his way
to New York City to enroll in the Bellevue
Hospital Medical School. This was the first successful
medical school/hospital/dispensary in
New York City, and its faculty included some of
the leading physicians and surgeons of the day.
At that time, there were no specific requirements
for admission to medical school,
although most applicants had attended high
school. Jackson, who was better educated than
many of his classmates, had completed a course
at the East Florida Seminary, Gainesville, and
had earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from
Emory University at Oxford, Georgia.
Medical students of that day were a boisterous
lot, often priding themselves on hard drinking,
heavy smoking and frolicking with women
of doubtful virtue. Jackson, having been raised
in a strict Methodist home, neither drank alcohol
nor smoked. Nor, God forbid, did he cavort
with loose women. After completing his first
138 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

year at Bellevue, Jackson returned to Florida
and successfully passed the Medical Board
Examination. He could now practice medicine,
but he wanted the M.D. degree, which required
a second year at Bellevue. He achieved this and
returned to Bronson where he began practice
with his father.
On October 3, 1894, he married his
childhood sweetheart, Ethel Barco, in
Bronson. Their marriage was blessed with two
daughters: Ethel (Mrs. Thomas Hutson, Sr.),
born in 1897, and Helen (Mrs. Byron
Freeland), born in 1901. They had a male
child who died shortly after birth.
This was a prosperous time, particularly
for the citrus industry in Levy County. But
three disastrous freezes in the winter of 1895-
96 destroyed not only the year’s crop, but the
trees, as well. People in the citrus industry left
Florida in droves when their living was taken
away, and now Levy County could barely support
one doctor, much less two. James
Jackson had to leave.
Joseph F. Parrott, who was Henry Flagler’s
right-hand man, offered him the position of
railway surgeon in the nascent City of Miami.
In early April 1896, he took a train to Fort
Lauderdale, and then boarded a small steamer
as far as the Miami River. He stepped ashore at
the foot of Avenue D (today’s Miami Avenue),
and in 45 minutes he had walked the length
and breadth of Miami’s streets, which were
unpaved and lined with tents and unpainted
frame buildings. It was not for him! When he
returned to the dock, the steamer had departed
and he was stranded until April 15, 1896,
when the first train arrived. In those few days,
he met the city’s movers and shakers, and was
infected with their enthusiasm. Three months
later, when the city incorporated (July 28,
1896), Jackson was the only physician living
within the city limits.
Jackson was of medium height, slender,
and walked with a quick step. Very sociable
and outgoing, he stopped to talk with friends,
strangers and even children he met as he made
his rounds on foot, bicycle, horse and buggy
and, after October 1905, by automobile. A
fussy dresser, in winter he wore dark suits, a
vest, dark hat and shoes. White Palm Beach
suits with stiffly starched shirts, a wing collar,
and four-in-hand pique tie with a stickpin in
the knot, and white socks and shoes were his
summer garb. For better ventilation, he
removed the crown of the stiff-brimmed straw
hat he wore in summer. A flower—often white
jasmine—customarily adorned his lapel.
He drank coffee incessantly, but alcohol
moderately. He was addicted to five-cent
cigars—Cincos—which he called “stinkos.”
His house call rounds could be traced by the
telltale cigar butts he deposited on steps or
porch rails before entering a patient’s house,
and then forgot to collect.
He was a leader of the medical profession
in Dade County during the first quarter of the
twentieth century. His fellow physicians
remember him as a good observer, a good listener,
a careful thinker and a man of sound
medical judgment. He was a very capable surgeon
for his day, maintaining the largest, most
up-to-date medical library in the community,
and going off to take medical education
courses annually. Vitally interested in organized
medicine, he was a founding member of
the Dade County Medical Society (1903), and
was its president three times. He served as
president of the Florida Medical Association
(1905), and president of the Southern
Medical Association (1911).
Jackson had good business judgment and
unwavering faith in Miami’s future. He made
several wise land purchases, and was a major
✧
Dr. Thomas Woodward Hutson and Ethel
Jackson Hutson, Dr. Jackson’s daughter,
in 1941.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 139

✧
Frank Borman, head of Eastern Airlines
(right) congratulates James J. Hutson, M.D.
on the thirtieth anniversary of Dr. Hutson’s
service as the airline’s medical director.
stockholder and chairman of the board of the
Bank of Bay Biscayne. He was a staunch supporter
of the Trinity Methodist Church and
community organizations such as the YMCA
and YWCA, the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts,
and the Miami Rotary Club. He was the first
Worshipful Master of Miami’s Masonic Lodge.
In August 1923, Jackson developed a
pesky cough, which he thought was due to
pneumonia caused by wearing an ice collar
around his neck while operating. The usual
treatments of the day had no effect; his conditioned
worsened and he lost weight. Doctors
at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore diagnosed a
fungus infection of the lung and gave him
intravenous Mercurochrome, the “new” drug
of that day. This caused severe distress and,
after three doses, Jackson left Baltimore and
returned to Miami. He died April 2, 1924,
probably of lung cancer, at his home on
Brickell Avenue. Four days later, the City
Commission called a special meeting, at
which Miami City Hospital was renamed The
James M. Jackson Memorial Hospital.
THE HUTSON FAMILY
DR. JACKSON’S LEGACY
By Marta B. Hutson
World War I brought many young men to
Miami. They came for training and fell in love
with its beaches and bay. As veterans, they
returned to make Miami their homes. Among
them was a young physician from Aiken,
South Carolina, Dr. Thomas Woodward
Hutson, who arrived in Miami to serve as a
Navy flight surgeon for the pilots training in
seaplanes at Dinner Key. A descendant of
the first physician of the pre-colonial
Carolinas, Hutson had trained with Dr.
Halstead at Johns Hopkins University and was
known as a superb surgeon. Following military
service, he married Dr. Jackson’s daughter
Ethel, and soon joined his father-in-law in
medical practice.
The young couple settled into their home
on what later became the Omni property, and
it was there that their first child was born.
Named in honor of his illustrious grandfather,
James Jackson Hutson would grow up to continue
the family tradition of medical service to
country and community. Dr. Jackson died
soon after his grandson’s birth, but his example
left a legacy that is still celebrated in
Miami today.
The small hospital, which was named for
Jackson after his death, grew to keep pace
with Miami’s booming population. The 24-
bed building (now known as The Alamo)
expanded to become Jackson Memorial
Hospital, a county hospital where Thomas
Hutson became chief-of-staff in the 1930s.
The changing necessities of medical practice
were already evident in these two generations
140 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

of physicians. Jackson had worked to establish
the hospital, struggling with infectious diseases,
including endemic yellow fever, in the
days before mosquito control. Miami grew by
giant steps measured by the extension of the
railroad to the Florida Keys. In 1935, a hurricane
struck Islamorada leaving hundreds of
railroad workers dead or missing. Thomas
Hutson, then railroad surgeon for the Florida
East Coast Railway, had to deal with the medical
crisis caused by this natural disaster.
Three more children were born to Thomas
and Ethel, and their grandfather’s example
inspired them all to serve through the practice
of medicine. Pat Sass became an X-ray technician,
Douglas practiced obstetrics and gynecology,
and Thomas became a surgeon. James,
the eldest and namesake of Dr. Jackson, practiced
general and aviation medicine.
James J. Hutson completed his medical training
at Duke University and entered the U.S.
Navy. He served in World War II as a medical
officer aboard a troop transport in the Pacific.
Following his service, Hutson joined his father
in private practice in Miami’s Ingraham
Building. During the Korean War he was
recalled to active duty as a flight surgeon and
returned with experience in aviation medicine
that would determine his future.
A generation of Hutsons who were Dr.
Jackson’s grandchildren grew up in a Miami that
continually welcomed new families and new
industries. Among these industries was Eastern
Airlines, established by Eddie Rickenbacker. In
1953 James J. Hutson was called to the Armco
hangar at Miami International Airport to meet
the legendary Rickenbacker. At the words, “OK,
kid, you’re hired,” he began a service that lasted
forty-two years.
In its glory days, Eastern was Miami’s
largest employer and Hutson, as its medical
director, served the medical needs of fellow
employees and Miamians. When a grateful
patient asked what he could give as a gift of
appreciation, Hutson replied, “Socks. I can
always use a pair of socks!” The socks were
given and accepted with delight, despite the
fact that they were noticeably red. Before
long, other patients joined this colorful tradition,
and to this day Hutson boasts that he’s
never had to buy a pair of socks.
There were some heartbreaking days of
medical service too, none more so than the
crash of Eastern flight 401 in 1972. On that
tragic night, many passengers and crew lost
their lives over the Everglades. The injured
were transported to Jackson Memorial
Hospital, by then a major trauma center. The
hospital named for his grandfather rallied into
action while Hutson kept a prayerful vigil
with the families and friends of victims.
During the night he telephoned his son
Jimmy to go to Roberts Drug Store for sedatives
with which to treat his patients while
they waited at the airport for news. Before any
protocol had been established for handling
aviation disasters, it was a moment-tomoment
struggle as the magnitude of this
tragedy unfolded.
Hutson’s son Jimmy (James Jackson
Hutson, Jr.) grew up with a love of aviation
and a tradition of service to country. He met
his childhood idol, Eddie Rickenbacker,
during visits to Eastern with his dad, and was
once awarded a “Rickenbacker dollar” by the
“Ace of aces.” During the Vietnam War, Jimmy
served as a combat assault helicopter pilot
and received the Distinguished Flying Cross.
After the war, he turned his attention to
fulfilling his great grandfather Jackson’s
legacy: service in medicine. Like his father
and grandfather before him,
James Hutson, Jr. was a flight
surgeon. He served in the U.S.
Coast Guard while on active
duty with the U.S. Public Health
Service. He currently practices
orthopedic trauma with the
University of Miami and Jackson
Memorial Hospital at the Ryder
Trauma Center.
James M. Jackson came to
Miami over a hundred years ago
and established a tradition that
his son-in-law, grandson and
great grandson have continued
to this day. Dr. Jackson’s family
provided medical care to the
early pioneers, railroad workers,
airline workers and all the
newcomers who continue to
make Miami their home.
✧
Dr. James Jackson Hutson, retired corporate
medical director of Eastern Airlines, and
Dr. James Hutson, Jr., professor of orthopedic
surgery, Univeristy of Miami, in front of
Dade Heritage Trust Headquarters, the
original office and surgery of pioneer
Dr. James Jackson.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 141

✧
Above: Dr. Carol Tordi talks with patients.
Opposite, top to bottom: Flamingo Plaza
Health Center, the James E. Scott Center,
and the Jefferson Reaves House for
Substance Abuse Treatment.
ECONOMIC
OPPORTUNITY
FAMILY HEALTH
CENTER, INC.
The Economic Opportunity Family Health
Center, Inc. (EOFHC) is a Florida 501 (c) 3,
not-for-profit, Federally Qualified Health
Center, which has been serving the local community
since 1968. EOFHC provides high
quality comprehensive primary healthcare,
mental health/substance abuse services to the
multi-cultural, multi-racial, and multi-ethnic
populations of Miami-Dade County. The company
provides these services regardless of the
patient’s immigration status or ability to pay.
Prior to 1968, the only healthcare available to
area residents was provided by the Jackson
Memorial Hospital, which provided mainly
emergency services. A small number of local
doctors and dentists provided limited healthcare
services as well. The situation changed
dramatically when President Lyndon Johnson
and the United States Congress passed the Equal
Opportunity Act in 1967 to improve healthcare
in inner city communities. As a result, funds
were made available to build EOFHC’s first facility,
Liberty City Medical Center.
Today, EOFHC owns and operates twelve
medical facilities, including four centers in public
schools and one center at Florida Memorial
College. A multi-cultural and multi-lingual staff
of approximately 300 serves a diverse clientele
of approximately 30,000 individuals who make
over 100,000 visits per year. The company
provides comprehensive services in eleven
areas: Primary care, Dentistry, Psychology,
Pharmacy, Laboratory Services, Substance
Abuse Services, HIV Services, Case
Management, Childcare, and Elementary
School Dropout programs.
EOFHC is a national leader in healthcare and
one of the largest minority employers in the
community. It was one of the first facilities of its
kind in the country and one of the first in the
State of Florida. Patients meeting eligibility
requirements pay for services based on a sliding
fee scale. In 1989, Family Health Center showed
flexibility in meeting the needs of community
residents by joining with the Dade County
Public Schools in an effort to reduce teenage
pregnancies. Together with the Dade County
Public Schools, the company opened a medical
center inside the Continuing Opportunities for
Purposeful Education (COPE) North School,
which provides comprehensive healthcare for
teenaged mothers and their babies.
In 1987, crack cocaine began to exert its grip
on the community. EOFHC responded by opening
the Jefferson Reeves House for crack-addicted
women and their children. The Jefferson
Reeves House was the first residential substance
abuse program in Florida to accept pregnant
women and their children. The program’s success
was extraordinary. Since its opening in
1987, Jefferson Reeves House has never had an
infant born addicted to chemical substances. In
1992, Family Health Center began operating a
daycare facility named after one of the center’s
visionary leaders, the late Ms. Jessie Trice.
Historically, three distinct communities are
represented in EOFHC’s service area: Liberty
City, Hialeah and Little Haiti. Liberty City is
predominantly African-American. Hialeah consists
primarily of Cuban and other Hispanic
immigrants from a variety of South American
and Caribbean countries. Little Haiti has a predominantly
Haitian population. This kind of
diversity in the area and its populations presents
a formidable challenge for EOFHC. It is a
challenge that the organization has successfully
met time and again.
In 1998, Anthony E. Munroe became the new
president and CEO of the EOFCH. He brought
with him a new vision of expanding its services
to better serve the community, reduce health
142 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

disparities and become more financially stable.
The organization’s mission is to provide comprehensive
healthcare in a holistic manner, assuring
access and quality to people in the community.
To this end, EOFHC opened two new medical
centers in 1999. The Flamingo (Hialeah)
Medical Center serves a predominantly Hispanic
patient base, and the Family Health Center
North serves a predominantly elderly population.
These centers were opened to address
growing segments of the population that have
had little access to quality healthcare in the past.
In addition to new facilities, the company
has a capital improvement plan, which
includes the renovation of its medical centers.
Renovations have already begun on the company’s
flagship Main Center, and work on the
Scott Carver facility will follow. The Main
Center’s renovations will provide patients
with expanded waiting areas and treatment
rooms, as well as state-of-the-art medical
equipment and computer diagnostic tools.
The facility includes a new “walk-in” center to
reduce patient wait time and increase efficiency.
It will also host a new state-of-the-art dental
office and a mobile dental unit.
One of EOFHC’s most ambitious plans is to
build a new state-of-the-art chronic disease
center. This center will provide the latest medical
and psychological treatments for patients
suffering from chronic diseases. It will combine
traditional medicine with alternative and
homeopathic medical treatments to offer a
more holistic approach to treating patients.
The goal is to treat the entire person, not just
the illness. Other community-based organizations
(CBO) will have offices inside the building,
and provide non-clinical services such as
legal assistance, immigration services and
many others. Preventive care will be a primary
focus of the new facility, with a focus on diet
and exercise, as well as lifestyle choices.
As part of the company’s goal of providing
the community greater access to high quality
healthcare services, EOFHC received a threeyear
accreditation from the Joint Commission
on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations
(JCAHO). JCAHO is the national organization
that accredits healthcare organizations based
on quality of service, and is the most stringent.
JCAHO accreditation is part of the company’s
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 143

✧
Above: A medical assistant giving a patient
an immunization.
Bottom: Dr. Edwin Bosa-Osorio examines a
patient.
focus on Performance Improvement (PI). The
goal of the PI program is to provide higher
quality care, improve efficiency and effectiveness,
and become more proactive in its goal of
reducing health disparities in the community.
EOFHC programs are being considered as
national models by JCAHO. EOFHC joins the
nation’s most elite healthcare organizations,
which are JCAHO accredited.
The company was awarded a special grant
from the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services to act as the lead organization of the
Community Based Organization Resource
Network (C-BORN) program. The company’s C-
BORN program is part of a special U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services
grant designed to provide technical assistance,
program funding and consultation services to
Community Based Organizations (CBOs) that
provide preventive and treatment services to
people affected by HIV/AIDS. The EOFHC’s C-
BORN program is one of only four in the entire
nation, and spans all of Miami-Dade County.
The company’s goals are to interconnect CBOs
via a computer network, provide consulting and
administrative assistance, increase CBO service
capacity, create new HIV/AIDS-related CBOs,
and provide funding where necessary. The program
has a projected participation of fourteen
Community Based Organizations the first year,
and thirty-three by the third year.
Economic Opportunity Family Health
Center, Inc. was created to serve the community
by providing quality healthcare services
and acting as an economic engine for the
community. Over the years the company has
increased its commitment and its investment
in the community through new medical centers,
expanded services and increased
employment opportunity. The company now
owns and operates fourteen different facilities.
In these troubled times, the organization is
more committed than ever to providing quality
healthcare services to all the residents of
the community.
144 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

FLORIDA
MARLINS
BASEBALL
CLUB
Major League Baseball in South Florida was
born on April 5, 1993, as the Florida Marlins
defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-3 to win
their inaugural game before 42,334 spectators
at Pro Player Stadium. Since that first game,
the Florida Marlins Baseball Club has enjoyed
a rich history, unparalleled by many professional
sports teams born years earlier.
The Marlins became the first team to
improve its record in each of the first five
years of its existence. The Marlins’ five-year
plan culminated in the team’s first World
Championship on October 26, 1997, achieving
the ultimate prize faster than any baseball team
in history. The Marlins also became the first
Wild Card team to capture the World Series,
winning with two outs in the bottom of the
11th inning in Game 7. The victory marked
Florida’s 29th win of the season in their final at
bat, in just the third Game 7 in Series history to
go into extra innings. The team’s never-say-die
attitude was evident as the team came from
behind to claim eight of its 11 postseason victories.
Livan Hernandez became the second
rookie to win the Series MVP award and the
first rookie pitcher in 50 years to win two
World Series starts. The Pro Player Stadium
crowd of 67,498 in Game 6 was the largest to
see a World Series game since 1954 and the
Marlins became the first team ever to draw over
500,000 in a single postseason.
Led by new team Chairman John W. Henry,
who acquired the team from H. Wayne
Huizenga on January 19, 1999, the Florida
Marlins are embarking on a new era, one
which promises to be an exciting time for the
team and its shareholders, the community. On
the field, the Florida Marlins are a hard working
team whose farm system is recognized for
outstanding player development. At the ballpark,
Florida Marlins fans enjoy a fun, familyoriented
experience in a clean, safe, and
friendly environment.
The club plays an active role in the community.
Players, coaches, front office staff, and
spouses support youth, education and baseball
through local organizations, schools, hospitals,
civic groups, and charities. “I’ve told
the organization that we’re going to redefine
what a baseball team can mean to a community,”
said Henry. “Sports teams can be leaders
in providing a sense of community.”
For more information, visit the Marlins’ web
site at www.flamarlins.com or call the Florida
Marlins Community Hotline at (305) 626-7470.
✧
Top: The Marlins celebrated their first
World Series Championship in 1997.
(PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF DENIS BANCROFT)
Below: Marlins pitcher Alex Fernandez
visited with students at Miami Lakes Middle
School in Miami Lakes. Fernandez is a
Miami Lakes resident and donated 550
tickets to the school in May, 1999.
(PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF MARYANN TATUM)
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 145

FUCHS BAKING COMPANY/HOLSUM BAKERY
✧
Above: Linke & Fuchs Homestead Bakery
and Meat Market in 1913. The building still
carried the name of W. Nobles, from whom
it had just been purchased. Left to right:
Doc the horse, Charles Fuchs, Charles
Junior, Annie Linke Fuchs, Richard Linke,
and Logan who is loading the truck.
Below: In 1934, Holsum Bakery moved its
working forces into what was once a plush
movie theater on South Dixie Highway in
South Miami, and converted it into one of
the most modern bakeries in the South.
Among the Europeans who emigrated to
America during the nineteenth century were
Charles Theodor Fuchs and Annie Linke,
Germans who met and married in New York
City in 1888. In 1912, Charles and Annie
Fuchs moved to Homestead, Florida, with
their five children. By 1913, the family had
bought a store on Krome Avenue and started
operating the Homestead Bakery and Meat
Market. Soon the bakery was producing 200
loaves a day under Charles T. Fuchs, Jr., who
also delivered bread to homes in the area.
The Homestead Bakery became well
known for the quality and freshness of its
products, and for good service. Two more
Homestead locations were added in the
1920s, and capital investors were brought in:
Luther L. Chandler, a prosperous farmer; and
Thomas J. Faust, a former schoolteacher, who
was Charles Jr.’s brother-in-law.
The business survived the 1926 hurricane,
the upheavals of Prohibition, and the
Depression. By 1931, its eight delivery routes
extended well outside the Homestead area, so
the Homestead Bakery’s name was changed to
Fuchs Baking Company. When the family company
became affiliated with the Long
Foundation of Food Research of Chicago in
1933, Fuchs began using “Holsum,” a Long
trademark, on its bread wrappers. W. E. Long
Company grew to be the largest cooperative of
independent bakers in the United States, and
its members still use the Holsum name on
bread products sold throughout the country.
During the years the bakery was headquartered
in Homestead, Fuchs, Chandler, and
Faust worked hard, borrowed money,
constructed a new plant, and expanded distribution.
They developed loyalty to Holsum
bread through involvement in community
activities and effective advertising. When its
delivery area grew more toward Miami, the
company bought an old theater building on
U.S. 1 (South Dixie Highway) in South Miami.
In 1934, operations were moved to the new
location without missing a day of baking. Old
timers still recall the delicious aroma of baking
bread that wafted across Dixie Highway. During
the 1940s and ’50s, families flocked to see the
bakery’s animated displays at Christmas time.
Fish fries there included tours of the bakery,
and everyone went home with a loaf of Holsum
bread. It was also well known for wedding and
birthday cakes, and other sweet goods.
A million-dollar addition completed in
1948 made Fuchs Baking Company the most
146 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

automated facility in the United States, and a
showplace for the industry. The bakery was such
a marvel that the Southern Bakers Association
held its annual meeting in Miami that year, so its
450 delegates could tour Fuchs’ modern miracle
of automation. A new era in the bread industry
had been launched in South Florida.
On the last day of 1949, Charles Fuchs, Jr.
was killed in a hunting accident in the
Everglades, but under the leadership of his
heirs and the stockholders, the “Holsum family”
bakery continued to flourish. His legacy of hard
work, loyalty to employees and customers, and
commitment to the highest quality in both service
and products kept the business growing.
Thrift stores and distribution centers spread
from Key West to Daytona, from Orlando to
Fort Myers. Presidents who followed Fuchs
were Luther Chandler, Jodean Cash, Gene
Chivers, Joe Grant, and Brian Wilson.
George M. Wilson, Fuchs’ son-in-law,
became CEO and chairman of the board in the
1960s. Wilson continued and expanded the
company’s tradition of community service. He
was elected to the Coral Gables City
Commission, and was active in Kiwanis
and other civic groups. Wilson was elected
chairman of the American Bakers Association
(ABA), and served nine terms as chairman of
the board of the W. E. Long Co-op.
The company entered floats in Miami’s
Orange Bowl Parade on New Year’s Eve, was
one of the sponsors of the Dade County Youth
Fair, and underwrote exhibitions at the Miami
Museum of Science. It was a major corporate
sponsor of the United Way campaign and the
Florida Keys Fishing Tournament, among
other activities.
Fuchs Baking Company expanded to the
south, distributing by air service to the
Caribbean. Bakeries were opened in Freeport,
Bahamas; Caracas, Venezuela; Curacao,
Netherlands Antilles; and a flourmill in
Bogotá, Colombia. After forty-eight years in
the center of South Miami, it was time for a
third move and another new plant. In 1982,
Fuchs Baking Company built a state-of-theart
facility off the Palmetto Expressway near
South River Drive in Medley.
During the 1990s, small independent
companies of all kinds were squeezed out of
business by mega stores or absorbed by large
conglomerates. Bakeries were no exception.
On June 11, 1994, Fuchs Baking Company
was sold to Interstate Baking Company, one of
the largest in the U.S. At this writing, some of
the employees who baked for the Fuchs family
still turn out loaves of Holsum bread for South
Florida’s tables.
Over a span of eighty-one years, four
generations of the family had run the company:
Charles T. Fuchs, Sr., Charles T. Fuchs,
Jr., George M. Wilson (husband of Jane Fuchs
Wilson), and their son Brian C. Wilson. The
company and its dedicated employees made a
lasting contribution to South Florida’s
growth. The Holsum Story, a complete, illustrated
history by Steve Sikes and Jane Fuchs
Wilson, is available through Miami-Dade
County public libraries.
✧
Above: In South Miami the bakery
expanded to occupy almost all the property
between US 1 and Red Road, Sunset Drive,
and Southwest 58th Avenue. This photo,
taken in 1978, shows U.S. 1 looking south.
Below: A view of the Medley plant shortly
after it opened in 1982. Tours of the plant,
which is visible from the Palmetto
Expressway, were popular field trips for
school children.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 147

ROYAL
CARIBBEAN
CRUISES, LTD.
✧
Voyager of the Seas’ arrival in Miami on
November 11, 1999.
When the magnificent Voyager of the Seas
sailed its maiden voyage November 21, 1999,
it marked the third time Royal Caribbean
Cruises Ltd. unveiled against the Miami skyline
a revolutionary design in cruise ships.
Song of Norway (1970) and Sovereign of
the Seas (1988) also made Miami debuts
representing historic shifts in nautical design,
now familiar to millions of cruise guests.
Innovation marks every turn for the world’s
second-largest cruise company, which operates
two brands, Royal Caribbean International
and Celebrity Cruises.
By the end of 2000, 17 of the 19 ships in
the company’s ultra-modern fleet will have
been built since 1990. Eight additional ships
are scheduled to launch by 2003. These luxury
cruise liners feature state-of-the-art technology,
creative guest programs, global itineraries
and unparalleled service to almost two
million guests annually.
Royal Caribbean’s distinctive crown and
anchor was first seen on Song of Norway. It
sailed from Miami November 7, 1970, as the
world’s first ship designed for warm-weather
cruising instead of point-to-point ocean transport.
An expansive pool deck lay below a cocktail
lounge cantilevered from the rear of the
smokestack—the Viking Crown Lounge, hallmark
of each successive Royal Caribbean ship.
As Royal Caribbean embarked on ambitious
expansion in the late 1980s, Sovereign of
the Seas made Miami home to the world’s
largest purpose-built cruise ship. The 73,192-
ton vessel, which first sailed January 16,
1988, boasted the first five-deck Centrum, a
design milestone with glass elevators, lush
foliage, sweeping staircases and fountains in
marble pools.
With Voyager of the Seas, the first of three
Eagle-class ships measuring 142,000 GRTs—
the largest in the world—Royal Caribbean has
arrayed features that exceed 20th Century
imagination. The 3,114-passenger ship is a
showcase of unique amenities, such as an iceskating
rink, rock-climbing wall, and a fourdeck-high
Royal Promenade shopping and
entertainment mall with unprecedented atrium-view
staterooms.
This puts an exclamation point on a
decade of spectacular growth. Nordic Empress
(1990) was the first ship designed specifically
for short cruises. With Monarch the Seas
(1991) and Majesty of the Seas (1992), Royal
Caribbean became the only cruise line with
70,000-ton megaships based year-round in
the three major Caribbean markets.
Then in even more rapid expansion, Royal
Caribbean gave birth to six Vision-class mega
ships in three years. These “Ships of Light”
were Legend of the Seas (1995), Splendour of
the Seas (1996), Grandeur of the Seas (1996),
Rhapsody of the Seas (1997), Enchantment of
the Seas (1997), and Vision of the Seas (1998).
In the midst of Project Vision, the company
took an even bolder step June 16, 1997, with
the $1.3-billion acquisition of premium brand
Celebrity Cruises. Widely recognized for the
148 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

est cuisine at sea, Celebrity Cruises brought
five gorgeous ships, including Century (1995),
Galaxy (1996), and Mercury (1997).
In designing a fleet for the 21st century,
Royal Caribbean and Celebrity researched and
developed new, environmentally sensitive
technologies. Celebrity’s Millenium, the first of
four new 91,000-ton ships for Celebrity
Cruises, features the first cruise-ship application
of gas turbine engines. Gas turbine
engines require more refined fuel than dieselelectric
systems but reduce airborne emissions
by up to ninety percent. The engines
were introduced this year.
In 1998, Royal Caribbean International
became the first to install on every ship a
bilge-water treatment system called Marinfloc,
which cleans waste water and reduces oil content
to less than five parts per million. This is
three times cleaner than the legal standard of
fifteen parts per million—another example of
the company’s “ABC” environmental policy—
Above and Beyond Compliance.
The company also takes a leadership role as
a corporate citizen through a program called
G.I.V.E.—Get Involved, Volunteer Everywhere.
G.I.V.E reflects a major component of the company’s
Vision Statement, that of “enhancing the
well-being of our communities.”
G.I.V.E. service projects have been conducted
from the Caribbean islands to Alaska.
Hundreds of shipboard and shore side volunteers
participate annually in these outreach
efforts, such as renovating a homeless shelter
and soup kitchen in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin
Islands, and a child-care center in San Juan,
or rebuilding softball fields in Haines and a
skateboard park in Juneau. Volunteers perform
painting, landscaping and beach
cleanups among dozens of projects in Miami
and Fort Lauderdale.
The company also contributes to environmental
protection through its Ocean Fund,
which donated more than $2.5 million to
marine conservation organizations from 1996
to 2000. Among 30-plus grant recipients are
The Nature Conservancy, Earthwatch
Institute, Center for Marine Conservation,
University of Florida and University of Miami.
MAST Academy, a marine-science magnet high
school on Key Biscayne, received $50,000 to
convert a school bus (LandSHARC) into a
computer-equipped mobile laboratory.
Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. is publicly
traded on the New York Stock Exchange
(RCL) and the Oslo Exchange. In fiscal 1999,
the company reported net income of $383.9
million on operating revenue of $2.5 billion.
✧
Top: Centrum on the Voyager of the Seas.
Below: Celebrity Cruises’ Century visiting
Gythion, Greece.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 149

MIAMI-DADE
COUNTY
PUBLIC
SCHOOLS
Before there was a Miami, there was Dade
County Public Schools.
The Dade school board first met in 1885,
eleven years before Miami’s incorporation. That
modest gathering changed South Florida forever.
Said one historian: “Although frontier life would
continue until [Henry Flagler’s] railroad arrived
in 1896, the opening of the first public schools
brought order and stability to the wilderness.”
Today, Miami is 104 years old, no longer a
frontier town but a frontier metropolis. Gateway
to the Americas. Meeting ground, and sometime
battleground, for diverse people of diverse cultures
and dreams.
But for all the changes of the past century, the
role of Dade County Public Schools, now Miami-
Dade County Public Schools, has stayed the
same. More than any other institution, our
schools bring order, stability, and civility to the
lives of our students and the community.
When the Dade school board first met, Dade
County encompassed nearly half the state, from
north of Lake Okeechobee to the Monroe
County line. The population: less than 400.
That year, Dade’s first public school opened
in Lake Worth, now part of Palm Beach
County. A year or two later, the first public
school within Miami-Dade County’s current
bounds opened in a palmetto-thatched log
house near Dinner Key in Coconut Grove.
The school board budgeted $175 to hire a
teacher for a five-month contract. The number
of students: 10, but just barely. The count
included “Little Joe” Frow, too young for first
grade but counted anyhow to meet the minimum
enrollment for board funding, one of the
few times a Dade superintendent would have to
grapple with the problem of under-crowding.
By 1889, the Coconut Grove School had
moved to a new building. The one-room schoolhouse
was said to have been built with lumber
from a shipwreck. The building still stands today
on the grounds of Sunset Elementary School.
In late 1889, the school board hired a new
teacher: Flora McFarland, an English sea captain’s
daughter. Known as a “woman of strong
character and opinions,” she came equipped
with all the essentials for her job: slate and
soapstone for writing; a jug of whiskey for
snake bites and scorpion stings; and a shotgun
for panthers prowling in the piney woods.
As Dade grew, so did Dade County Public
Schools. By 1896, the year of Miami’s incorporation,
the Dade school board ran 15 schools.
Miami may have been new, but it was still a
bastion for old notions and old ways. It wasn’t
until 1893, nearly a decade after the school
board first met, that a public school for black
children was established in old Dade. The first
such school in the Miami area met at St. Paul’s
A.M.E. Church on Charles Avenue in Coconut
Grove. From then until the 1960s, Dade County
Public Schools was really two separate school
districts: one for whites, another for blacks.
The turn of the century launched decades of
phenomenal growth, for Miami and for Dade’s
public schools. By 1924, it was clear: Miami was
a boomtown, with 33 new schools to prove it.
With the boom came the tourists, the residents,
and the opportunists, all eager to take
a bite of the Big Orange. The days were heady.
Miami was America’s favorite backyard sandbox,
and it seemed everybody stopped by to
play—until 1926, when the boomtown went
bust, its budding skyline blown away by the
fiercest hurricane these parts had seen.
But in the storm’s wake, and even through
the bleak years of the Great Depression and
World War II, Dade County Public Schools
kept on growing. When the war ended and
peace was finally at hand, the people of Dade
150 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

turned toward home, ready to broker a peace
of a different kind: civil rights.
It was Monday, September 7, 1959, when
Jim Crow began to die in Dade. Twenty-five
African-American children stepped onto the
grounds of Orchard Villa and Air Base elementary
schools, forever uniting Dade’s dual
school systems into one. The desegregation of
Dade County Public Schools would continue
for decades. But on that singular day, four
years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark
Brown versus the Board of Education
decision, 25 brave children taught their
neighbors a lesson we must never forget: that
separate is not equal, and we are nothing if
we are not one.
Meanwhile, across the Caribbean, as Miami
struggled to come together, Cuba struggled to
stay whole. It was not to be. Torn apart by an
impostor named Castro, Cuba’s people were
cast to the wind and the waves, set adrift
across the sea, toward a new home on Miami’s
shores and in Dade’s public schools.
To many of those first Cuban refugees,
Dade County’s public schools were America: a
place to learn, grow, speak and be free.
That first wave triggered dynamic changes.
Dade’s growth accelerated, and its culture and
economy took on a new zest. Dade educators
pioneered new ways of teaching, and new
schools appeared all over the county, even in
the western reaches once reserved for alligators
and egrets. It was the ’60s, a time of
experimentation, hope, and tumult, a time of
televised classes, double sessions, faculty
desegregation, bilingual education, and an
unprecedented statewide teacher walkout.
The ’70s brought open attitudes, open
classrooms, and what looked like open-ended
growth, until late in the decade when enrollment
dropped and 11 schools were closed,
signaling the end of double sessions, quinmesters,
and other measures to ease crowding.
The enrollment drop would not last. As the
’80s began, Dade students who had once left
for private schools switched back to public
schools by the thousands. Their return reflected
growing confidence in the school district
and its new reform-minded school board.
Throughout the ’80s, Dade’s schools won
kudos across the nation for expertly assimilating
wave after wave of new immigrants, particularly
students from Nicaragua, Haiti, and the Cuban
port of Mariel.
The era was fraught with opportunity and
challenge. Dade County Public Schools responded
with innovation. The community and the
nation took notice. When Liberty City was
rocked by riots in 1980, building after building
was vandalized or torched. One of the few left
standing, without a scratch: Drew Elementary
School, revered by her neighbors as a beacon of
hope amid the despair.
Meanwhile, the Dade school district emerged
as a leader of America’s education-reform movement.
The New York Times and the television networks
touted our innovations. Schools around
the nation followed our lead, teaching their students
Dade County style. Educators from as far
away as Japan dropped by to see for themselves.
The tougher the challenge, the more creative
and visionary the school district’s
response. When Hurricane Andrew devastated
South Dade in 1992, not only did the school
board rebuild damaged schools, it revamped
their curriculum, as well.
By 1996, the board even revamped itself.
Under pressure to boost minority representation,
it expanded from seven to nine members,
all elected for the first time from single-member
districts. The number of black members doubled,
and the number of Hispanic members
quadrupled. With a new board, Miami-Dade
County Public Schools headed in a new direction,
more responsive than ever to the multicultural
community it serves.
Today, Miami-Dade County enters a new
millennium, with infinite mystery and promise.
As we explore the frontiers that lie ahead, one
thing will stay constant: Miami-Dade County
Public Schools, as always, the force that keeps
us together—our source of order and stability
in the wilderness.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 151

✧
A gem on Biscayne Bay.
TOWN OF BAY HARBOR ISLANDS
It is difficult to imagine that what is now
the Town of Bay Harbor Islands in the heart of
northeast Miami-Dade County was once a
scrub-covered sand bar in Biscayne Bay called
Bailey’s Island. In the mid-1940s, lawyerdeveloper
Shepard Broad swapped his share of
a downtown Miami office building for 253
acres of partially submerged land and founded
Bay Harbor Islands. Following his own visionary
plan, he split the island off Miami Beach’s
96th Street into two sections with a northsouth
canal. Broad intended to develop the
West Island with homes for year round residents,
and envisioned the East Island as more
urban, bisected by a concourse lined with
shops and offices. On the East Island he
planned apartments and duplexes for northern
snowbirds. The town was incorporated in
1947 and Broad, the town’s mayor from its
inception until 1973, still lives on the West
Island to this day.
By the end of 1951, there were ninety-three
single-family residences on the West Island.
The East Island was taking shape with 19
duplexes, 444 apartment units, a 50-room
hotel, and a 32-unit apartment hotel.
Commercial buildings lined Kane Concourse,
the main business thoroughfare named for
Benjamin N. Kane, who joined Broad in the
development venture. A private school and a
cabana club with swimming pool also graced
the East Island by 1951. That same year, Broad
Causeway opened to vehicular traffic. It quickly
was recognized as the most convenient
route from the mainland to Bay Harbor Islands
and other beach communities and, as roads
often do, it brought a boom to Bay Harbor
Islands that doubled the population. By
February 1952, the year-round population
was over 1,000. The causeway remains a vital
link—and a hurricane evacuation route—
between the mainland and many waterfront
areas of north Miami-Dade County. Causeway
toll revenues are used to repay the bond issues
that in 1951 and in 1989 financed the cause-
152 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

way and drawbridge, and to defray the
expense of maintaining these scenic, functional
transportation facilities.
The town’s population of approximately
4,700 has remained stable for the past twentyfive
years but the demographics are changing.
What was once a quiet retreat for older adults
and retirees now is home to a younger population.
Families of all ethnic groups send their
children to the newly constructed Ruth K.
Broad Bay Harbor Elementary School, and an
influx of working professionals are joining
seniors in the low-rise waterfront condominiums,
whose heights had been limited by ordinance.
In 1998, the town approved buildings
up to fifteen stories, and the population base is
expected to grow.
Bay Harbor Islands provides its residents
with all the services of larger municipalities,
while it maintains the small-town touch of individual
concern for each citizen. Two parks offer
relaxing green space, a tot-lot playground
is maintained for small children, and summer
tennis camps for children are available at the
Town’s three tennis courts. Bay Harbor Islands
offers town socials with entertainment and
refreshments for adults, and every year the
police department and local chamber of
commerce host a holiday party for underprivileged
children. The ocean is just across the
Indian Creek Bridge, and nearby Haulover Park
includes golf, a marina, and a public beach.
Residents can walk to many services, but
for those who need motor transportation, the
Town has operated a minibus for twenty-five
years. For a nominal charge, it ferries residents
to business and shopping districts in Bay
Harbor Islands and other nearby cities. The
minibus’ weekday 9-to-5 hours make it ideal
for retirees, but people of all ages use it to get
around. Bay Harbor Islands offers the security
that living on an island ensures. Its excellent
police force is on duty twenty-four hours a
day, and it remains one of the most crime-free
areas in the United States. Bay Harbor Islands
operates under a Council-manager form of
government, with seven elected officials and
an appointed town manager.
Bay Harbor Islands recently celebrated its
fiftieth anniversary, and the Bay Harbor Islands
Development Association, whose members are
local business owners, raised substantial funds
to purchase and install a sculpture—Robert
Indiana’s “LOVE.” This well-known sculpture
has become a new focal point for Kane
Concourse, the community’s vibrant business
district. In a town known for its fine art galleries,
shopping, professional offices and
restaurants, the new sculpture literally reflects
the town’s benevolent, open-arms attitude
toward residents and visitors alike.
✧
“…all the pleasures of small-town living with
all the benefits of world-class cities nearby.”
- The Miami Herald, August 1, 1999.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 153

MIAMI-DADE
COUNTY FAIR &
✧
Top: Agriculture has always been an
important component of the Fair. This
picture from 1969 shows Fair Queen Kate
Reilly about to crown a champion bull being
led by Fair King Craig Stevens.
Below: Typical 1999 Fair crowd along Main
Street, which connects the Midway with the
exhibit buildings.
EXPOSITION
It started small in the early 1950s. A handful
of adults wanted a wholesome, family
event to promote agriculture in an increasingly
urban area and to teach county youth farming
and homemaking.
The founders, mostly 4-H Club leaders,
formed the non-profit Southeast Florida and
Dade County Youth Fair. A major leader in
the effort was J. Lawrence Edwards, an assistant
county agent. Edwards died in 1953. An
exhibition building is named in his honor.
The first four-day Fair was in January,
1952. Admission was free. Change was stirring:
People were watching something called
television—and rock and roll was almost here
to stay.
The first three years, the Fair was at Camp
Tequesta, an isolated area on North Kendall
Drive just west of two-lane U.S. 1. Dadeland
Mall is now located at this site.
Years four through six saw the Fair at
Southwest Eighth Street and 112th Avenue,
now home to Florida International
University. In 1958, the Fair moves to county-owned
land on North Kendall Drive and
Southwest 97th Avenue. In the next few
years, The Fair Association, working with the
Kiwanis Club, forms Kiwanis Youth Land (K-
Land) on the site.
By 1962, the Youth Fair is packing them in
with greased pig contests, a fat steer show,
and a Twist Contest—“the latest dance craze.”
Attendance is 19,841.
W. B. Arnold, Jr. is Fair Board president
and board members were given an office and
a phone number: Newton 5-6114. Arnold
remains a board member today—and Arnold
Hall bears his name for his fine service.
Fast forward to 1972, the first year in The
Fair’s “permanent” new home. Fair officials
sign a long-term lease with county commissioners
to use 60 acres in the southeast corner
of Tamiami Park. Today’s fairgrounds are born.
By now, the Fair is in March (organizers
discovered that South Florida’s coldest days
occur in January). The Midway has grown to
40 rides and the Fair lasts 11 days. More than
$6,500 is given in student scholarships.
Attendance is 203,828.
There’s a paid staff, led by General Manager
E. Darwin Fuchs, an ex-radio advertising
account executive, who started as a fair volunteer
in 1965 and became director in 1969.
The decade from 1972 to 1982 is one of
unprecedented growth. The Fair invests more
than $3 million in capital improvements. It
builds two exhibition halls, storage facilities
and offices; paves roads; installs underground
wiring and sewers in a Master Plan to create a
park-like setting. The money comes from Fair
revenue, not from any tax funds.
In 1982, the Fair expands to 18 days.
Attendance jumps this year to nearly
800,000. More than 40,000 student exhibits
are on display. Scholarships total $23,600 and
premiums and awards exceed $70,000.
154 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

During the past decade, Greater Miami has
been attracting immigrants from Cuba, the
Caribbean, Central, and South America. A
new local band, The Miami Sound Machine,
appears at the Fair in 1985.
By 1992, the Fair is reaching out to new
markets and new cultures. Adults begin to
exhibit in 1994 in 17 departments.
A multimillion-dollar grounds expansion is
begun in cooperation with FIU and the
Miami-Dade County Commission. “Signature
Corner” with its family sculpture debuts in
1992 at Southwest 24th Street and 107th
Avenue. Tamiami Stadium is moved west and
renamed FIU Community Stadium. The Fair
pays 50 percent of the $4 million cost and
expands to 80 acres.
FIU’s $17 million Performing Arts Center is
completed on the northwest quadrant of Fair
land. The Fair provides the space and initial
funding of $1.4 million. It uses the center for
performing arts competitions during fair time.
Internally, the main entrance is expanded.
“Youth” is dropped from the Fair’s name in
1997 to indicate it’s an event for all ages. The
facilities are named the Fair Expo Center and
a staff is hired to book events throughout the
year. A portion of these revenues goes to
Miami-Dade County.
The Fair now reaches throughout the
county, sponsoring youth sports competitions
year-round in conjunction with public, private
and parochial schools and the county
parks department.
In 1999, the Fair awards $101,000 in
scholarships, $114,000 in student premiums
and trophies and $18,670 in adult premiums.
The midway has grown to more than 100
rides. There are 172 food booths and restaurants,
170 shops, 45 games, more than 100
free shows and 50,000 exhibits. Attendance is
pushing one million.
As the Fair nears its 50th anniversary in
2001, it is building a third exhibition building,
The Sunshine Pavilion, which will spotlight
South Florida’s agri-business. The
Pavilion is built to withstand sustained
winds of 150 miles per hour and gusts up to
175 mph. It will serve as a staging area,
under the jurisdiction of the county manager,
if Miami-Dade is again threatened by a
major hurricane.
What is Fuchs’ formula for success? “Our
mission is to spotlight student and adult
achievement, provide wholesome family
entertainment and appeal equally to every
segment of our multicultural community.
This formula has worked in the past; it will
fuel the future.”
✧
Top, left: Hialeah High students show their
culinary skills at the 1999 Fair as part of
the on-going exhibits demonstrations.
Top, right: Irish step dancers in the Spirit of
the Dance cast performed during the 1999
Fair. All shows were free with admission.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 155

ANTILLEAN
MARINE
SHIPPING
CORPORATION
MIAMI RIVER
In 1960, the Babun brothers—Jose, Teofilo,
and Abraham—fled Cuba’s communism and
settled with their families in Miami leaving
their successful lumber and cement businesses
behind them, three years later, equipped with
a single breakbulk ship the Babuns launched a
liner service on the working river.
Originally coming from Cuba, Antillean’s
historic heritage has been preserved in the
operations of the Babun family business.
Dynamic young leadership embodied by
Antillean’s president, Sara C. Babun, has
assured that the company balances the value
of its history with the demands of a state-ofthe-art
shipping company.
Antillean Marine Shipping Corporation is
one of the Miami River “anchor” marine cargo
companies handling over one million tons
yearly. Antillean Marine has been providing
regular liner service to ports in the Dominican
Republic, Haiti twice weekly, non-stop, and
Providenciales, in the Turks and Caicos Islands
for over thirty-seven years.
Contributing in a positive way to our
industry environment, Antillean has participated
locally with government agencies,
businesses, and citizens working for the
improvement of Miami’s working river environment.
As a founding member of the
Miami River Marine Group, a not-for-profit
organization of river businesses, Antillean has
been influential in shaping public policy for
the improvement of the Miami River to the
satisfaction of business and residents alike.
Key among the issues undertaken by the
Miami River Marine Group is the dredging of
contaminated sediments that have accumulated
along the sides of the river’s channel for
close to sixty years. The quality and the
quantity of these sediments pose both environmental
and navigational hazards.
The source of contamination affecting the
river comes from a sixty-nine square mile waterbasin
that has drained toxins into the river from
storm water runoff and sewage contamination
sparked by Miami’s development. “This is one
piece of the river’s history that we don’t want to
keep,” vows Sara C. Babun, “and we are determined
through the work of the Miami River
Marine Group to restore both the water quality
and the river’s habitat.” It is important for the
public to know that the source of the river’s contamination
comes primarily from the roads and
drainage systems of both the city and the county.
Contemporary practices of the shipping
industry are environmentally sound which is the
way it should be. Antillean, like all the river terminals,
is monitored closely by Miami-Dade
County’s environmental agency, DERM, and
guided by the Best Management Practices set
forth in DERM’s Marine Operator Permit
requirements. “The Miami River’s shipping
industry is an important economic engine to our
community,” notes Sara, “offering thousands of
jobs with sustainable living wages to a multi-cultural
population. We are delighted to be a part of
156 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

the solution that brings economic well-being
and environmental values together in harmony.”
Sara C. Babun also serves as Miami-Dade
County’s appointed member at large to the
Miami River Commission. This newly created
group has focused on dredging the river, but
also devotes itself to issues that affect the quality
of life for the entire river community. Among
these, Antillean participates in planning for the
river greenway, which will assist in alleviating
problems created by stormwater runoff.
Antillean has been a starting player in the
establishment of the Miami River Quality
Action Team or QAT, led by the United States
Coast Guard. This public-private partnership
tackles problems related to environmental protection,
marine safety, commercial viability and
enforcement by government agencies. The
results of these efforts are published in a written
report, The Miami River Quality Action Team
Annual Report, which has just undergone its
third printing (1998-1999). As with the previous
reports, Antillean donated significant
underwriting to the cost of publication. A distribution
of 2,000 copies to elected officials,
local interests, and public-private concerns promotes
continuous improvement and new goals
for the river. The on-going program continues
to be a priority for the company.
Antillean’s corporate mission includes being
a good neighbor, which it defines locally and
internationally. South Florida’s marine trading
partners located in the Caribbean and Central
and South America are all within Antillean’s
realm of influence. Acting as a good neighbor,
the company undertook significant relief efforts
after the recent devastation of the Caribbean
and Central America by Hurricanes Georges
and Mitch. Antillean’s fleet mobilized to ship
without charge over one million pounds in supplies
of food, clothing, medicine and equipment
to those areas most in need. As a diverse
company, Antillean also prides itself on seeking
employment representation reflecting the heritage
of the many countries the liner serves.
Haiti and Little Haiti benefit from Antillean’s
working partner relationships as well. Both in
Haiti and Miami, the company supports the
work of Operation Green Leaves, a non-profit
organization devoted to the reforestation of
the island nation and environmental education
of the global Haitian population. As a member
of Operation Green Leaves, Antillean Marine
has sponsored its annual fundraising gala
and its local Fet Champet celebration. In July
1999, Antillean shipped two much-needed
trucks to Port-au-Prince to serve the goals of
hurricane preparedness on behalf of Operation
Green Leaves.
Antillean expanded its traditional contribution
to the river community by becoming the
Presenting Sponsor of RiverDay ’98, an effort
to awaken interest about preserving the working
river and its environs with a day of fun,
entertainment, education, and festivities.
Antillean’s team also helped to develop a
Marine Expo and a host of activities.
Giveaways of baseball caps, T-shirts, water
bottles, and office supplies embossed with
Antillean’s logo went home with most festivalgoers.
Proceeds from the RiverDay festival
were donated to Dade Heritage Trust for
restoration of Wagner House and the improvement
of Lummus Park in the Riverside district.
As the Miami River is finally getting the
attention it deserves, Antillean Marine plans
to remain a vital part of its intense activity.
The challenge for the future is like other
preservation challenges our community has
shared: how to bring about the improvement
of the river without destroying its unique
character. For Antillean Marine, that means
preserving the working river as an economic,
ecological and aesthetic enhancement for our
entire community.
✧
Above: Sara C. Babun, president of
Antillean Marine Shipping
Corporation(right), receiving an award
from Bruno Barreiro, Miami Dade
commissioner, and Diane Johnson, City of
Miami, for being the Presenting Sponsor of
Miami River Day.
Below: Antillean Marine Shipping
Corporation’s modern day state-of-the-art
equipment for handling cargo.
Opposite, top: An early picture of an
Antillean Marine ship loaded and plying
its way up the Miami River.
Opposite, bottom: An aerial view of the
Antillean Marine Shipping Corporation
complex on the Miami River.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 157

KUBICKI DRAPER
✧
Left: Gene Kubicki.
Right: Daniel Draper.
Kubicki Draper is a law firm comprised of
50-plus attorneys that represents corporations,
insurance companies and individuals
throughout South Florida. Founded in 1962
by Gene Kubicki, the firm is headquartered in
Miami, with branches in Fort Lauderdale and
Palm Beach. Its attorneys litigate in State and
Federal courts in effectively three-quarters of
the State of Florida, covering the territory from
Jacksonville to Key West and Tampa to Naples.
Kubicki Draper has the top “av” rating in
Martindale-Hubbell, and in 1992 International
Corporate Law magazine ranked it the Number
1 law firm in Florida in a nationwide survey of
1000 in-house attorneys. The 1999 Bar
Register of Preeminent Lawyers recognized the
firm for its high professional legal standards
and ethics.
Its practice is concentrated in the litigation
of property and casualty claims including
premises, professional and product liabilities,
automobile accidents, construction, environmental,
toxic waste, worker’s compensation,
admiralty, aviation, civil rights actions, contract
disputes, discrimination complaints and
municipal law. The firm also provides representation
of private and institutional participants
in complex commercial transactions (real
estate and asset based), residential real estate
closings, as well as, business acquisition and
sale transactions. Kubicki Draper provides representation
statewide for nationwide commercial
lenders and borrowers in land acquisition,
development and construction closings.
Each year the firm tries in excess of 200
cases, with an 80-plus percent success rate. Its
appellate division successfully concludes at
least 70 percent of its appeals each year. “We
configured our staff so that it is strong in seasoned
senior trial and appellate lawyers and a
cost-effective support staff,” said Kubicki. “We
are ready to go to trial, and always able to
deliver a solid, cost-effective work product for
our clients.”
“We are proud of our successful track
record,” Kubicki continued, “but it has
become clear to us over the last few years that
favorable results are not enough. In the competitive
global economy, we have to contain
our clients’ litigation costs if we are to serve
their needs well.” To do this, the firm brought
cost-cutting technologies right to each attorney’s
desk, to maintain high levels of efficiency
and productivity. Kubicki Draper’s offices in
Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and Palm Beach are
integrated through a highly efficient, timesaving
Wide Area Network. “We developed a case
management technology to automate document
production, and to accumulate and manage
significant information. Material can then
be emailed to clients and associates anywhere
in the world,” Kubicki said.
The firm has represented major corporations,
insurance companies, individuals, and profes-
158 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

sionals throughout Florida in virtually every category
of general and commercial liability law,
securities litigation and arbitration, D&O litigation,
medical and professional malpractice,
errors and omissions claims, insurance brokerage
defense, employment practices litigation,
mass tort litigation, class actions, intellectual
property claims, administrative and regulatory
actions, banking and financial institutions litigation,
real estate, environmental and toxic waste
litigation, aviation, and worker’s compensation.
Over the years, the firm has represented
public and private companies, including securities
broker-dealers, insurance companies and
agents, investment companies, law firms,
financial institutions, accountants and doctors,
healthcare providers, and virtually every
other profession.
It has experience in federal and state courts
throughout Florida, litigating matters for federal
and Florida securities law violations,
common law fraud, breach of fiduciary duty,
theft of trade secrets, negligence, breach of
contract, tortious interference, RICO violations,
patent infringement, slander and libel,
civil conspiracy and civil theft.
The firm is known for handling complicated
securities brokerage cases of all kinds. Cases
involving significant monetary awards include
a $2.5 million arbitration award in what was
reported to be the largest “raiding” award in
New York Stock Exchange history, and a racketeering
suit by more than 130 plaintiffs in
which claims totaled more than $30 million.
Kubicki Draper represented a Wall Street
firm in Florida and obtained a $22 million
judgment for civil theft and prejudgment interest
against a former stockbroker who had
embezzled $4.3 million from customers.
Kubicki Draper has been part of the Miami-
Dade County Public Schools Business
Cooperative Education program since 1981,
hiring high school students interested in law
careers to work in various departments. The
firm’s extensive involvement earned it the
Business Cooperative Education’s “Employer of
the Year” award in 1996 and again in 1998-99.
Members of the firm take part in the annual
March of Dimes walk for healthier babies, and
participate in the annual Miami Corporate Run
to support leukemia. Network Miami has benefited
from Kubicki Draper’s substantial donations
to the Spinal Muscular Atrophy and
Children’s Scholarship funds. Each year the
firm makes a substantial contribution to the
Drug-Free Youth In Town Program. For its long
history of providing significant pro bono representation,
the firm was recognized by the Dade
County Bar Association as the “Exceptional Law
Firm 1999.” Its involvement in cultural and historic
preservation programs is well known; one
example is being a benefactor in the 1998 Dade
County Courthouse Restoration.
Kubicki Draper’s offices are at 25 West
Flagler Street, in the City National Bank
Building, in the heart of downtown Miami.
✧
Above: The headquarters of Kubicki Draper
in Miami.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 159

✧
Above: Amtech offices located at 9750
Northwest 17th Street, Miami.
Bottom: TVC Latin America shows off its
new logo.
AMTECH/TVC LATIN AMERICA
As the late 1990’s shifted toward the twenty
first century, Miami-based American
Technology Exporters, Inc. (Amtech) was
transformed into Amtech-A TVC Company
and, a year later, to TVC Latin America.
With their 1998 merger, TVC and Amtech
became the largest distributor of cable television
equipment in Latin America. Today the
company—known as TVC Latin America—
supplies electronics, fiber optics, traditional
cable TV products, aerial distribution, as well
as underground construction equipment and
services. From its Miami headquarters, the
company provides clients with integrated
business solutions that include engineering,
logistics, inventory and warehousing, incountry
training and financing. TVC Latin
America has offices in Brazil, Mexico,
Colombia, Guatemala, and Argentina and
serves clients in more than 25 countries.
Amtech began in 1984 as the dream
of three industry pioneers, Rafael Russ, Wolf
(Billy) Najman, and Yehudi Sabbagh. Amtech’s
founders soon realized that the demand for
reliable equipment was matched only by the
need for advanced, dependable technical
expertise. As the middle class in Latin America
gained access to cable television, Amtech met
the demand for innovative, dependable services,
and opened a branch office in Guatemala in
1986. Committed to representing only manufacturers
who supplied quality goods, and
who shared their own dynamic business attitudes,
Amtech opened offices in Brazil and
Chile in 1990, followed by Mexico in 1996,
Colombia in 1998 and Argentina in 1999.
The company expanded quickly from a small
equipment showroom and warehouse to a
multi-million dollar business, and the distribution
giant it is today. Yet the leadership and
vision remain focused on conducting business
with honesty and integrity, and creating a safe,
productive environment for employees.
Amtech’s founder and Chief Operating
Officer Rafael Russ shares his rules for success:
“Get to know your market early and
carve a solid niche, know your market well,
and be a problem solver for your customers
so they can concentrate on their core business.”
TVC Latin America, as the company is
now known, provides integrated services
including product support, in-country training,
computerized inventory management,
warehousing, and financing. “We were, in
some cases, the first company to make these
technologies accessible in Latin American
countries,” said Russ. “We not only helped
establish a new industry in 1984, we secured
our own market position.”
Technical support is important, and the
company’s personnel speak English, Spanish,
and Portuguese. The ability to “speak their
culture” is at least as important as speaking
the language of a region, notes Russ, because
customs and work habits vary from country to
country. His staff members know and perform
160 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

usiness transactions in the way each customer
is accustomed to, and this builds longterm
business relationships. “We know Latin
America is not a one-dimensional region. Our
staff is multicultural and multilingual. They
have a keen understanding of each country’s
dynamics, and our staff themselves are from a
dozen countries.”
TVC Latin America’s effectiveness hinges on
supplying the right technology to each country.
Having pioneered the industry, it has extensive
knowledge of each country’s infrastructure
requirements, and its ability to supply the right
inventory on a timely basis has been one of the
keys to the company’s growth. “Accuracy is
very important when you are shipping highly
specific products to a destination that may only
get deliveries once a week,” Russ pointed out.
“Our computerized inventory management
system and highly efficient back-office operations
mean our customers can rely on us.”
All regional sales managers have had eight
to twelve years experience in the industry, and
have learned about new products directly from
the manufacturers. TVC Latin America’s staff
also helps clients with installation and construction.
“Technology is constantly revolutionizing
our industry, and our role is to be
ahead of the curve,” said Russ. His company
has the products, services, and management
resources to support customers as they address
the challenges of converging technologies. That
includes the phenomenon of telephony, video,
and data all coming into the same networks via
fiber optics and digital technology.
TVC Communications, founded in 1952
and headquartered in Annville, Pennsylvania,
is a multinational distributor to the broadband
and public data networks. The merger of
Amtech and TVC in 1998 brought together a
wealth of products, service and experience
traditionally offered by TVC. The new entity
has expanded its product line to include fiber
optics and underground construction materials
as well as RF, fiber optic, and test equipment.
Communications Dynamics Inc., the
parent company of TVC Communications,
also owns and operates the Remote
Technologies Group. RTG designs and supplies
US Electronics brand multifunction universal
remote controls, as well as customized
private label infrared and RF remotes.
Through business partnerships and public
service, Amtech—now TVC Latin America—
is making a significant mark on the communities
it serves. The Miami executives and staff
support a range of local and international
organizations with both donations and volunteer
work. Organizations that benefit children
and homeless people are high on the list.
✧
Left: Rafael Russ, co-founder of Amtech.
Right: Wolf (Billy) Najman, co-founder
of Amtech.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 161

PALMER
TRINITY
SCHOOL
When the Palmer School and Trinity
Episcopal School joined together as a single
institution in 1991, the school was nestled
comfortably on a beautiful 22-acre campus
situated in a coastal hammock in southeast
Florida, just outside Miami.
It was here, less than a mile from Biscayne
Bay, that Hurricane Andrew, the most destructive
storm in United States history, struck the
mainland in August 1992. Palmer Trinity
School suffered a direct hit, and most of its
buildings were severely damaged or destroyed.
The roof was blown off the gymnasium, the
athletic field was turned into a lake, the modular
classroom simply disappeared, and the
beautiful campus flora was in shambles. Even
the school’s metal flagpole was bent to the will
of the winds. Days after the storm, the
National Guard set up a temporary station on
the campus to assist area residents, while
classes were held in tents for the beginning of
the school year.
Today, Palmer Trinity School and its lushly
landscaped campus are fully recovered—
proof of its traditional resilience, and of the
perseverance of its faculty, staff and students.
All the buildings have been repaired, and new
ones have emerged. To date, the school has
added a new Humanities building, an outdoor
dining chickee, and a library. Construction
has just been completed on a state-of-the-art
Music Center, and a Math/Science Building,
chapel, and cafeteria renovation are in the
planning stages.
Palmer Trinity School continues to grow
and excel in providing an academically challenging
program to more than 500 students in
grades six through twelve. As an Episcopal
day school, it provides a college preparatory
education which fosters both the spiritual and
physical well being of its students.
Palmer Trinity prides itself on being a welcoming,
student-centered community guided
by dedicated professionals who teach and
162 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

model high academic and personal standards.
Students are sought on the basis of personal
character and academic promise, and they are
inspired to make a positive contribution to
society. After completing their education at
Palmer Trinity, students are well prepared to
succeed. Typically, 100 percent of Palmer
Trinity’s graduates attend four-year colleges
and universities.
The school has a diverse student population
from a variety of ethnic and socio-economic
backgrounds. Palmer Trinity teaches
traditional Judeo-Christian values in an ecumenical
spirit of inclusivity that instills
respect for the various religious traditions of
the world. Students come from over twenty
foreign nations, and Palmer Trinity believes
that in diversity there is strength.
To challenge this diverse student body,
Palmer Trinity offers special programs in
coordination with a well-rounded education.
A wireless laptop program was introduced
during the 1999-2000 school year, which
allows students to access their course information
and necessary resources from anywhere
on the 22-acre campus. Another program
is the English as a Second Language
(ESL) program, which is the largest and most
comprehensive of its kind among the independent
schools in Miami-Dade County.
Approximately ten percent of the student
body participates in ESL.
Each trimester the school offers over one
hundred courses, both required and elective,
with particular embracing of the liberal arts
and science curriculum. The favorably low
student/teacher ratio of nine-to-one permits
students to work closely with faculty who are
dedicated to their learning.
Palmer Trinity offers a full range of varsity,
junior varsity and middle school interscholastic
teams in eleven sports. The school prides
itself on maintaining a “no cut” policy in athletics,
which allows all students an opportunity
to learn, develop skills and embrace the joy
of participating on one or more of the school’s
30 athletic teams.
Palmer Trinity students are held to a code
of behavior which fosters a spirit of community
conducive to mutual trust among students.
An Honor System is administered and
enforced by the students themselves. Service
to the community is an integral part of
Palmer Trinity School. Students are required
to complete community service work each
year within the school and in the Greater
Miami community. From environmental
hammock cleanup, to the Miami AIDS Walk,
to an annual Christmas celebration for disadvantaged
children, students learn that the
greatest of all gifts comes from the satisfaction
of service to others.
Palmer Trinity is proud of its graduates.
Many have gone on to be successful both in
the local community and elsewhere.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 163

BAL HARBOUR
VILLAGE
✧
Top: Construction on Bal Harbour
starts April 21, 1946. Present are (left to
right) Robert C. Graham, developer of
Bal Harbour; Herold T. Dickey, Bal
Harbour’s first chief of police; J. Julian
Southerland, Bal Harbour’s first mayor;
Charles R. Graham, councilman;
Colonel T. J. Christian; Dean Parmelee;
Glenn E. Massnick, councilman; and
Robert C. Graham, Jr.
Bottom: Bal Harbour, 1949.
Bal Harbour Village attracts the rich and
famous from around the world, and yet it
retains its small town charm. Former United
States Senator Robert Dole and his wife
Elizabeth are among the many worldrenowned
individuals who maintain residences
in this low-key, yet sophisticated town.
Covering just less than one square mile,
Bal Harbour is one of Miami-Dade County’s
smallest and most affluent residential communities,
as well as a complete resort area.
Bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the east
and Biscayne Bay on the west, its walking and
jogging path winds through dunes and along
the mile-long beach. The city prides itself on
its beaches. Re-nourishment projects were
undertaken in 1959 and again in 1971. It has
added enough sand to fill a standard football
field to a height of 113 feet. The new sand
more than doubles the beach area, making the
Bal Harbour Village beach one of the most
beautiful in the world.
The Village is home to the Bal Harbour
Shops, a unique collection of merchants that
reads like a Who’s Who of fashion. Surrounded
by an open-air tropical garden are exclusive
shops such as Bulgari, Chanel, Christian Dior,
Salvatore Ferragamo, Gucci, Prada, Gianni
Versace, Hermes, Lacoste, Louis Vuitton,
Pratesi, Sergio Rossi, Dolce & Gabbana, and
Ermenegildo Zegna, anchored by Neiman
Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue. The Village’s
main street, Collins Avenue, is lined with
coconut palms in the center median and date
palms on both sides of the street. At night, trees
are brilliantly illuminated, transforming Bal
Harbour Village into a tropical oasis.
Directly on the ocean are high-rise luxury
condominiums and rental buildings, and two
fine hotels—the Sheraton Bal Harbour Beach
Resort and the historic Sea View Hotel. Because
of the Sheraton’s prime oceanfront location,
guests can parasail high above the Atlantic,
windsurf or jet ski, or sail a catamaran. Boats,
water bikes, kayaking, and scuba diving are also
available there. Bal Harbour Village also offers a
wide selection of cafes, oceanfront lounges, and
164 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

sophisticated supper clubs–some offering dancing
and live entertainment. The Sea View,
opened in 1948 and completely renovated, has
the charm and service of a smaller oceanfront
hotel. The elite of international business and
politics are frequent Sea View patrons.
Across Collins Avenue to the west are lowrise
residential buildings, which include individually
owned units and some rentals. The
entrance to Bal Harbour’s beautiful community
of single-family homes is staffed twentyfour-hours
a day, and a privately operated
yacht basin is within the residential enclave.
Bal Harbour Village has its own police department,
with the very high ratio of one officer
for every 132 residents. Officers patrol in cars,
on motorcycles, and on bicycles, maintaining
one of the lowest crime rates in South Florida.
As early as the 1920s, the Detroit–based
Miami Beach Heights Corporation owned 245
acres of undeveloped, partially swampy land
that stretched from the bay to the Atlantic.
Robert C. Graham, who owned it together with
Walter 0. Briggs and C. T. Fisher, assumed
development duties for the parcel, and several
plans were drawn up in the 1930s. These were
put on hold when World War II began in 1940.
Graham, as a good will gesture, rented the land
to the U.S. Air Corps for $1 a year. The Air
Corps used this land to train soldiers. The
beachfront was a rifle range, and barracks were
set up on the west side of Collins Avenue. The
current Bal Harbour Shops location was a
camp for prisoners of war.
After the war, Graham converted the barracks
buildings into apartment homes, and in
1946, he had twenty-five families move into
the apartments so that Bal Harbour would
have enough registered voters residing in the
area to qualify for incorporation as a city. He
hired Willard Webb, a Miami Beach tax assessor,
to draft a charter for the Village, which
was incorporated in August 1946 under the
city manager form of government. The land
was filled, sea walls went up, and the yacht
basin was created. Contracts were signed for
the sewer system, water pumping stations and
utilities. Bal Harbour was the first planned
community in Florida to have its utilities
placed underground.
The municipality’s name was invented to
represent the fact that it ran from the bay (B)
to the Atlantic (AL), hence the coined word
Bal. The first hotel built there was the
Kenilworth By-the-Sea. Built by Tom
Raffington and made famous by Arthur
Godfrey, the hotel has since been demolished
and the Kenilworth Condominium occupies
that site today. Robert C. Graham, Jr., son of
Bal Harbour’s original developer, built the first
home at 160 Bal Cross Drive. Construction on
the Sea View Hotel began that same year.
In 1965, Stanley Whitman and his family
built the Bal Harbour Shops. Whitman was
one of the incorporators who had lived with
his family in the converted Air Corps barracks
apartments on the site.
✧
Above: Mayor J. Julien Southerland presents
Bal Harbour’s corporate seal to Village
Clerk Mary Wetterer as municipal
operations begin. Also present are (second
row, left to right) Harold Dickey, police
chief; George Whittacker, councilman;
Willard H. Webb, president of the council;
and (third row, left to right) Bal Harbour
Councilmen Charles R. Graham, Glenn E.
Massnick, and Ray Semmes, Jr.
Top, left: The 1965 groundbreaking
ceremony for Bal Harbour Shops. Present
are (left to right) Robert C. Graham,
developer of Bal Harbour; Stanley
Whitman, developer of Bal Harbour Shops;
and Village Manager Willard H. Webb.
Below: An aerial view of Bal Harbour’s
oceanfront, showing the Sheraton Bal
Harbour Resort.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 165

✧
MIAMI
METROZOO
(ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF RON MAGILL)
Miami Metrozoo is the United States’ only
accredited zoo in the continental U.S. that is
located in a subtropical climate. Since its grand
opening in December 1981, it has grown into
one of the largest zoos in the country. With
nearly 300 developed acres on a 740-acre parcel
of land, Metrozoo maintains an animal collection
of approximately 200 species containing
over 900 live specimens of reptiles, birds
and mammals. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew
devastated the facility at 12400 Southwest
152nd Street in southern Miami-Dade County,
but it has rebounded with 7,000 new trees,
new exhibit areas, and a wide range of amenities
and services for visitors.
Metrozoo, voted in 1999 as one of the top
ten zoos in the U.S. by Travel and Leisure
Magazine, is open 365 days a year. Admission
includes unlimited use of an elevated, air-conditioned
monorail transportation system.
Visitors find everything they need to take full
advantage of the Metrozoo experience, from
maps, first aid and information booths and
shaded rest areas, to readily available rental
strollers, video cameras and wheelchairs.
Among the visitor-comfort features are seating
areas in front of each exhibit, shade umbrellas,
well-equipped playground areas for children,
behind-the-scenes tram tours, several eating
areas and gift shops. To help visitors keep
cool, water misters and fans operate whenever
the temperature reaches eighty-five degrees.
Scheduled animal feedings throughout the day
afford photo opportunities and a chance to
meet the zookeepers.
Special exhibits include Asian River Life,
showcasing Asian river otters, clouded leopards,
Asian water monitors, and primitive
Muntjac deer. The multi-level immersion
exhibit lets visitors walk among waterfalls,
tropical mist and exotic sounds. The Falcon
Batchelor Komodo Dragon Encounter exhibits
a pair of the largest lizards on earth. Reaching
a length of ten feet, the rarely seen Komodo
Dragon was unknown outside its native
Indonesia until the early 1900s. The spectacular
Tiger Temple, inspired by ruins of
Angkor Wat in Cambodia, houses Bengal
tigers, including a rare white tiger.
An African Plains exhibit houses a herd of
reticulated giraffes, as well as zebras, gazelles,
and ostriches. Gorilla, chimpanzee, and
bongo exhibits represent the African forests.
Also from the Dark Continent are exhibits
that include the highly endangered black rhinoceros,
the threatened African elephant, and
wart hogs. Koalas, their marsupial cousins the
kangaroos, diminutive red tree kangaroos,
and wallabies reside in the zoo’s Australian
lobe. At the Children’s Zoo, an Ecology
Theater offers a close-up look at indigenous
166 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

South Florida animals such as the American
alligator and gopher tortoise. Kids visiting the
petting yard delightedly recall Timon from the
movie The Lion King when they see the
Meerkat exhibit.
Major projects under way include a new
education center with a gallery for traveling
exhibitions, a multi-million-dollar free-flight
aviary, and an internationally-focused
“Tropical America” experience, which will
open in phases over several years.
The Zoological Society of Florida (ZSF) is
the private, non-profit support organization of
Metrozoo. It was founded in 1956 when the
zoo was in Crandon Park on Key Biscayne.
Starting in the mid-1960s, ZSF members spearheaded
a campaign to include a bigger, better
zoo in the Dade County “Decade of Progress”
bond issues, resulting in today’s facility.
Today, the ZSF is one of the largest membership
organizations in South Florida. Its
board of directors includes community leaders
in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties who are
committed to the education, conservation and
recreation goals of Metrozoo. While Miami-
Dade County operates and maintains the zoo,
ZSF, backed by its strong membership, supports
Metrozoo’s programs and enhancements.
These include guided tours and education outreach
programs staffed by volunteers, construction
and renovation of exhibits, special
events, travel programs, and scientific expeditions
to enhance the curatorial staff’s animal
management techniques and broaden their
involvement in animal conservation.
ZSF views Metrozoo as a vital public
resource that is much more than a popular
attraction. Metrozoo’s award-winning captivebreeding
program has made it a sanctuary for
endangered, rare, and threatened animals. It
is active in over twenty Species Survival Plans,
and cooperates with institutions around the
world to help insure the survival of these
species. An accredited member of the
American Association of Zoos and Aquariums
(AZA), Metrozoo has twice received the AZA’s
Edward H. Bean Award, the zoological community’s
most prestigious honor, for outstanding
achievements in captive breeding
and conservation programs.
The zoo has helped to protect rare and
endangered species in their native environments
from Africa to Malaysia to Central
America. It is also a recreational/educational
center designed to teach the importance of
preserving the creatures who share the planet
with humans.
Metrozoo provides extensive education programs
for students and teachers. Student
internships and programs both on and off the
grounds provide direct experience. School
break and summer camps, weekend programs
including overnight and behind the scenes
experiences and group picnics and parties are
available for members, schools, scout troops,
and community organizations. For information,
call (305) 255-5551 or (305) 251-0400.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 167

THE FLORIDEAN
NURSING AND
REHABILITATION
CENTER
✧
Below: An early photograph of The
Floridean at Northwest 32nd Place
Bottom: The Floridean Nursing Home staff
in the 1940s.
Northwest 32nd Place, half a block north
of West Flagler Street, was an agricultural area
on the outskirts of Miami in 1944, the year
Jack R. Rice, Sr. and his wife, Julia, founded
The Floridean Nursing Home in that neighborhood.
The oldest nursing home in Miami,
it began as a business venture for Rice’s mother,
Florence Dean, who was a practical nurse,
and has been a family enterprise ever since.
Today, at a time when chain-operated nursing
homes with absentee owners are the norm,
The Floridean is a rarity. It still occupies the
building where it was founded, and is run
by members of the same family and their
descendants. Another aspect that has not
changed is the vital service The Floridean provides
to the community.
Jack Rice, Sr. located a building that had
once housed the Sunshine Hospital, a
maternity hospital. Across the street stood
the rectory for St. Michael’s Church, but the
otherwise rural area was quiet and well suited
for a nursing home. In those days, nursing
homes were called “rest homes” and the
going rate for a patient’s stay was $3.33 a
day. The neighborhood today is completely
residential, and far from rural. Miamians
in their thirties and forties remember visiting
their grandparents or other relatives at
The Floridean.
Flori Dean, as Jack, Sr.’s mother was
known (and for whom the business is
named), had cared for elderly patients in her
home in Philadelphia. Today, the founders’
son, Frank C. Rice, heads the skilled nursing
facility, assisted by his daughter, Kelley Rice-
Schild. Four generations of the Rice family
have contributed their knowledge and experience,
building The Floridean’s reputation
as a first-rate healthcare facility. Florida’s
Department of Health and Rehabilitative
Services rated The Floridean as “Superior,”
and physicians choose it for their own families.
Miami Mayor William Wolfarth and his
wife, Mary, were residents, and the list of current
and past residents includes a “who’s who”
of Miami—school principals, judges, attorneys,
writers, and reporters.
The Floridean is home to only sixty residents,
so it is intimate enough for the staff to
know each person and pay close attention to
each individual’s needs. Liz Chapman, who
has been a Floridean employee for more
than twenty-five years, says it is unique in
many ways and describes it as “more of a
family type place than a nursing home.”
That is why, for more than half a century,
The Floridean has kept the word “home” in
its name—because it is the residents’ home.
The Floridean’s motto has always been
“Where patients are guests.”
The building’s modern new south wing was
completed in 1991, and the original Sunshine
Hospital/Floridean building was gutted and
completely refurbished at that time. The architectural
design of new wing coordinates with
the Mission style of the original Sunshine
Hospital building. The Floridean is one of the
168 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

most modern and up-to-date nursing homes
in the area, offering the full spectrum of
patient care services. James Jackson Hutson,
M.D., has been medical director at The
Floridean since the 1960s. Dr. Hutson is a pioneer
of Miami’s medical community. His
grandfather, Dr. James Jackson, for whom
Jackson Memorial Hospital was named, was
the city’s first doctor. Today, there are five
separate departments with sixty employees to
provide services. Physicians, licensed nurses,
aides, pharmacists, therapists, administrators,
housekeepers, dietary workers, social workers,
activities directors, maintenance, and office
workers all fill special needs in patient care at
The Floridean.
Jack Rice, Sr. was a pioneer in the nursing
home industry. He was co-founder and first
president of the Florida Nursing Home
Association, now known as the Florida Health
Care Association, which represents more than
700 long-term care facilities in the state. The
Floridean is also active in the American
College of Health Care, the American Health
Care Association, the Greater Miami Chamber
of Commerce, and the Coral Gables Chamber
of Commerce.
The Floridean’s mission is to meet and
exceed the expectations of its residents
and their families by providing the highest
quality care possible. “Our facility is their
home,” observes Kelley Rice-Schild, administrator
and great-granddaughter of the
founder. “We are here to help our residents
achieve and maintain their optimal levels of
physical and mental health. For many of the
residents, we are their family, and we hope to
offer the emotional and spiritual support that
is vital to their lives, as well as providing
medical care.”
✧
Top: The Floridean Nursing and
Rehabilitation Center as it appears today.
Left: The Rice Family, August, 1988.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 169

ASSURANT
GROUP/
AMERICAN
BANKERS
✧
Right: Original offices in Landon Building.
Below: Kirk A. Landon, founder.
Bottom: R. Kirk Landon.
Assurant Group SM was created in August
1999 when Fortis, Inc. acquired Miami-based
American Bankers Insurance Group, and
merged it operationally with the member
companies of Fortis-owned American Security
Group of Atlanta, Georgia. Its member companies
have more than 110 years of combined
experience in the specialty insurance industry.
Assurant Group’s focus is on excellence in
serving clients and customers through innovation
and leadership in services and product
development for the banking, consumer
finance, mortgage, sales finance, retail and
utility industries.
The history of American Bankers Insurance
Group (ABIG), as the business was known
prior to its 1999 merger into Assurant Group,
is a success story in the true American tradition.
It’s one that demonstrates the vitality of
Miami-Dade’s business environment at the end
of the 20th century. For nearly half a century,
ABIG had been an integral part—and a driving
force—in South Florida’s commercial development.
Today’s Assurant Group remains one of
Miami-Dade County’s largest employers, with
a staff of 1700-plus in the Miami headquarters.
Entrepreneur Kirk A. Landon sold a treasured
stamp collection to capitalize a new
insurance company, American Bankers
Insurance Company of Florida, founded in
1947. Operating from a three-room office
suite in downtown Miami, it wrote automobile
physical damage insurance for banks,
finance and loan companies, automobile and
mobile home dealers. The company’s new
ideas would revolutionize the specialty insurance
industry forever.
His second company, American Bankers
Life Assurance Company of Florida, was chartered
in 1952. The two companies’ first international
headquarters was constructed in the
1960s on Brickell Avenue, a location that later
became the heart of Miami’s financial district.
In 1984, the founder’s son, R. Kirk Landon,
then chairman and CEO of ABIG, moved the
company and its 850 employees to a new 86-
acre campus in south Miami-Dade County.
The company and its employees have made
an impact on Miami through their dedication
to community service, encompassing cultural
and charitable causes of all kinds. In the area
of childcare, ABIG led what became a national
trend when “A Child’s Place” first opened in
the 1950s and later continued at its new inernational
headquarters built in 1984. Three
years later, the company became the first corporation
in America with a public school on
site for its employees’ children. In a joint venture
with Miami-Dade County Public Schools,
today’s Assurant Group provides the building,
maintenance, utilities, and security. The school
system supplies teachers, administration, and
170 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

educational materials for the students from
kindergarten through 5th grade. Other companies
all over the U.S. have since followed its
lead with on-site public schools.
The company also practices environmental
awareness. When acreage for the headquarters
was purchased, a small grove of pine trees
existed there, and in it was a habitat for the
endangered red shouldered hawk. This grove
of pines was left undisturbed during construction
and remains today.
In 1992, Hurricane Andrew ravaged South
Dade, including ABIG’s international headquarters
and the homes of more than half its
employees. Employees whose homes had been
destroyed were paired with ABIG families who
could take them in. “The caring and sharing
among employees was heartwarming,” R. Kirk
Landon said. Through inspiring teamwork and
determination, the company relocated in temporary
quarters and resumed operations within
a matter of weeks. Claims were paid immediately.
The hurricane-proof Technology
Center, opened in 1993, is designed to withstand
200-mile-per-hour winds.
ABIG/Assurant Group’s success seems
attributable to constant innovation in products
and marketing, but the power of its
credo, ingrained into each staff member must
also be credited: “Quality is continually striving
to exceed our customer’s needs and expectations
and taking pride in doing the job right
the first time.” At the time of its purchase by
European-based Fortis in 1999, ABIG’s subsidiaries
were dominant forces in the specialty
insurance industry. The company has
added subsidiaries throughout the United
States, in the Caribbean, the United Kingdom,
and Argentina.
The union of American Bankers Insurance
Group and American Security Group into the
new Assurant Group SM is a well thought-out
pairing destined to take advantage of each
company’s unique strengths. “By pooling the
two companies’ collective experience, we offer
unmatched product choices, and have the
resources to deliver solutions more quickly,”
said Assurant Group president and CEO Ed
O’Hare. “Our broader base gives us greater
ability to meet our clients’ growing needs, and
this translates to opportunities for our employees
as well,” he continued. “We are a stronger,
smarter, and nimbler leader in the specialty
insurance products and services industry.”
Fortis, Inc. is a financial services company
that, through its operating companies and
affiliates, provides specialty insurance and
investment products to businesses, associations,
financial service organizations, and
individuals in the United States. The company
owns or manages approximately $17
billion in assets. Fortis, Inc. is part of the
international Fortis group, which operates in
the fields of insurance, banking, and investments,
with assets in excess of $390 billion.
Fortis’ listed companies are Fortis (B) of
Belgium and Fortis (NL) of the Netherlands.
✧
Above: First headquarters on Brickell Avenue.
Below: Assurant Group building, 1999.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 171

SALUSSOLIA &
ASSOCIATES
✧
Above: The condition of the Nolan
Residence when Salussolia & Asociates
purchased the property in 1993.
Below: Artist’s rendering of Lupetto’s restoration,
scheduled for completion in Spring 2001,
reproduces the original design of the
Nolan residence.
Salussolia & Associates was founded by Piero
Salussolia in 1994 to provide specialized services
to an international clientele, delivering the highest
quality legal representation possible. Piero
Salussolia started the firm after a successful period
as partner in the international tax division of Baker
& McKenzie. “I wanted to offer clients the highly
personalized service only a small firm can
provide,” he explained. “Our professionals are
responsive to each client’s specific concerns and
requirements.” Salussolia & Associates has
represented world renown companies and
individuals, as well as the Italian Consulate in
Miami. It specializes in consulting European and
Latin American clients doing business in the
United States and provides similar services to
Americans doing business abroad through its
network of correspondent offices throughout the
Americas. Fields of concentration include
international and domestic tax and estate
planning, real estate and corporate law, intellectual
property, commercial and immigration law.
Salussolia & Associates professionals include:
Piero Salussolia, born in Alice Castello, Italy,
has practiced law in the United States since 1984
and is a member of the Florida and California
Bars. He holds a political science degree from
Universita’ degli Studi, Turin, Italy; a Masters in
political science from San Francisco State
University; a JD from the University of San
Francisco; and an LLM in taxation from New
York University. A member of the Florida Bar Tax
Section, he co-chaired the Foreign Tax
Committee from 1989 to 1992. He also served as
a director and executive vice president of the
Italy-America Chamber of Commerce, of which
he is a founding member. For these and other
services to the local Italian community he was
knighted by the president of the Italian Republic.
Fluent in Italian, Spanish, French, and English,
he frequently gives seminars in the United States
and abroad, and has published extensively on
international tax and related matters.
Stefania Bologna, a member of the Florida
Bar, received a Juris Doctor degree from the
University of Rome, a JD and LLM degrees in
Comparative Law from the University of Miami.
Her practice includes corporate law, intellectual
property, commercial, and immigration law.
Marcella Manca, born in Sassari, Italy, is an
Italian attorney, who practiced civil law in Italy
before joining Salussolia & Associates. As a legal
consultant she concentrates in corporate matters.
To fullfill a need for real estate-related services
commonly found amongst foreign investors,
Piero Salussolia formed Lupetto, Inc. Since 1998
this company has provided architectural, design,
management coordination, and assistance to
clients acquiring commercial and residential
properties in the area.
Piero Salussolia sees a parallel between law
and architecture: laws, as well as spaces, must be
mustered before they may be explained. He
believes effective communication, either through
172 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

language or design, is the key to achieving this
goal. “As an example,” he says, “ look to Picasso:
he reduced the complex figure of a bull to few
essential lines. Likewise, the attorney must
reduce complex legal matters to clear simplicity.”
Lupetto owns the George E. Nolan
Residence at 1548 Brickell Avenue, a City of
Miami designated historical structure.
Approval is pending for its listing in the
United States Register of Historic Places. The
1925 Neoclassical-style house is one of the
last remnants of Miami’s “Millionaire’s Row.”
Barbara Dacquino, a brillant Italian
architect, was summoned to coordinate the
restoration of the Nolan House. Ms. Dacquino
is fully responsible for the maintaining and
integrating the original architectural elements
with the post-modern addition and the interior
design of the building.
Michael Lewis was also fundamental in the
achievement of the George E. Nolan Residence
project. He is a tenth-generation Floridian and
third-generation Miamian. He is a Certified Public
Accountant, concentrating in taxation, financial
planning and management services for U.S. and
foreign individuals. Lewis’ great grandfather, T. V.
Moore, came to Miami in 1899 and was known
as Miami’s “Pineapple King.” His great grandmother,
Jessie Smith McCoy, was Miss Florida
1935 and Miami High’s 1933 valedictorian.
When completed, the Nolan Residence will
serve as the head office of Salussolia &
Associates as well as offices to selected tenants.
Prospective tenants include:
Attorney Mark J. LaBate is fluent in English,
Italian, Spanish, French, and German. A member
of the Florida and Pennsylvania bars since 1988,
with affiliates in Bologna. His practice is devoted
to international matters, especially commercial,
tax, and estate planning.
Francesco Vaccarella of Brickell Capital Group
represents a group of eight carefully selected,
financially sound, reputable insurance and
investment companies. Recognizing the choices
that are available today, Brickell Capital creates
custom-tailored financial strategies that meet its
clients’ current and future goals. Brickell Capital
has a wealth of expertise and specializes in
providing first class advice and support in
matters regarding estate planning, investment
programs, pension plans, the funding of trusts,
and corporate buy-sell and redemption agreements.
Vaccarella is a registered representative
with American General Securities Incorporated,
a member of the NASD, SIPC.
Securities are offered through American
General Securities Incorporated, 2727 Allen
Parkway, Houston, Texas 77019; (713) 831-
3806. The Brickell Capital Group has offices
located in Miami and Boca Raton and affiliates in
New York City; (877} 476-8729. The Brickell
Capital Group and AGSI are independent, nonrelated
companies.
✧
Above: “They would tear down my home and
put up an apartment building. I simply can’t
let that happen! This place is the last remnant
of an era that has passed. We hope to find a
party that understands this and is willing to
restore the home to its original grandeur.”
—George Nolan
Below: Salussolia & Associates staff members.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 173

✧
Above: Portofino Tower, South Beach.
Developer: Marquesa Development
Architect: The Sieger Suarez Architectural
Partnership
Landscape Architect: EGS2 Corp.
(COURTESY OF JOHN GILLIAN,
JOHN GILLIAN PHOTOGRAPHY)
Bottom: Our Lady of the Holy Rosary
Catholic Church & School in Miami,
Florida (left) and the Madonna in the
church’s meditation garden.
Architect: The Sieger Suarez Architectural
Partnership
Landscape Architect: EGS2 Corp.
Contractor: GS2 Corp.
(COURTESY OF JOHN GILLIAN,
JOHN GILLIAN PHOTOGRAPHY)
THE SIEGER SUAREZ
ARCHITECTURAL PARTNERSHIP
GS2 & EGS2
Every day, residents of South Beach, Aventura
and Sunny Isles Beach view the creations of
three prolific, related firms that provide
architecture, landscape and construction. The
group’s oldest component is The Sieger Suarez
Architectural Partnership, established more
than twenty-five years ago. The architects
have designed more than a billion dollars
of residential real estate properties from
Miami Beach’s trendy
South Beach to Las
Vegas, Nevada.
Partners in the
architectural firm,
Charles M. Sieger,
F.A.I.A., and Jose J.
Suarez, A.I.A., are also
involved in the
independent yet related
firms, GS2 Corporation and EGS2 Corporation.
In concert with their partners, William A. Eager
and Ronald I. Gaines, the companies provide a
full service design and construction partnership.
The entity known as GS2 Corporation,
established in 1991, with Ronald I. Gaines,
CGC, is a corporate successor to AST
Construction, which was founded in 1980.
The company provides comprehensive
construction services for new projects, and
handles remodeling of existing high rise
residential and commercial properties.
Established in 1993 with William A. Eager IV,
A.S.L.A., EGS2 provides comprehensive landscape
architecture and land planning services for
condominium projects, single-family homes and
retail/commercial installations. The Pinnacle,
Hidden Bay, Ocean One and Ocean Two are just
a few of EGS2’s projects.
The Sieger Suarez Architectural Partnership
and EGS2 are proud of their role in Portofino
Tower, a $55 million residential condominium at
the southern tip of South Beach. Residences in
the forty-five-story oceanfront tower features
Sieger Suarez’s pioneering “floor-through/seethrough”
design, which allows views in every
direction from each unit. Portofino Tower, South
Beach’s most recognizable landmark, greets cruise
ships entering Miami’s busy seaport. The Tower
has also served as the backdrop for Hollywood
movies and music videos. The group’s latest jewel,
Murano at Portofino will overlook the island from
the other end of South Point Drive.
Providing upscale living in one of the
county’s newest cities, Aventura’s Mystic
Pointe, Hidden Bay and the Aventura Bay
Club, lead the way for others to follow. Strung
like pearls along Sunny Isles Beach, Ocean
One, Ocean Two and Ocean Three, Ocean
Grande and The Pinnacle raise luxury ocean
front living to a higher standard.
174 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

According to a November 1999, article in
the Miami Herald, one-third of the seventyeight
highrises counted at the time in Miami-
Dade and Broward Counties involved The
Sieger Suarez Architectural Partnership or
adjunct companies GS2 and EGS2. The
conglomerate has designed or built more than
fifty thousand residential units.
“Our proficiency and productivity have
increased exponentially because we’re able to
build what we design,” said Charles Sieger.
“We believe in providing our clients and their
potential buyers with the best product
available. Striking and memorable design
features are a standard for us, but a marketable
product is a must to the client. We feel that we
provide both.”
✧
Right: The Pinnacle, Sunny Isles Beach.
Developer: J. Milton & Associates
Architect: The Sieger Suarez Architectural Partnership
Landscape Architect: EGS2 Corp.
Contractor: GS2 Corp.
(COURTESY OF ROBIN ARRINGTON)
Below: Front row (from left to right): Javier Enriques, CFO;
and Ronald I. Gaines, general contractor of GS2 Corp. Back
row: Charles M. Sieger, F.A.I.A., president of The Sieger
Suarez Architectural Partnership and GS2 Corp.; William A.
Eager IV, A.S.L.A., president of EGS2 Corp.; Jose Suarez,
A.I.A., vice president of the The Sieger Suarez Architectural
Partnership and GS2.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 175

MIAMI-DADE
COMMUNITY
COLLEGE
Miami-Dade Community College is a statesupported
community college with six campuses
and an enrollment of more than 128,000
students. It is the largest multi-campus, singledistrict
community college in America and the
second largest college or university in all of
higher education.
“With a diverse offering of academic and
occupational programs, our goal is educating
for life-long learning and citizenship,” declares
College President Eduardo J. Padrón, Ph.D.
Miami-Dade Community College, which
opened in 1960, ranks number one for
total degrees and liberal arts and sciences
degrees awarded, as well as in degrees earned
by minorities and Hispanics, and for nursing
degrees, among other fields. There are close to
80 different academic programs which award
Associate in Arts degrees, transferable to the
most prestigious colleges and universities.
Associate in Science degrees are also available
in approximately 80 career fields, training
students for business, industry, and health
professions. Additionally, there are about 50
post-secondary vocational certificate programs
that prepare students for immediate job entry.
Dedicated to building strong community
partnerships, Miami-Dade Community College
maintains six Career Centers in collaboration
with Miami-Dade/Monroe WAGES (Work And
Gain Economic Self-Sufficiency) Coalition.
These centers offer orientation and assessment,
life skills, training, and job placement.
All campuses are equipped with state-ofthe-art
computer labs, the latest audiovisual
learning devices, libraries, and athletic facilities.
Beyond the traditional classroom, Miami-
Dade Community College’s Virtual College
provides the opportunity for students all over
the world to benefit from the College’s outstanding
educational programs. These courses
are offered via a variety of technologies such
as phone, voice mail, fax, the Internet, e-mail
or postal mail and offer students the option of
“going to school” at home, work or anywhere
else they happen to be.
The College plays a vital role in South
Florida’s cultural life. Its world-renowned
event, Miami Book Fair International, annually
brings more than 250 authors from around the
world and attracts more than half a million visitors.
Other public programs include a variety
of educational seminars and conferences,
community-based activities, and visual and
performing arts events.
Miami-Dade Community College’s open
admission policy makes college-level and community
education classes available to all. For
more information on Miami-Dade Community
College’s programs, visit the web site at
www.mdcc.edu or call 305-237-MDCC.
176 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

In the early decades of the twentieth century,
George Keen, Ben Battle, and D. R. Mead
each created independent insurance agencies to
serve Miami’s growing population. Keen
opened his firm in Hialeah, Battle on Miami
Beach, and Mead in downtown Miami. By the
1950s, the next generation of Keens and
Battles—George, Jr. and Ben, Jr.—came on
board, playing key roles during the period of
unparalleled growth that, in 1971, resulted in a
merger of the two firms. Eleven years later, they
purchased D. R. Mead & Company, heralding
another growth period that included the purchase
of Schafer & Company, ChaseFed
Insurance Agency and other acquisitions.
One of the largest locally owned independent
insurance companies in South Florida, Keen
Battle Mead & Company remains oriented
toward family values, and is still family-run.
Ben’s four sons joined the firm, starting with
Michael, followed by Timothy, then Robert and
finally Patrick. The Battles built a five-story
headquarters in Miami Lakes in 1984, and has
branch offices in Vero Beach, Boca Raton,
Naples, and Ocean Reef (Key Largo).
The current generation still adheres to the
principles of knowledge, accountability, vision,
and service on which Keen Battle Mead &
Company was founded more than seven
decades ago. “Our philosophy is to treat each
customer the way we would like to be treated—
with integrity, honesty and professionalism,”
agree the members of the third generation to
lead the company. The community knows them
as service-oriented citizens through their commitments
to many organizations, including the
American Cancer Society, Historical Association
of Southern Florida, College Assistance
Program, Orange Bowl Foundation, Beaux Arts
of the Lowe Art Museum, Junior League of
Miami, and the annual Doral-Ryder Open.
Because people’s circumstances, like everything
in life, are constantly changing, insurance
products also vary frequently. KBM’s professionals
keep up with the industry to make certain
each of their customers receives a cost-effective,
comprehensive portfolio of insurance products
and services to meet their individual needs.
Keen Battle Mead covers Commercial, Personal,
Life and Employee Benefits. The firm represents
most major insurance companies, and combines
KEEN BATTLE MEAD & COMPANY
all the advantages of a major worldwide insurer
with the service and trust its 8,000-plus customers
have come to rely on. Its claims handling
was tested in the aftermath of Hurricane
Andrew, when KBM handled the crisis with efficiency,
processing 5,000 claims in a timely way.
They have grown with the community, and
are an integral part of it. Knowledge, accountability,
vision and service are the elements that
make Keen Battle Mead & Company the
respected, successful agency it is today.
✧
Above: The second and third
generation executive team of Keen
Battle Mead & Company.
(COURTESY OF PAUL MORRIS PHOTOGRAPHY)
Below: Keen Battle Mead’s headquarters in
Miami Lakes.
(COURTESY OF PAUL MORRIS PHOTOGRAPHY)
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 177

✧
Above: Dade Heritage Trust Headquarters.
(COURTESY OF KATIE PEARL HALLORAN)
Top, left: The Cape Florida Lighthouse was
restored by Dade Heritage Trust.
(COURTESY OF LAMBETH & NAGEL COMMUNICATIONS)
Below: A Dade Heritage Days tour at the
Wagner Homestead.
(PHOTO BY BECKY ROPER MATKOV)
DADE
HERITAGE
TRUST
Dade Heritage Trust (DHT) was founded in
1972 as a nonprofit membership organization
to preserve Dade County’s architectural, cultural
and environmental heritage through
advocacy, education and restoration. One of
DHT’s first projects was the restoration of the
original 1905 office of early pioneer Dr. James
M. Jackson. Listed on the National Register of
Historic Places, the neoclassical, wood frame
building has been DHT’s Headquarters for
over twenty years.
A shining accomplishment of DHT was the
restoration of the oldest structure in Dade
County, the Cape Florida Lighthouse on Key
Biscayne. The eight-year-long project involved
thousands of volunteer hours and raised
almost a million dollars. The Lighthouse
Restoration culminated with a gala re-lighting
ceremony in July 1996, capping Miami’s
Centennial Celebration.
For eighteen years, DHT has sought to
“build bridges across cultural barriers” by
presenting Dade Heritage Days, an eight-weeklong
celebration of Miami’s cultural and
environmental heritage. Over l00 different
events, including Miami RiverDay, architectural
lectures, boat trips, walking and bike tours,
folk life festivals, and a preservation awards
ceremony, seek to unite Miami-Dade’s
multi-ethnic community through a shared
appreciation of Miami’s heritage. An exciting
heritage tourism program was initiated in 2000,
offering historic tours throughout the year.
In the early 1980s DHT saved the 1858
Wagner Homestead, the oldest house in Dade
County, by relocating it to Lummus Park and
restoring it to its original appearance. DHT is
currently working to secure Lummus Park as
a cultural heritage center and to revitalize the
adjoining neighborhood along the historic
Miami River.
In 1996 Dade Heritage Trust formed a task
force to preserve the historic but neglected
Miami City Cemetery and has vastly improved
its security and beauty. The City Cemetery
Commemorative Service, led by DHT’s
African-American Committee, is a highlight of
Dade Heritage Days. Dade Heritage Trust is
also a partner in the Downtown Miami Main
Street program working to revitalize the
central business district.
In 1999 Dade Heritage Trust spearheaded
efforts to save the 2,000-year-old Miami
Circle archeological site at the mouth of the
Miami River from demolition for a high-rise
development. Thanks to extensive advocacy
and public relations efforts, which generated
international media coverage, the county and
state government were persuaded to intervene
and preserve this mysterious, one-of-a-kind
site for the future.
Dade Heritage Trust annually presents a list
of the “Ten Most Endangered Historic Sites in
Miami-Dade County,” which has included
such landmarks as the Freedom Tower,
Virginia Key, and the Curtiss Mansion. Media
coverage of this list has been extensive and
has included a twelve-part DHT television
series, resulting in progress being made in
saving these historic resources.
Dade Heritage Trust is supported entirely
by donations, grants and fundraising events.
Membership is open to all, and everyone is
invited to join DHT in preserving the best of
the past for the future.
178 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

The 1926 building that for more than four
decades has housed the Coconut Grove
Playhouse was born as a theater for vaudeville
and motion pictures. But on January 3, 1956,
limousines jammed Main Highway as Miamians
arrived for the American premiere of Samuel
Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Bert Lahr and Tom
Ewell starred in Godot, the Playhouse’s first legitimate
theater production, and they were followed
by a stellar succession including Tallulah
Bankhead, Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Carol
Channing, George C. Scott, Ethel Merman, Liza
Minnelli, Jerry Herman, Tracey Ullman, Bea
Arthur, Julie Harris, Kathleen Turner, Jack
Klugman, and Tony Randall, to name a few.
Actor-director Jose Ferrer was named
Artistic Advisor in 1982, and brought national
prominence to the Coconut Grove
Playhouse as a not-for-profit regional theater.
Ferrer, in concert with the Board of Directors,
chose Arnold Mittelman as his successor in
1985. Mittelman has created over 100
Mainstage, Encore Room Theatre, and touring
productions. World premieres presented at
the Playhouse have enjoyed successful
Broadway and multiple-city runs, confirming
its important role in the nation’s theatrical life.
“The Playhouse is dedicated to producing theater
that enlightens, educates, and entertains our
diverse audiences,” Arnold Mittelman observed.
“We also develop new audiences through educational
outreach programs that challenge young
people to make sound, value-based choices.” The
Playhouse’s educational and outreach programs
include classes for children, teens and adults;
interactive and play-reading programs, in-school
performances, summer theater camps, an
apprentice program, and master sessions.
Like many historic structures, the
Playhouse’s Spanish-style building is not without
liabilities. During the course of building
improvements supported by a $500,000 grant
from the State of Florida, workers discovered
“spalling”—salt from sea sand used in the original
concrete mixture had begun to corrode
metal structural elements.
The Playhouse structure is stable, but is in
dire need of repair. Plans for renovations and
rebuilding are in process. The end result will
be a theatrical facility designed to meet the
demands of the twenty-first century, while
maintaining its historic charm and integrity.
The South Florida community is being asked
to respond generously to the “Building for the
Future Campaign.” Pulitzer prize-winning playwright
and part-time Coconut Grove resident
Edward Albee has urged patrons to preserve the
landmark institution, noting, “the Coconut
Grove Playhouse has been the home of more
serious entertainments than any other metropolitan
Florida theater.” Latin music stars Willy
Chirino and Lissette, supporters of the
Playhouse, led the Hispanic community with a
concert benefiting the renovation campaign.
To learn more about this not-for-profit state
theater of Florida, visit www.cgplayhouse.com.
COCONUT
GROVE
PLAYHOUSE
✧
Top: Kathleen Turner starring as Tallulah
Bankhead in the Coconut Grove Playhouse’s
American premiere of Tallulah.
(PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF HARVEY BILT)
Below: The Coconut Grove Playhouse has
occupied the same building for more than
four decades.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 179

✧
THE BILTMORE HOTEL, CORAL GABLES
Above: The Biltmore’s Mediterraneanrevival
style features stone columns,
decorative hand painted ceilings, Italian
marble floors and open-air courtyards
with fountains.
Bottom, right: The Biltmore Hotel is South
Florida’s only National Historic Landmark
resort. Its rich history dates back to the
Roaring Twenties.
In 1924, young George Merrick, founder of
Coral Gables, joined forces with Biltmore Hotel
magnate John McEntee Bowman to create a
great hotel for the crowds that were thronging
to Coral Gables. When the now four-star, fourdiamond
hotel and resort opened in 1926, it
hosted the likes of the Duke and Duchess of
Windsor, Ginger Rogers, Judy Garland, Bing
Crosby, Al Capone, and assorted Roosevelts
and Vanderbilts. Fashion shows, gala balls, and
weddings were as frequent then as they are
now. Esther Williams was featured in aquatic
shows in its vast pool, still the largest hotel
pool in the continental U.S., according to
Travel and Leisure magazine.
Recognized today as one of the world’s
leading resorts (Conde Nast Traveler has
repeatedly voted it one of the “Best Places to
Stay in the World”), the luxurious Biltmore
also played important utilitarian roles during
its long life. The War Department converted it
into an Army Air Forces Regional Hospital
during World War II. The Biltmore was the
early site of the University of Miami’s School
of Medicine, and then housed a VA Hospital
until 1968. The City of Coral Gables was
granted ownership control of The Biltmore in
1973, through the Historic Monuments Act
and Legacy of Parks program.
A $55 million restoration in the mid-1980s
brought the hotel back to its original splendor.
In June 1992, a multinational consortium led
by Seaway Hotels Corporation, a Florida hotel
management company, officially became The
Biltmore’s owners and operators. Seaway has
since renovated the pool, furnishings and guest
rooms, and the state-of-the-art health club and
spa. The City of Coral Gables invested approximately
$3 million to restore the adjacent
eighteen-hole championship golf course.
With its program of Michelin-rated guest
chefs, The Biltmore’s La Palme d’Or restaurant
has become a culinary focal point. The hotel’s
Sunday brunches are legendary, and its Cellar
Club is renowned among connoisseurs of fine
wines and cigars. A $13 million high-tech executive
learning facility, the Conference Center of
the Americas, was inaugurated recently, increasing
The Biltmore’s meeting and conference
space to an impressive 76,000 square feet.
In 1994, the Summit of the Americas brought
thirty-three democratically elected presidents
of western hemispheric countries, including
President Clinton, to The Biltmore for the largest
summit conference ever hosted by the U.S. In
1996, The Biltmore’s architectural and historic
significance was acclaimed, when it was designated
a National Historic Landmark by the federal
government. Only three percent of sites on
the National Register of Historic Places are recognized
as landmarks. Dade Heritage Trust
offers Sunday guided tours of the property, highlighting
its architectural features and its important
role in South Florida’s history.
180 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

MAXIM’S
IMPORT
CORPORATION
Maxim’s Import Corporation is an inspiring
example of the success that a dedicated
family of entrepreneurs can achieve in Miami.
Luis Chi, his wife Maria, son Jose L. (Joe),
and daughter Jeanny Lei, founded Maxim’s
Import Corporation in 1977 to broker
seafood, meat, and poultry. Today, it is an
international import and export company
that trades in a broad range of food products
from Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean,
and continues to evolve and prosper.
When Luis Chi left the People’s Republic of
China in 1949 for Cuba, he did not anticipate
fleeing to the United States in 1960 to escape
Castro’s government. Finding himself in
Miami with a wife, son, daughter, and father to
support, he worked long hours in food service
jobs, always saving toward the goal of opening
his own business. In 1967, Luis Chi founded
La Estrella Supermarket on Northwest 24th
Street. The ethnic Spanish grocery store met a
local need, and soon outperformed a nearby
major chain supermarket. A laundromat, managed
by Joe and Jeanny (who continue to work
in Maxim’s Import Corporation) was added to
the market, and eventually the family acquired
the entire block.
With no formal training, but a strong network
of connections in Asia, Latin America
and the Caribbean, the Chi family has forged
a distinctive company culture that has thrust
Maxim’s into the forefront of privately owned
firms in the import/export industry. “Maxim’s
Import is continually redefining its scope in
response to an ever-changing marketplace,”
noted Luis Chi. “The company could not
have reached this stage without the efforts of
customers, employees, and associates. But
most of all, I am grateful for the dedication of
my family,” Chi said.
Joe shares his father’s energy, adding social
causes to his business agenda. Joe is on several
boards of directors, including CAMACOL,
the Latin American Chamber of Commerce,
Dade-Monroe County WAGES Coalition,
Federal Enterprise Community Council and
Melrose Citizens Advisory Committee as
Chairman. He is a trustee of the South Florida
Food Recovery Inc.; a regional food bank
serving up to 150,000 recipients per week
and in 1997 was elected Vice Chairman of the
Dade-Monroe County Jobs and Education
Partnership Board.
✧
Above: Luis Chi, founder of
Maxim’s Import.
Below: The Chi Family.
(PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF CARLOS GASTELBONDO)
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 181

CASABLANCA ON THE OCEAN
Miami Beach’s Casablanca Hotel was a popular
destination for vacationers in the 1950’s. In
late 1999, it became known as the Casablanca
on the Ocean, a Golden Tulip Hotel, and is
again a focal point for one of the world’s most
sought-after resort areas. The Casablanca’s
prime location directly on the beach in the
heart of Millionaire’s Row at Collins Avenue and
63rd Street make it convenient for guests who
come from all over the world to enjoy its sleek
retro look and endless comforts. Golden Tulip
Hotels are a household name in Europe.
Working with international travel agencies and
KLM Royal Dutch Airways, the Casablanca on
the Ocean hosts thousands of visitors from
Europe, South America, Canada, and the
United States every year.
Completely renovated and restored in 1995,
the new Casablanca on the Ocean is a Fifties
era landmark that offers up-to-the-minute
amenities for guests and owners. The property
was converted to condominiums in 1995, years
before developers in the rest of Miami began
building and marketing waterfront properties
this way. Fifty percent of the units belong to
local residents, who use them as beach cottages
during the summer, and during the winter season
place them in a rental program through the
Casablanca’s management.
Guests and owners alike can relax in the
oceanfront-heated swimming pool, where private
cabanas and towel service are available.
Strolls along the natural beaches where sea oats
grow on the dunes, or a workout in the poolside
gym are also options. Restaurants range
from international cuisine to the casual ambience
of the Tiki Bar. The elegant shops of Bal
Harbour and the excitement of South Beach’s
Art Deco district are each just a few minutes’
drive in either direction, and access to the Port
of Miami and Miami International Airport is
quick and convenient.
Accommodations include thirteen
one- and two-bedroom townhouses
and 275 deluxe studios, all
with walk-in closets and fully
equipped kitchens—from televisions
and all appliances, right down
to china and tableware. All rooms
offer views of the Intracoastal
Waterway or the Atlantic Ocean.
The Casablanca’s meeting room will
accommodate gatherings of up to
fifty people.
Like other Golden Tulip Hotels
around the world, the Casablanca
on the Ocean excels in personal
service and strong individual character.
It proudly represents the
mid-twentieth century design style
that today is becoming more
appreciated than ever.
182 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

Farrey’s Wholesale Hardware Company,
Inc., dba Farrey’s Lighting and Bath has
weathered more storms than just the two
major hurricanes that once struck its Miami
enterprise. In 75 years of meeting its customers
needs in a period that spans four
generations in this family-owned and -operated
business, Farrey’s has endured through
some turbulent times and emerged stronger
and more vibrant than ever.
The humble beginning was in a 625
square-foot storefront on Collins Avenue in
Miami Beach back in 1924.
But the Farrey family prevailed and
today they run a $30 million a year showcase
for top quality lighting, bath, hardware
and home furnishings in a 131,000 squarefoot
facility in North Miami. Featuring
everything from lamps and chandeliers to
faucets and marble whirlpools, bathroom
fixtures and doorknobs, Farrey’s is prepared
to outfit an entire home with the functional
or the extraordinary.
As Farrey’s has evolved into a megastore,
they still maintain the personal touch
that is missing at most big-box retailers.
Farrey’s president, Bud Farrey, and his
brother, Frank Farrey run the company
with help from their father, Francis, the
company chairman and son of founder
John J. Farrey. Bud’s daughter, Paige, and
son, Kevin, joined the staff several years
ago and represent the fourth generation in
the family business.
Farrey’s opened its current location after
disaster struck again when the 1980 riots
wiped out their warehouse in Northwest
Miami. It was a total loss, but 35 days later
Farrey’s was back in business in its new
location. In an unusual and compassionate
gesture, Farrey’s kept all 100 employees on
the payroll throughout the crisis, something
his loyal staff will never forget. Twenty percent
of their employees have been with the
company for two decades or longer.
Hurricane Andrew in 1992 could have
dealt yet another blow to the business, but
instead Farrey’s responded to customer
needs and experienced a growth spurt while
helping South Dade County residents
rebuild their homes.
What started as a “mom-and-pop” general
store selling hardware and tools has now
evolved into a showcase for high quality
lighting and bath products. They have supplied
hardware for many downtown Miami
buildings. Schools and hospitals are typical
commercial clients in addition to a variety of
more esoteric customers. For example, every
doorknob at Disney’s Epcot Center came
from Farrey’s.
Farrey’s also has upscale one-of-a-kind
accessories and furnishings for its increasing
clientele of celebrities and business
tycoons, including some of Miami’s best
known residents.
Farrey’s latest addition is its 9,000 squarefoot
location in historic Coral Gables.
✧
Below: Farrey’s Hardware Company, Inc.,
storefront in 1934.
FARREY’S
WHOLESALE
HARDWARE
COMPANY, INC.
Bottom: Farrey’s Hardware Company, Inc.,
131,000 square-foot facility in North Miami.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 183

CORT
BUSINESS
SERVICES
CORPORATION
Like its customers, CORT Business Services
is on the move. It has become the #1 provider
of rental furnishings, accessories, and related
services by focusing on the service needs of
corporate America and its employees.
The CORT Furniture Rental Unit services
a growing transitional workforce by furnishing
offices and corporate apartments for companies
and individuals. CORT has become
the only national company in the rent-to-rent
(versus low-end rent-to-own) furniture
industry by providing innovative solutions to
businesses and individuals. It operates 120
showrooms and eighty-four furniture clearance
centers in thirty-four states and the
District of Columbia. The company also provides
temporary furnishings to trade shows.
Customers can select furniture from beautiful
showroom displays, or access CORT’s website
with online catalog at www.cort1.com.
Since its inception in 1972, management
has aimed to make CORT a one-stop shop for
rental services. A single phone call can meet a
customer’s entire temporary or permanent
furnishing needs. Clients range from over
eighty percent of the Fortune 500 giants to
home office telecommuters, consultants and
entrepreneurs. An important feature at CORT
is personal service, with sales professionals
acting as consultants. With the tremendous
flux in workforces due to restructuring,
downsizing and relocating, CORT has grown
by moving swiftly to provide the furniture
services a business needs to get up and running
as quickly as possible.
CORT’s sales staff can visit the workplace,
do a needs analysis based on their experience
with similar situations, and offer solutions on
a one-on-one basis. It is this kind of individual
attention, specifically tailored to the requirements
of each client that sets CORT apart.
Although corporate customers make up
eighty percent of CORT’s business, it also
provides furniture for students, first jobs,
transfers, and others who need to furnish a
permanent or temporary home or office.
For businesses that require employees to
stay for extended periods, it is often more cost
effective, and more comfortable for the
employee, to rent an apartment instead a hotel
room. CORT can furnish an entire home, right
down to pots, pans, linens, towels, and TVs
with VCRs. The apartment can be set up and
ready when the employee arrives.
When the employee moves on, CORT will
pack up and remove all the furniture and housewares,
taking the hassle out of providing a temporary
residence. CORT’s rental programs offer
more flexibility than purchasing furniture, and a
lot more customized service. And it only takes
forty-eight hours to get furniture delivered.
CORT’s national presence means it can
bring the same level of service to any business
or home location, all backed by its written
Personal Service Guarantee.
184 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

Two women, Mary Johnson and Gertrude
Wales, founded Johnson & Wales in 1914 in
Providence, Rhode Island as a business
school. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the private,
non-profit, coeducational institution
kicked-off its world famous culinary school.
The North Miami campus opened in 1992
with fewer than 100 students. By the year
2000, enrollment at the North Miami campus
topped 1,600, including students from thirtythree
countries and twenty-four states.
Johnson & Wales has sister campuses in
Providence, Rhode Island; Charleston, South
Carolina; Norfolk, Virginia; Denver,
Colorado; and Gothenburg, Sweden.
“Our graduates hold positions in some of
the best organizations in the world, from
strategic analyst for R&A Bailey Ltd. in
Dublin, Ireland to general manager of
Forestas Hotel & Kon-Forens in Stockholm,
Sweden; from executive chef of the Diplomat
Country Club and Resort to training officer at
the Hilton Hotel in Malaysia,” said Dr. Donald
G. McGregor, president of Johnson & Wales
University-Florida Campus.
Besides being one of the world’s foremost
foodservice and hospitality educators, Johnson
& Wales is dedicated to providing students
with a well-rounded university education. The
Florida campus offers Associate and Bachelor’s
degrees in the College of Culinary Arts, the
College of Business, and the Hospitality
College. Ninety-eight percent of Johnson &
Wales graduates from the fifty states seeking
employment within sixty days of graduation
are employed within that time, according to
the 2000 Graduate Student Survey. “We are
continuing the University’s commitment to
educational excellence by establishing new
business programs, while continuing our
already exceptional culinary and hospitality
programs,” McGregor continued.
The Florida campus offers degree programs
in majors such as accounting, business
administration, criminal justice, marketing,
retailing and travel-tourism management.
“Together with our industry partners, we’ve
worked diligently to refine the College of
Business programs to meet the demands of
the twenty-first century,” said Dr. Larry Rice,
department chair of Academic Affairs.
One of Johnson & Wales’ newest programs
in Florida offers a bachelor’s degree in
Sports/Entertainment/Events Management,
with a concentration in golf. Courses include
golf course design and construction, golf operations
management, turf grass management
and private club management. “Industry partners,
including Arnold Palmer Golf
Management, Doral Resort & Spa, and other
Miami facilities have committed to making this
program relevant while affording graduates an
opportunity to pursue careers in this exciting
industry,” McGregor said.
Practical education translates classroom
learning into hands-on experience for Johnson
& Wales students, giving them a distinct
advantage in the job arena. In 1999, Greater
Miami and the Beaches Hotel Association
awarded a Best Guest Service Award to the
forty-five-room Bay Harbor Inn & Suites,
which are a Johnson & Wales University hotel,
restaurant and educational facility. “The hotel
is a live classroom where the guest is the judge
of service and level of skill the student and
professional staff commands,” noted Lior
Dagan, general manager of the Bay Harbor Inn
& Suites. The Inn competed with over 900
other hotels, resorts and cruise lines to capture
this prestigious award.
For information on current programs in
North Miami and University scholarships,
contact the Admissions Office at 1-800-232-
2433 or 305-892-7600.
JOHNSON &
WALES
UNIVERSITY
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 185

PINEBANK, N.A.
✧
PineBank located at 1001 Brickell
Bay Drive.
Nelson Pinheiro and his brother, Noberto,
opened PineBank, N.A. in Miami in 1991,
primarily to serve Brazilians and other Latin
Americans who had businesses or second
homes in Miami, and to finance the trade
flows between Latin America and the rest
of the world. The brothers, who own a
majority of the bank’s stock, have long
careers in global banking. They developed
the concept of nationally-chartered PineBank
as a “banker’s bank,” specializing in correspondent
banking and trade finance activities.
The founders’ experience in global
banking has led to steady growth in its
deposits, assets, capital, and profits each
year. More than 200 correspondent banks in
the United States and Latin America, and
major international financial centers, do
business with the FDIC-insured international
division of PineBank.
“All our decisions reflect the long term goals
of the bank, and that prudence takes priority
over short-term gains,” Nelson commented.
PineBank’s staff members, who number
more than 40 at its head office on Brickell Bay
Drive, are carefully chosen for their expertise
and for their dedication to customer service.
The officers and staff members are bilingual,
if not trilingual, so they are able to provide
highly personalized service to its sophisticated
clientele.
PineBank’s private banking business has
expanded to include a substantial client base
domestically, as well as throughout Latin
America. Typical deposits range from $25,000
to $250,000, and PineBank’s deposits are
insured by the FDIC. PineBank offers its
depositors a full range of convenient electronic
banking services, taking advantage of technology
to improve customer service and
increase efficiency. Customers may initiate
transfers between accounts at PineBank, and
transfer to beneficiaries anywhere in the world
from those accounts. Correspondent banks
and importers can open letters of credit electronically,
clients may request bill payments,
and the system accepts loan applications and
e-mails from clients.
Customers can get account balances online
24 hours a day, review movement in their
accounts, and monitor for receipt of incoming
transfers and other transactions. PineLink, the
bank’s on-line system, uses state-of-the-art
encryption technology to ensure its clients’
security and privacy.
PineBank’s president, Raul Fernandez, is an
advocate of local involvement by the institution
and by its staff members. “The bank is
proud to support the community by investing
in housing bonds and by financing local
exporters and community development associations,”
he said. Staff members are generous
with their time, supporting cultural organizations
like the Brazilian Film Festival, and
charitable causes that include Hands on
Miami, the Children’s Home Society, and
Habitat for Humanity.
As Chairman Nelson Pinheiro points out,
“PineBank has in place the products and service
that our clients demand, and our systems
have been upgraded to ensure efficient delivery.
The bank’s controls are strong, and lending
philosophies are conservative.” He credits
the dedication, professionalism, and enthusiasm
of PineBank’s directors, management, and
staff with creating the assets that will ensure
the enduring success of PineBank.
186 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

FLORIDA AUTO
RENTAL
In 1969 Walter Sonne acquired the A1A
Regent Resort Hotel on Fort Lauderdale Beach.
He owned and operated it until it was sold in
1982. Sonne started Florida Auto Rental in
1977, offering automobiles for hire and for
replacement transportation related to insurance
claims. “The Ford Mustang convertible is one of
the most popular rental cars in South Florida,”
said Walter Sonne. “Visitors like to rent the
convertibles all year-round.”
Florida Auto Rental is dedicated to providing
the public with new auto rentals at low
rates, and to providing good service. The
business employs about sixty-five people, and
caters to tourists from the United States,
Europe, Central America and South America.
Its headquarters are in Fort Lauderdale, with
branches in Miami and Orlando. The company
has undertaken an plan to expand into
Florida’s west coast in the coming months.
Florida Auto Rental also does business as
Continental Rent-A-Car, and many tourists
and travel agents access the company on the
World Wide Web at www.autorent.com.
Mr. Sonne served in the Korean War after
immigrating to the United States from
Germany. He is a member of the United States
Navy League.
✧
Above: Walter Sonne shown here with one
of his companies’ most popular rental cars:
the Ford Mustang.
Below: As Continental Rent-A-Car,
tourist and travel agents rent vans
to handle larger parties.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 187

FLORIDA
MEMORIAL
COLLEGE
✧
Above: Dr. Albert E. Smith assumed the
presidency of Florida Memorial College
in 1993.
Below: Florida Memorial College’s main
campus is situated on a picturesque fortyfour-acre
site in northwest Miami-Dade
County. The William Lehman Aviation
Center’s tower is visible in the upper left
and the Nathan Collier Library and the
J. C. Sams Activity Center surround the
lake, which is in the campus’ center.
Founded in 1879, Florida Memorial College
is one of the state’s oldest private academic
centers. The institution began as the Florida
Baptist Institute in Live Oak, Florida, when the
American Baptist Home Mission Society gave
its support to the newly organized school. The
school was formed to educate African-
American students, and the first regular school
year began in 1880.
In 1882 the Florida Baptist Academy was
established in Jacksonville, Florida. The
Academy’s name was later changed to Florida
Normal and Industrial Institute. The school
was also supported by the Baptist church mission,
and it was in Jacksonville at Florida
Baptist Academy that two brothers, James
Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson,
co-wrote the words and music to what has
become known as the Negro National
Anthem—Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing—in 1900.
In 1918 Florida Normal and Industrial
Institute moved to St. Augustine, Florida. College
historians state that on the property was a bell
which was once used to call slaves for orders.
These historians further state that the bell was cast
at the same foundry as the Liberty Bell, which is
enshrined in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The bell
now rings each day on the current campus to
remind students of their religious heritage and the
sacrifices made by their ancestors in order for
them to obtain an education.
In 1941, the school in Live Oak and the
school in St. Augustine merged, changing its
limited offerings from the junior college classification
to a four-year liberal arts institution.
The college graduated its first four-year class in
1945 and changed its name in 1950 to Florida
Normal and Industrial Memorial College.
In 1963 the charter was once again
amended to change its name to Florida
Memorial College and opened the institution
to students of all races. Finally, in September
1968, amidst the height and tension of
the Civil Rights movement, the college
moved to a new campus in northwest Miami-
Dade near the grounds of Opa-locka Airport.
The institution, which is accredited by
the Southern Association of Colleges and
Schools (SACS), has grown to its present
enrollment of over two thousand students
and offers Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of
Science degrees through its seven academic
divisions which include: Airway and
Computer Sciences, Business Administration,
Education, Humanities, Natural Sciences and
Mathematics, Social Sciences, and Extension
and Continuing Education.
As of January 2001, Florida Memorial
College was in the midst of an extensive construction
campaign that promises to transform
the campus, and continue to provide
quality education for its students in culturally
diverse South Florida. FMC is South Florida’s
only historically African-American college,
and a member of The College Fund/UNCF.
—by Retha S. Boone
188 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

Since its founding in 1981, Onyx
Insurance Group has prospered by relying on
flexibility and innovation, continuously
developing new insurance products to meet
the needs of Florida’s ever-changing population.
Three siblings run the family owned and
operated firm, headquartered in North Miami:
Paul Fraynd is chief executive officer, Saul
Fraynd is chief operating officer, and Fanny
Fraynd is executive director for Public
Relations and Government Affairs.
Onyx offers a full line of insurance products—property,
casualty, life and health
insurance—through representatives from
Pensacola to Key West. The Florida domestic
insurer—one of the state’s top ten—has over
500 employees, and more than 1,200 broker
offices with 4,000 representatives.
The Onyx Insurance Group’s mission, since
its inception, has been to supply small to medium-sized
customers with insurance products
not readily available from national carriers. “We
dedicate ourselves to finding gaps in the market,
and to servicing those areas well,” Saul Fraynd
said. “We respond to the needs of family-owned
business, of mom-and-pop operations.” Florida’s
cultural diversity, its ever-changing demographics,
and Miami’s position as a bridge between
North and South America have made this an
area of tremendous growth for the Onyx Group.
“New needs are developing constantly, and we
have the ability to design products to meet market
demands,” Fraynd continued.
The Fraynds’ extended family enjoyed spending
summers in Miami every year since 1965.
Eventually, they moved from cities in Central and
South America to make Miami their home. In
1981, they began a premium financing business,
then grew steadily as an insurer and underwriter.
Today, Onyx Insurance Group owns multiple
affiliates operating in Florida and other states.
One subsidiary is Pennsylvania-based GreenTree
Insurance Company, which was formed in 1784
and is the second oldest insurance company in
United States. Aries Insurance Company was
formed in 1983, followed by Skyhawk Insurance
Company in 1987.
History is a family interest. Fanny Fraynd
would like to set up an insurance museum in
Florida, and has collected firemarks and other
insurance-related memorabilia from Europe
and the U.S. Pre-Hurricane Andrew photographs
and surveys that Onyx preserved will
also figure as historical records of Florida’s
changing business environment.
The importance of attracting young people
to careers in the insurance industry is clear to
the Fraynds. They have opened their operations
to Dade County Schools through tours of
their facilities, and by providing summer
internships for high school students. The
Fraynds helped to set up a business curriculum
at the high school level to acquaint young people
with property and casualty insurance fields.
“It is a very technical career, but one in which
there is tremendous growth,” Saul Fraynd said.
The Onyx Insurance Group supports the
Miami Museum of Science’s computer learning
programs, another avenue for bringing new talent
into the industry.
ONYX
INSURANCE
GROUP
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 189

VILLAGE OF
PINECREST
✧
Top: Neighborhood children are greeted by
a Pinecrest police officer at Coral Pine
Park, one of four recreational facilities
in the Village.
Below: Mayor Evelyn Langlieb Greer,
members of the Village Council, and staff at
the dedication of Pinecrest Parkway. The
1999 Florida Legislature co-designated
South Dixie Highway as Pinecrest Parkway.
Former Pinecrest resident Governor Jeb
Bush signed the bill into law.
The Village of Pinecrest, Florida, has been
an established residential community since the
1930s and was incorporated as Miami-Dade
County’s 29th municipality on March 12,
1996. Pinecrest is one of the most beautiful
residential areas of South Florida, with treelined
streets, large estate lots, a low crime rate,
public and private schools considered
amongst the best in the county, a strategic
location and a thriving commercial strip of
over 600 businesses.
Pinecrest is conveniently located 15 minutes
from downtown Miami and Miami
International Airport. The Village encompasses
an 8.1 square mile area with approximately
18,500 residents of great diversity. The boundaries
are Snapper Creek Canal/North Kendall
Drive to the north, Southwest 136 Street to the
south, Red Road/ Old Cutler Road to the east,
and Pinecrest Parkway (US 1) to the west.
During the 1920s, Miami pioneer and railroad
tycoon Henry Flagler used the property
at US 1 and Southwest 102 Street as a staging
area during the construction of the Overseas
Railroad to the Florida Keys. In the 1930s, the
area’s growth continued and the community
began to evolve around one of the first tourist
attractions established in the Miami vicinity—
Parrot Jungle and Gardens. The Parrot Jungle
was founded in 1936 by Franz and Louise
Scherr on twenty acres of property located at
Red Road and Southwest 111 Street. Over the
years, it became a world famous tourist attraction
whose visitors included Sir Winston
Churchill. During the 1950s and 1960s the
area flourished with the development and
construction of ranch-style homes on acre
lots, establishing the community’s rural and
lushly landscaped residential character. Rapid
population growth and the emergence of
local issues during the 1990s inspired a
movement led by residents Gary Matzner and
Evelyn Langlieb Greer to incorporate the area.
Greer became the Village’s first mayor in
1996. She joined the first Village Council
members Cindie Blanck, Barry Blaxberg,
Leslie Bowe, and Robert Hingston, and Village
Manager Peter G. Lombardi in establishing
well-regarded municipal services including
police, public works, parks, and building and
planning services.
Today, residents of the Village of Pinecrest
benefit from one of the lowest municipal tax
rates in the county and quality municipal
and law enforcement services. Pinecrest’s
outstanding schools include Miami Palmetto
Senior High School, which was rated
by Newsweek in 1998 as one of the top
100 high schools in the United States. Pinecrestians
enjoy a superior quality of life in a
hometown rural atmosphere while also having
access to all the amenities of the Greater
Miami area.
190 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

TRADITIONAL VALUES IN
A CHANGING WORLD
People who love their communities make
the best Realtors. J Poole Associates, Inc.
Realtors, founded in 1990, is made up of caring
people whose roots run deep in South
Florida. Company president Jeanette Poole
encourages her associates to get involved, and
she sets the standard by serving on several
business and civic boards, including Dade
Heritage Trust, Palmer Trinity School, and
Baptist Hospital Foundation.
Jeanette Poole has made her company an
integral part of the community it serves, but
perhaps her chief corporate accomplishment
lies in preserving the values of a gentler era
while incorporating all the advantages of technology
and sophisticated product knowledge.
Full-service, independently owned J Poole
Associates handles commercial brokerage and
property management, as well as residential
real estate from the Keys to Palm Beach County.
Corporations seek its relocation services all
over the world. Visit J Poole Associates on the
World Wide Web at www.jpoole.com
In an area where so many people are newcomers,
over half of J Poole’s associates were
actually born and raised in South Florida, and
many others have long-standing associations
with Miami.
KAREN MCCAMMON,
BROKER-ASSOCIATE
“Bringing Miami Home to You” is the
motto of Karen Corlett McCammon, a sixth
generation Floridian who grew up in Coconut
Grove. One of South Florida’s top relocation
specialists for twenty years, Karen is intimately
familiar with neighborhoods and community
resources. She has assisted multinationals
including Esso, Rolls Royce, Royal Bank of
Canada, Bank of America, and Ernst & Young
with major relocations. “This business is
about people and relationships more than
anything else,” Karen commented.
She enjoys introducing others to Miami, and
her professionalism and empathy consistently
position her as one of South Florida’s most successful
Realtors. Karen is active with the Master
Brokers Forum, as well as the Junior League of
Miami, Beaux-Arts, Leadership Miami, and
St. Thomas Episcopal Parish.
MICHAEL W. BEEMAN,
REALTOR-ASSOCIATE
“What drew me to Coral Gables is the richness
of its history,” said Michael W. Beeman, a
South Florida resident since 1948 who lives in a
historically designated 1920’s home in Coral
Gables. Michael shares his collection of anecdotes
about the area during Dade Heritage Days
bicycle tours and on frequent Sunday walking
tours of the historic Biltmore Hotel.
He is active in Citizen’s Crime Watch and
Coral Gables Rotary, and served on the Board
of Dade Heritage Trust.
A licensed Realtor since 1977, Michael is in
the top 2% of Realtors nationwide. His passion
for local history finds its way into his
work, with the result that fifty percent of the
properties he sells are historic homes.
REX WILKINSON, REALTOR-ASSOCIATE
Rex Wilkinson’s interest in historic properties
began in 1985, when he restored a turn of the
century brownstone on Chicago’s north side.
Fluent in French and Spanish, Rex has
lived in France and Venezuela, and provides
unparalleled service in South Florida’s multinational
community.
He moved to Coral Gables ten years ago,
quickly establishing himself as an able
Realtor- Associate. His interest in historic
properties continued with the restoration of a
1925 Old Spanish home and then a historically
designated 1934 bungalow, both in
Coral Gables. His love of local history and
architecture make him an enthusiastic guide
for home seekers, and his hands-on experience
in restoring older homes gives buyers
valuable insight into a property’s potential.
Pinecrest Falls Office
13611 South Dixie Highway
Miami, Fl 33176
(305) 253-2940
South Miami/Coral Gables Office
5830 Southwest 73rd Street
South Miami, Fl 33143
(305) 669-8118
www.jpoole.com
J POOLE
ASSOCIATES, INC.
✧
Top to bottom:
Jeanette Poole, President.
REALTORS
Karen McCammon, Broker-Associate.
Michael W. Beeman, Realtor-Associate.
Rex Wilkinson, Realtor-Associate.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 191

THE RELATED
GROUP OF
FLORIDA
✧
Top: President Jorge M. Perez.
Right: The Congress Building.
Jorge M. Perez, president of The Related
Group, is a former urban planner with a
vision for Miami. “His restoration of the
Congress Building is the kind of low profit
redevelopment that benefits us all by bringing
working class residents into the city. These are
the kinds of pioneering projects that help us
redefine our city and our civic pride,” wrote J.
P. Faber, editor of Miami Business.
“Building our historical district, brick by
brick” was the theme of the Congress
Building’s dedication ceremony. Originally
constructed in 1926 at 111 Northeast Second
Avenue, it was restored in 1999 as a joint
effort between the Downtown Miami
Community Development Coalition and The
Related Group of Florida.
This 129-unit, twenty-one-story building
is north of the Brickell area, in the heart of the
downtown commercial district. The low rents
are subsidized by federal tax credits for
investors, and the apartments are available
only to low-income renters. A mile west of it
is another residential building developed and
managed by The Related Companies—West
Brickell Apartments. The Blackstone
Apartments in Miami Beach, a 131-unit building
for low-income elderly, won awards for
historic preservation when The Related Group
rehabbed it in the early 1980s.
By 1993, The Related Group had developed,
bought or rehabbed approximately
17,000 rental or for sale units. Its team knows
the complex federal and state-housing
requirements for developing government
assisted housing, one of its areas of specialization.
Related is the largest residential apartment
developer in Miami-Dade County, and
has built or rehabilitated more than 100 projects
in Florida, Texas, California, New York,
and Michigan.
The Related Group’s consistently high performance
and profitability in residential
development reflects its ability to secure
favorable locations and to produce quality
housing for all income levels. Related’s luxury
high-rise projects feature architecture on the
cutting edge of design. These include Ocean
One and Ocean Two in North Miami Beach,
The Mark on Brickell Bay Drive, Portofino
Tower, The Yacht Club at Portofino and
Murano in South Beach.
The Related Group of Florida is an integrated
development organization that combines
development expertise with financing
and property management. It has developed
strong relationships with some of the most
respected financial institutions in the country.
“Real estate will always be a business based on
a focused vision, practical experience and personal
trust,” said President Jorge M. Perez.
192 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

TotalBank, “Your Personal Bank,” has roots
in Miami-Dade County dating back to 1974.
One of Miami’s first Cuban-owned banks, it
was chartered under the name The Americas
Bank, and was opened in March 1974, by the
Blanco and Lewis family partnership. It
operated from a trailer at the construction site
until its main office building at the corner of
Coral Way and Southwest Twenty-seventh
Avenue was completed.
Inauguration of TotalBank’s flagship
branch at 2720 Coral Way was in September
1975. The five-floor building’s distinctive
architecture, designed by architect Jose Luis
Sierra, was dictated by zoning constraints on
square footage. Views of the Miami skyline
from the Penthouse level are legendary.
For over twelve years, TotalBank remained
under the leadership of its founder. In
November 1986, Myer Feldman and
Adrienne Arsht purchased TotalBank.
They had a vision to grow through acquisitions,
and in June 1996, TotalBank
merged with Trade National Bank.
Shortly thereafter, TotalBank acquired
Universal National Bank (June 1997)
and Florida International Bank (April
1998). TotalBank now covers Miami-
Dade County from Aventura to Perrine.
TotalBank offers a comprehensive range
of financial products, and business
and personal banking services. It takes
pride in its strength, independence, and
responsiveness to its customers throughout
Miami-Dade.
TotalBank’s chairman of the board,
Adrienne Arsht, is dedicated to the South
Florida community. She has received
numerous awards for her interests in
promoting women’s issues and for her
business acumen. Through Adrienne
Arsht’s involvement with the Greater Miami
Chamber of Commerce, as chair-elect of
the Beacon Council, and her leadership in
other community organizations, Arsht has
brought TotalBank into the limelight in
South Florida.
In 2000, TotalBank received the
Jeanne Bellamy Award from the Greater
Miami Chamber of Commerce. This
award recognizes companies for their
accomplishments in improving opportunities
for women, as well as for community involvement
and business excellence.
For over twenty-six years TotalBank has
been successfully serving the South Florida
community. It has remained a locally owned,
full-service commercial bank while growing
from three locations in 1974 to seventeen
locations at the end of 2000. TotalBank has
more than 250 employees and total assets of
$500 million.
The future of TotalBank is to continue its
growth as a financially strong, profitable
South Florida institution. TotalBank’s mission
is to deliver the highest level of domestic and
international banking services to owneroperated
businesses, professionals, and
community service organizations.
TOTALBANK
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 193

THE FIRST
NATIONAL
BANK OF
HOMESTEAD
✧
Top, right: Max Losner, founder of The First
National Bank of Homestead.
Above: Paul Losner.
Below: William H. “Bill” Losner.
The First National Bank of Homestead was
founded in 1932 by Max Losner, who moved
to the area in the early ’20s. Local farmers and
merchants had founded state-chartered banks
in 1912 and 1920, but these both failed in
1926. Homestead, population 2130, was left
with no bank until Max Losner assembled a
group of shareholders and—with $35,000—
opened the nationally-chartered First
National Bank of Homestead on November 1,
1932. The original offices were in the old
Bank of Homestead building at 4 South
Krome Avenue.
The bank became a charter member of the
FDIC in January 1934, and had the highest
deposit growth in Dade County that year. By
1939, it had more than $1 million in assets.
Losner was a leader in banking and civic
circles, serving on local and state banking
boards and the Federal Reserve Board of
Atlanta, Jacksonville Branch for three years.
He served as a Homestead City Councilman
and on various city finance committees.
The bank opened a branch at Homestead
Army Air Field in 1944. Managed by Max
Losner’s son Paul, it was among the first branch
banks in the country to operate on a military
base. It reopened with Homestead Air Force
Base during the Cold War, and operates today.
The bank added three other branches in
Homestead, Princeton and Perrine as the law
was changed to permit them.
William H. Losner, Paul’s son, worked for
the bank part-time as a teenager while still
in high school, and began his formal career in
1960 at the Bank of Perrine. In 1968, he was
elected advisory director of First National,
and was elevated to director in 1972. He was
also a founding officer and director of the
holding company that owned Bank of Perrine
and Bank of Cutler Ridge. In January 1980,
William Losner was elected president of First
National Bank of Homestead, and succeeded
his father as chairman in 1989.
When Hurricane Andrew demolished the
market area in August 1992, the bank worked
hand in hand with local businesses and residents
to help rebuild the community. In 1994,
the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency recognized
the bank’s long history of community
support, awarding it a coveted Community
Reinvestment Act rating of “Outstanding,”
which it retains today.
William H. “Bill” Losner, president and
chairman, commented, “Safety and soundness
have been our strength from FDR’s time until
today. And we intend to retain that focus as
we move the bank into the 21st Century.”
194 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

J. N. McArthur started McArthur Jersey
Dairy Farm in 1929 on fifty acres along
Hollywood Boulevard, about a mile west of
Highway 7 in southern Broward County. Jean
McArthur Davis, daughter of the dairy’s
founder, recalled that her father, with the help
of two high school boys, milked the twenty
Jersey cows, processed the milk and delivered
it himself. J. N. McArthur traveled about 120
miles a day, seven days a week, along his route
from Miami Shores to Flagler Street, making
collections and developing new customers as
he did the rounds. It was the Depression, and
many people could not afford the milk, even
at six cents a quart.
By 1937 McArthur’s business had grown to
warrant renting a building at northeast
Second Avenue and 62nd Street in Miami to
distribute the milk. It was still processed
and bottled in Hollywood, then packed in
ice and trucked to Miami. Home delivery
constituted sixty-five percent of the business
until the mid-1950s, when McArthur’s
market area—which stretched from Palm
Beach County to southern Dade County—
was too large for delivery trucks to cover
efficiently. Distribution plants were opened
in Perrine in 1956, and in summer 1961, in
Belle Glade. A modern ice cream plant was
built in Fort Lauderdale in 1962, supplanting
the Miami ice cream production facility.
The business had expanded north of the
Palm Beach area, and, in 1962, a distribution
plant was built in Fort Pierce. Ten years later
McArthur Dairy bought T.G. Lee Dairy in
Orlando, greatly increasing the company’s
statewide presence. In December 1974 it
bought Home Milk, a dairy-processing co-op
in Miami.
Dean Foods Company purchased the fiftyone-year-old
family-owned company in August
1980, and began operating McArthur Dairy as
a very profitable, successful Florida Division of
the Franklin Park, Illinois-based corporation.
Milk production and marketing have
changed radically since the days of J. N.
McArthur and his twenty Jersey cows. Home
delivery is uncommon in many areas. Over
the years, the familiar McArthur’s Dairy label
has been shifted from glass bottles to paper
cartons, to plastic containers—and now
appears on quart and pint plastic containers
shaped just like the early glass milk bottles.
Fluid milk competes for the consumer’s dollar
with other beverages including soft drinks,
beer and coffee, inspiring flavored versions of
“nature’s most nearly perfect food,” and other
new products.
Members of the McArthur family made
the dairy a part of South Floridians’ lives for
half a century by getting involved in civic
and charitable activities. Dean Foods has continued
that support, donating milk for the
Miami-Dade Fair’s fundraising milkshake
sales, and sponsoring youth athletic leagues as
well as the Florida Panthers Off-Ice Challenge.
MCARTHUR
DAIRY
✧
Below: From 1951 until today, this Miami,
Florida facility has served as the main plant
for McArthur Dairy.
Bottom: Automation was a real boon to
McArthur Dairy’s business. By the early
1950s, quart bottles could be vacuum-filled
at the rate of 120 per minute.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 195

HYATT
REGENCY
MIAMI
✧
Below: The Hyatt Regency Miami is located
on the north bank of the Miami River.
Bottom: Guest room with a view of the
Miami River.
The Hyatt Regency Miami is at the very
heart of the Capital of the Americas. Its distinctive
character and locus define the spirit
of internationalism and tropical ambience that
is Miami. The Hyatt Regency Miami is this
city’s true corazon.
The Hyatt Regency Miami is located on
the north bank of the Miami River, precisely
where Miami began more than a century
ago with an historic handshake between
Julia Tuttle and Henry Flagler. Since the
mid-1980s, its distinctive 24-story profile
has been at the center of Miami’s everchanging
skyline.
The Hyatt Regency Miami is a preferred
destination for Miami’s new wave of international
business travelers, for its tourists
and for the rapidly-growing population
that lives and works in booming downtown
Miami.
Offering more than 600 guest rooms
and suites, more than 100,000 square feet of
function facility—27 meeting rooms, a
ballroom, a 5,000-seat auditorium, and a
28,000 square foot exhibition hall—Hyatt
Regency Miami’s art deco lobby with its
soaring atrium, sculptures and palms
evokes the atmosphere of past times, while
providing its clientele with the benefits of
continual updating.
The Hyatt Regency Miami’s multilingual
staff is comprised of dedicated hoteliers
trained to provide ultimate guest
service in an atmosphere befitting the
hotel’s vital position within the community.
Located conveniently close to Miami
International Airport and the Port of
Miami, and within minutes of major business
and tourist destinations, the Hyatt
Regency Miami is at the geographical
center of Miami and, by extension, at the
center of the Americas.
The Hyatt Regency Miami elegantly
reflects the award from J. D. Power and
Associates to Hyatt Hotels as “highest in
guest satisfaction.” It consistently wins
accolades from meeting and convention
planners for its ability to create memorable
events, and has been selected as a preferred
hotel by major domestic and international
airlines. Among its staff (it employs a 1:1
staff-guest ratio) is the newly created position
of “meeting concierge” to assure perfect
conventions and social occasions.
The Hyatt Regency Miami is owned and
operated by Hyatt Hotels Corporation, which
operates 100 hotels and resorts in the
U.S., Canada and the Caribbean. Hyatt
International, through its subsidiaries, operates
76 hotels and resorts in 34 countries.
There are 186 Hyatt hotels and resorts
around the world.
The Hyatt Regency Miami at Miami
Convention Center is located at 400 Southeast
Second Avenue, Miami, Florida, 33131.
196 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

As recently as the 1960s, South Florida
was still attracting visionaries who could
invent new communities near the shores of
Biscayne Bay—places that drew people like a
magnet, and where thousands now make their
homes. Don Soffer created just such a town,
and named it Aventura.
Born in Duquesne, Pennsylvania, in 1932,
Don Soffer began his real estate development
career with a small shopping center he and his
father built in Norwin, a small mill town near
Pittsburgh. After developing several successful
shopping malls and office building
complexes in Pennsylvania, Soffer and his
associates purchased 785 acres of swamp
and marshland near the northern end of
Miami-Dade County in 1967. Today, 257 of
those acres are preserved as recreational open
space, used primarily as a country club/resort
and two championship golf courses.
Commercial development occupies 198 acres,
and 247 acres are dedicated to high-rise
residential development.
A Miami-Dade County regional library and
a fire station now stand on land Soffer’s
company donated to further the Aventura
community’s cultural growth and safety. When
a thirty-acre tract of land was required to connect
Biscayne Boulevard to Miami Beach,
Soffer oversaw the donation of land to complete
the William Lehman Causeway project.
As managing partner of Turnberry
Associates, Soffer is involved with every aspect
of his company’s extensive holdings and developments
across the United States. Committed
to making a positive contribution to his
community, Soffer also dedicates substantial
time and resources to philanthropy. He is a
founder-level supporter of Brandeis University,
the University of Pittsburgh, Mount Sinai
Medical Center, Greater Miami Jewish
Federation, the United Jewish Federation, and
the Aventura/ Turnberry Jewish Center. He is a
trustee of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and
the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce,
and is a board member of the American
Cancer Society.
Soffer has been named “Man of the Year”
by the City of Hope in Los Angeles, and
“Honorary Chairman” of the Diabetes
Research Institute in 1990. In 1999, he was
honored at the National Parkinson Foundation’s
Gala for Hope. Soffer is also a
major contributor to the American Heart
Association, Bar-llan University in Miami
Beach, CaP-CURE in Santa Monica, the Mayo
Foundation for Medical Education and
Research, Miami Heart Institute, Sylvester
Comprehensive Cancer Center, United Way
of Miami, The University of Miami School
of Medicine, and the Michael-Ann Russell
Jewish Community Center in Aventura.
TURNBERRY
ASSOCIATES
✧
Don Soffer, managing partner of
Turnberry Associates.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 197

THE
EATON
FAMILY
✧
Above: Frank Wharton was mayor of
Miami from 1907 to 1911, and later
became its first city manager.
Below: Wharton’s son-in-law Ian Douglas
MacVicar was a chairman of the Miami
City Commission.
Miami resident Patricia MacVicar Eaton
belongs to a family that has contributed many
years of service to the community, particularly
during its formative years. Her grandfather,
Frank H. Wharton came to Florida from Ohio
in 1897. He found a job clerking in a grocery
store at Avenue D and Fourth Street (now
Miami Avenue at Eighth Street), and in 1902 he
bought the business. In 1903 Wharton became
one of Miami’s first city councilmen. He served
two terms as mayor 1907-1911, and returned
to the council in 1915 for one year. When the
commission form of city government was
adopted in 1921, Wharton became Miami’s first
city manager, serving a term in 1921, and again
in 1930.
In 1925, Wharton built one of the first
homes in Morningside, and lived there until
his death in 1957. He and his wife Ola had four
daughters—Florence, Floy, Fanette, and
Frankie. Florence married Ian Douglas
MacVicar in 1922. They built a home in
Allapattah where they lived for thirty years,
before moving to South Miami. MacVicar
worked for John B. Orr, Inc., then established
MacVicar-Wells, Inc., a building materials business
on North Miami Avenue at Thirty-fourth
Street. He was elected to the Miami City
Commission in May 1941. Having fought in
World War I, he volunteered for service in
World War II, and served in England, France
and Germany. After his military service, he was
elected to the Dade County Commission in
November 1946, and served for ten years.
MacVicar’s daughter Patricia married Joe O.
Eaton, a native of Monticello, Florida. Eaton
was a bomber pilot in the European theater
during World War II, and participated in the
Normandy invasion. From 1956 to 1960, he
was Dade County’s sole State Senator. He was
a State Circuit Judge for eight years. Eaton’s
distinguished public career continued, as he
was appointed U.S. District Court judge in
1967 and served until 1992, acting as chief
judge for three of those years.
Patricia MacVicar Eaton was born at
Jackson Memorial Hospital in 1925. Dr.
Jackson himself, the hospital’s namesake,
delivered Patricia Eaton’s mother there in
1898, and the Eatons’ son Joel was born at
Jackson Memorial in 1943. Patricia had a long
career—from 1960 to 1987—as a registered
nurse at Variety Children’s Hospital, renamed
Miami Children’s Hospital during that period.
198 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

When Morgan A. Gilbert and Bertha Kitchell
married in Miami in 1903, they could not have
predicted the enormous transformation South
Florida would undergo during their seventy
years together. Nor could they imagine the city
that their heirs would be experiencing the year
2000 and beyond.
Members of both the Gilbert and Kitchell
families were pioneers, active in the vital
transportation of people and goods in Florida
in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Pioneering was in the Kitchells’ blood, for their
lineage can be traced to the English founders of
Guildford, Connecticut in 1639.
Long before railroads or cars were
available, boats provided the region’s main
commercial transportation. In the midnineteenth
century, Bertha’s father William
Kitchell ran the first ferry between Daytona
Beach and the mainland. In the days when
the railroad went only as far as Titusville, it
was his steamer, Della, (named for Bertha’s
sister) that carried Henry Flagler to Miami
for the first time. Ironically, once Flagler
extended the railroad all the way to Miami
and Key West, demand for Kitchell’s
steamboat dried up.
Bertha Kitchell was born in Daytona,
Florida, in 1883. When she was quite young,
she lived in Miami as a companion to Isabella
Peacock, who belonged to one of Coconut
Grove’s founding families. She appears beside
Peacock in a photograph taken circa 1898 at
Julia Tuttle’s home. Bertha gave birth to twelve
children, and was involved in many civic
activities. She was a charter member of Unity of
Hollywood, and in 1936 helped found the
Miami Pioneers, in which her daughter, Mona
Ball, remains active. In 1946 Bertha Gilbert
gave the Historical Association of Southern
Florida her copy of the Halifax Journal,
published in Daytona (Volusia County) on
February 15, 1883. This remarkable document
had been on cloth, because no paper was
available in Daytona at the time. She died
February 14, 1973, preceded in death by her
husband Morgan who died on January 4, 1973.
They are buried with other family members at
Miami City Cemetery.
The cemetery is across Northeast Second
Avenue from the former site of Miramar
Garage, which Morgan Gilbert opened in
1925. His family had been riverboat captains
and railroad engineers in Florida in the
decades before automobiles became a viable
mode of transportation. Morgan worked for
the railway as a young man, then for the
power company and the Miami Waterworks,
before going into private business.
MORGAN A. GILBERT &
BERTHA KITCHELL GILBERT
✧
Above: Photo taken circa 1898 at Julia
Tuttle’s home in Coconut Grove. Isabella
Peacock is the lady in black on the far left.
Bertha Kitchell is the girl in white beside
her. Julia Tuttle is fourth from left, standing
behind her son, Harry.
Left: Present in this photograph are (from
left to right) Bertha Kitchell, Charlie Frow,
Henry Smith, and Lettie Richards Klopp.
This photo was taken at the Peacock Inn.
Bertha Kitchell was a companion to
Isabella Peacock.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 199

VILLAGE OF
EL PORTAL
The Village of El Portal was established
in 1937. Property taxes remain the principal
revenue source for this small, quiet municipality,
which covers less than one square
mile. With a population of around twenty-four
hundred residents, El Portal is committed to
positive growth and historic preservation.
Its boundaries are roughly Little River Canal
on the south, Northwest Ninety-first Street
on the north, Northwest Fifth Avenue on the
west and Little Farm Mobile Court to the
east. Nearly eighty percent of the Village is
occupied by single-family homes, one percent
by commercial buildings, nine percent by
multi-family/professional offices, and ten
percent is taken up by roads and the Little
River Canal. The Tequesta Indian Mound,
believed to be thousands of years old, is a
landmark in this small residential community.
Many private homes in the Sherwood Forest
subdivision are considered historical, and their
owners have been careful to maintain the
homes’ original architectural features.
A sense of community is one of many
aspects the residents prize, demonstrated in
September 1999, when the El Portal Picnic
Committee organized its First Annual Village
Picnic. The El Portal Village Council has also
formed a Beautification Committee to increase
citizen involvement and strengthen civic pride.
A five-member village council composed of
a mayor, vice mayor, and three council members,
governs the Village of El Portal. Its police
department has a police chief, eight full time
officers, and several part-time officers, all
dedicated to maintaining the comfort and
safety of El Portal’s quiet streets.
Village officials are justifiably proud to
have received grant funding from various
governmental agencies. One of the latest grants
was a $300,000 from the Florida Department
of Environmental Protection. This grant will be
used for renovations to the municipal building
and for sidewalk improvements. Another grant
received from the Florida Department of
Environmental Protection assisted with the
development of the El Portal Nature Trail.
Located on the Village’s main thoroughfare
(Eighty-seventh Street between Northwest
Second and Third Avenues), the block-long
Nature Trail was completed in 1999. It consists
of a paved trail, a privacy fence to separate
neighboring homes from the trail, and
beautiful landscaping that includes some
native plants. The trail is open to the public
seven days a week, from sun up to sundown.
200 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

When the board of directors of the Alliance
for Aging selected a new executive director in
June 1992, they knew many challenges lay
ahead. What they didn’t know was that a
month and a half later, Hurricane Andrew was
going to strike South Florida and be the most
destructive storm in American history. Miami-
Dade County bore the brunt of the storm’s
wrath, and the Alliance spent the next three
years helping elders recover.
A staff of 30 oversees the Alliance for Aging,
Inc., the federal and state designated Area
Agency on Aging for Miami-Dade and Monroe
Counties, and in 1999 they celebrated its 25th
anniversary. A volunteer board of 27 community
leaders governs the agency, and a 55-member
Advisory Council provides counsel to the
board and represents the community at large.
The Alliance is part of a network of similar
agencies created in 1973 under the Older
Americans Act. Currently, there are 670 Area
Agencies on Aging nationwide, serving the specific
needs and concerns of Americans over 60
years old. Its mission is to enable older persons
to lead meaningful and dignified lives in their
communities by providing leadership, direction
and support for a comprehensive continuum
of aging and long-term care services.
In Miami, the Alliance for Aging, which
had served as part of the United Way for 15
years, became a separate not-for-profit organization
in 1989. With a $36 million budget, it
serves over 400,000 seniors in Miami-Dade
and Monroe Counties, subcontracting with
more than 30 provider agencies. There are 17
states that do not have 400,000 seniors in
their entire state.
Services include in-home assistance such
as home-delivered meals, personal care,
homemakers, health visits and home-maintenance
services. Community services encompass
senior centers, day-care sites, legal aid,
and congregate meals. The Alliance also acts
as advocate for the elderly by working on
preparing new legislation that is in the best
interest of senior citizens.
In Miami, the Alliance for Aging oversees
41 comprehensive senior centers and 67 congregate
meal sites, which serve over two million
meals a year. Some are free and others are
co-paid, depending on the ability of the individual
in need.
The Miami office receives over 1,000 calls
per month at its Elder Helpline from concerned
seniors seeking advice in various matters
when they don’t know where to turn or
get help. That’s why they’re there. The Elder
Helpline is (305) 670-HELP [4357].
ALLIANCE FOR AGING, INC.
✧
Above: The Alliance for Aging serves over
400,000 seniors in Miami-Dade and
Monroe Counties.
Bottom: A volunteer board of 27 community
members governs the Alliance for Aging.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 201

✧
This photograph is in the collection of the
Historical Association of Southern Florida.
The label reads “First Street across from
present Courthouse. Miami Transfer
Company…. Circa 1896.”
(COURTESY OF HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION OF
SOUTHERN FLORIDA, NEGATIVE #59-5-1)
MIAMI
TRANSFER
COMPANY
Miami Transfer Company is probably the
oldest continuously operated firm in Miami. It
started in 1896, when Henry Flagler needed
help hauling the heavy cargo his new railroad
was bringing to South Florida. Georgia native
George Coates formed Miami Transfer
Company, and Flagler used the mules, horsedrawn
wagons and carriages to move machinery
and supplies brought by his trains to
destinations in Dade and Monroe Counties.
Early Miamians relied on Miami Transfer for
conveyance of all kinds; at the turn of the
Twentieth Century, the company had the only
funeral hearse in town.
George’s daughter, Ellie E. Coates, was
born in 1896, just two months after Miami
was incorporated as a city. When she died in
1990, her obituary in the Miami Herald stated
that she was “the first white woman born
in Miami.” Her father’s company was at 229
Twelfth Street, near what is now the Federal
Courthouse in downtown Miami. A 1904
directory lists the telephone number of Miami
Transfer Company’s general office as “81”; its
stables on nearby Eleventh Street could be
reached by ringing up “74.”
By the late 1930s, Frank R. May and his
family owned Miami Transfer Company. After
Frank May died in the early 1960s, E. R.
Siddall and family took it over. Since 1985,
members of the Utvich family have owned
Miami Transfer Company and its affiliate,
Florida Rigging and Crane. Michael Utvich,
originally from the Buffalo, New York area
and later Dayton, Ohio, is CEO. He and his
wife, Lorna Randall Utvich, who is corporate
secretary of the company, and their family,
have lived in Coral Gables since 1966. Their
sons Gregory, Daryl, and Michael Edward
oversee daily operations of both companies
throughout Florida. Their eldest son
David Utvich, who is sales manager for
Bellsouth Business Systems in Central
Florida, serves on Miami Transfer
Company’s Board of Directors.
In addition to offices in Miami,
the companies have divisions in
Orlando, Fort Lauderdale and
Tampa. Miami Transfer Company
maintains over 250 pieces of heavyduty
equipment to handle three distinct
types of activities: heavy and
specialized hauling, equipment and
machinery moving, and rigging and
cranes. Skilled and certified operators
and personnel are provided with
all equipment and services.
“We moved the Miami Herald’s
gigantic presses,” Michael Utvich
recounted. “Florida Power & Light is
one of our principal customers for
moving large transformers, breakers
and turbine engines. General Electric,
Westinghouse, and Lockheed Martin
are among the 1,500 large firms that
have used the services of Miami Transfer
Company,” he continued.
Not all the machinery they move is for
industrial use. “We pick up M.R.I. medical
systems and similar equipment at ports of
entry, etc. for Hitachi, Toshiba, Siemens, and
others, and deliver them to hospitals and
medical centers throughout Florida,” Utvich
said. Now in its second century of service,
Miami Transfer Company proudly continues
the tradition of integrity that has been associated
with its name for over a hundred years.
202 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

The Bunnell family’s name is embedded,
quite literally, in Miami’s streets and waterways.
George E. Bunnell, Inc. built Miami’s first sidewalks
and curbs along Biscayne Boulevard.
Today, grandsons Richard and Ted Bunnell
continue in the business their grandfather
started in 1911. George E. Bunnell and his son
George A. Bunnell (Richard and Ted’s father)
helped build the Key West extension of Henry
Flagler’s railroad. They worked on Vizcaya,
and for most of Miami’s pioneer families.
George A.’s father was killed on a job in
1935. After serving in World War II, George
A. bought the company from his mother, and
ran it until 1957, when he sold it to two of his
employees. The family decamped to Naples
to satisfy the non-compete agreement. They
founded Bunnell Piling Company there, doing
extensive flood control work for the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers and the South
Florida Water Management District in the
1960s throughout South Florida.
The family returned to Miami in 1965.
Richard Bunnell and his father re-entered
Miami’s heavy construction field in 1971 as
Bunnell Foundation, Inc. Business flourished, as
condominium construction boomed and
municipalities switched to modern sewage treatment
plants. Bunnell Foundation, Inc. installed
9,000 of 11, 000 concrete pilings and all crossings
over water for Miami’s Metrorail system.
Marine construction from Key West to Palm
Beach is their niche. Following Hurricane
Andrew, they rebuilt Dinner Key, Matheson
Hammock and Crandon Park marinas for the
City and County. Bunnell, known for its “three
generations of excellence,” designs much of the
marine work for the stars. Bunnell has
constructed docks and marine facilities for
Sylvester Stallone, Julio Iglesias, Tommy
Mottola, and other notables. “We are
recommended by engineers and architects,”
said Richard Bunnell, “who rely on our quality,
knowledge and professionalism.”
Richard Bunnell supports Miami’s marine
community by serving as treasurer of the Miami
River Marine Group. He is past chairman of the
city’s Waterfront Advisory Board, a member of
the Marine Council and of the Miami River
Commission, where he co-chairs the Dredging
Committee. Bunnell also supports Shake A Leg
(the not-for-profit that provides sailing
experiences for handicapped individuals) by
donating much of the design and construction
work for its Coconut Grove facility.
Technology has made foundation work
more efficient. “We use less muscle and more
hydraulics,” Bunnell said. “Although computers
can design structures faster, we still and
always will need qualified labor to build
them.” Some key aspects may never change.
“People are still the most important element
of Bunnell Foundation.”
Forty employees now work for Bunnell
Foundation, whose offices are on the Miami
River. “Some employees have been with the
company for 18 to 20 years,” Bunnell said.
Richard, Ted, and the employees of Bunnell
Foundation hope to be part of Miami’s future
for many years to come.
✧
BUNNELL
FOUNDATION,
INC.
Above: This 1949 photo documents George E.
Bunnell, Inc.’s construction of No Name
Harbor at Bill Baggs State Park, Key Biscayne.
Below: George A. Bunnell, at left, at the
State Road Department’s first concrete
highway beam test in 1950.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 203

LAURA J. MULLANEY, REALTOR
Homes are where the art is for Laura
Mullaney, a Realtor with Coldwell Banker Real
Estate who specializes in historic homes in Coral
Gables. Mullaney studied painting at the
University of Miami, but realized that few fine
artists make it to the top of the economic ladder.
When Mullaney turned to selling real estate, she
found it was a good way to put bread on the table
and use her artistic abilities at the same time.
In 1984, after a year in residential real estate,
Mullaney decided to focus exclusively on older
homes in the Coral Gables area that had the character,
charm, and architectural features she found
fascinating. She made pen-and-ink drawings of
homes she listed or sold, and later created watercolor
paintings of them, as well. Mullaney uses
her artwork in marketing materials, and often
gives the originals to new homeowners.
An active member of Dade Heritage Trust, the
Historic Home Owners Association of Coral
Gables, and the National Trust for Historic
Preservation, she has owned and renovated four
1920s Gables homes herself. Artist-Realtor Laura
Mullaney has painted the portraits of more than
350 historic homes in Coral Gables, preserving
the community’s legacy with her pen and paintbrush.
Watercolors of some of the properties that
inspire Mullaney are posted on her website at
www.gableshistorichomes.com.
OSCAR L. RANGE
FUNERAL HOME
The Oscar L. Range Funeral Home serves
Miami’s Black community in ways that go
beyond comforting bereaved families. Athalie
Range and her husband, Oscar, founded the
business in 1953. The funeral home opened at
6705 Northwest Fifteenth Avenue, then moved
to its present location at Northwest Seventeenth
Avenue and Fifty-eighth Street with additional
facilities in Coconut Grove and a viewing chapel
in Homestead.
When Oscar Range died in 1960, his wife
took over the business. Today their eldest son,
Patrick, is a licensed funeral director, Mrs.
Range holds funeral director and embalming
licenses, and their younger son, a computer
specialist, works in administration. A daughter,
Myrna, is in public education.
“There was a need for somewhere to hold
social teas, garden club meetings, and book
reviews,” Athalie Range recalls. “We opened the
chapel on Sunday afternoons for church
groups and other organizations.” As other
venues became available, the funeral home’s
social role lessened, but Mrs. Range remained
active in the community.
As president of her children’s Parent Teacher
Association, Range led over a hundred parents
to a school board meeting unannounced. This
impromptu assembly led to the board’s policy
of requiring written requests prior to meeting
appearances, and sparked a serious building
program for Miami’s black students. Her
leadership resulted in construction of Miami-
Dade’s first new school in twenty years in a
black neighborhood.
In 1964 Athalie Range was elected the first
black woman commissioner in the City of
Miami. She served a full term, and in 1989 was
appointed to fill an interim vacancy.
As the Oscar L Range Funeral Home
completes fifty years of service, the Range name
occupies a respected place in Miami’s history.
204 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

“At sixty years old, Barry University is
young. But ever since my religious Order, the
Adrian Dominican Sisters, opened the university
in 1940, our graduates have been among
the best healers, teachers, social
workers, and other professionals
in South Florida,” says Sister
Jeanne O’Laughlin, O.P., Ph.D.
Founded as a Catholic women’s
college in Miami Shores, Barry
became coeducational in 1975 and
currently has fifteen off-campus
sites, including Barry University of
Orlando School of Law.
While society is often
embroiled in controversial issues
dealing with moral fiber, Barry
University stands out, its alumni
shining examples of the difference
a religious dimension can make in
a college education. The university’s
ten schools provide bachelor’s,
master’s, and six doctoral and professional
degrees to more than
8,000 students. Barry and its subsidiaries
employ more than 1,700 full- and part-time
faculty and staff and operate on an annual
budget of more than $100 million.
BARRY
UNIVERSITY
✧
Cor Jesu Chapel, centerpiece of the Barry
University campus in Miami Shores.
In 1929, Austrian-born John J. Koubek built
a handsome Spanish-Mediterranean style mansion
for his wife, Rose Garibaldi, at 2705
Southwest Third Street in Miami, between
downtown and Coral Gables. Koubek donated
the property to the University of Miami in 1942
to be used in service to the community.
The University of Miami built its commitment
to South Florida’s diverse Hispanic
community around the walls of this historic
building. For more than thirty years, the
Koubek Center has offered education programs,
conferences, and cultural events in Spanish.
More than 30,000 Hispanics visit the Koubek
Center each year. The Center offers certificate
programs in a wide range of professional fields,
an array of personal enrichment programs, as
well as housing the Institute for Hispanic-
American Culture.
An architectural landmark as well as a vital community
resource, the mansion underwent a major
restoration in 1997. The only historical building of
its age and quality in the area, the mansion’s rich
architectural details make it a sought-after setting
for professional photo shoots and small meetings.
The adjacent conference facilities and 200-
seat auditorium, fully equipped with audiovisual
and computer data display equipment,
are available for rental to outside organizations
for seminars, recitals, conferences, and
cultural programs.
To find out more about the Koubek
Center’s history, programs, or facilities, please
visit www.miami.edu/cstudies/koubek, or call
305-649-6000.
THE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI
JOHN J. KOUBEK MEMORIAL CENTER
✧
The exterior of the John J. Koubek
Memorial Center.
SHARING THE HERITAGE ✧ 205

GUSMAN
CENTER
FOR THE
PERFORMING
ARTS
The Maurice Gusman Cultural Center, formerly
the Olympia Theatre, is located on the
southwest corner of downtown Miami’s busiest
intersection at Flagler Street and Second
Avenue, the original site of the Airdome
Theatre. The theatre was built in 1926 by
Paramount Enterprises at a cost of $1.5 million.
John Eberson, who had designed the Majestic
Theatre in Houston, Texas, was selected by
Paramount as the architect. Eberson departed
from the usual theatre-style building and created
the first of many “atmospheric” theatres with
Spanish-style turrets and towers. It was the most
beautiful and elaborately-equipped theatre of its
time and is believed to have been the first airconditioned
theatre in the South.
From 1929 to 1954, the Olympia hosted
numerous stars of stage and screen, including
Elvis Presley, Jackie Gleason, and Martha
Raye. In 1954, the theatre was converted into
a movie theater, a role the theatre played until
the 1970s.
In 1970 the theatre was purchased by Miami
philanthropist Maurice Gusman in order to
house the Miami Philharmonic Orchestra.
Renovations totaling $5 million were performed
under the watchful eye of famed Miami Beach
architect Morris Lapidus. The theatre was
renamed the Maurice Gusman Cultural Center.
In 1975, Gusman donated the theatre to the
City of Miami with the stipulation that the
Center would be managed by the Department of
Off-Street Parking, a semi-autonomous city
agency. Gusman’s long friendship with Off-Street
Parking Chairman Mitchell Wolfson was the
basis for this unique arrangement. Under the
new management, a two-year renovation of the
theatre was initiated. The renovations included
the restoration of the original Wurlitzer pipe
organ. Subsequent improvements to the theatre
have included the installation of a replica of the
original 1925 ticket booth.
The Center, now called the Gusman Center
for the Performing Arts, was a venue house from
1977 until 1984. In 1984 it presented its first
season as a performing arts center. An architectural
treasure, the Gusman Center is listed on
the National Register of Historic Places.
INDEX
A
Abess, Leonard, 86
Adams, Earl, 72
Adams, G. Carl, 65, 67, 68
Adams, George, 72
Adams, Howard, 72
Adams, John Howard, 72
Adams, Lawrence, 72
Adams, Margie, 72
Adams, Miriam, 72
Adams, Neal, 72, 73
Adams, Ora Lee, 74
Adams, Renvy, 72
Adams, Richard, 72
Adderly, L. Leo, 73
Addison, John, 126, 127
Addison, Mary, 126, 127
Airey, George, 111
Albright, Edgar, 104
Aleman, Jose, 98
Alexander, Perry, 49
Allen, Frederick Lewis, 21
Allen, Lafe, 52, 53
Amos, Theodore, 72
Anderson, Birdie, 74
Anderson, Hugh, 48
Anderson, Marian, 33
Armstrong , Louie “Satchmo”, 33
Arrant, Anderson, 134
Arsht, Adrienne, 86
B
Baggs, Bill, 98
Baker, Josephine, 33
Ballard, Mary Ann, 132
Barkett, Abraham, 39
Barkett, Delia, 39
Barrs, J.W., 111
Barrs, John W., 111
Basie , William James “Count “, 33
Batista, Fulgencio, 47, 78
Beasley, Edmund, 87
Beasley, Edmund “Alligator”, 87
Beckett, Samuel, 92
Belcher, Sam, 35
Bennett, Gordon, 66
Bermello, Willy, 82
Berry, Wendell, 10
Bethune , Mary McLeod, 33
Billingsly, J.L., 84, 85
Bindley, John, 12, 90
Blackman, E.V., 18, 127
Blank, Joan Gill, 3, 94, 98
Bliss, W.C., 106
Bow, Lily Lawrence, 134
Bowlegs, Billy, 20
Bowman, John McEntee, 102
Bramson, Seth, 3, 48
Branscombe, H. Graham, 35
Brickell, Alice Amy, 15, 16
Brickell, Belle Gertrude, 15, 16
Brickell, Edith Mary Kate, 15, 16
Brickell, Mary, 11, 15, 23, 28, 35, 76,
77, 83, 84, 86
Brickell, Maudenella “Miss Maude”,
15, 16
Brickell, William, 11, 18, 20, 23, 28, 76
Brickell, William Barnwell, 15
Bright, James, 13, 65
Bright, James H., 63, 66, 67
Bright, John Irwin, 91, 92
Brooks, Mary, 48
Brooks, William, 48
Broton, James G., 3, 30, 31
Broward, Napoleon Bonaparte, 63
Brown, A. Ten Eyck, 20
Brown, Mariah, 11, 88
Brown, Sally, 112
Brown, W.L., 72
Brown, William J., 42
Brown, William Mark, 36
Bryan, Mary Baird, 85
Bryan, William Jennings, 13, 53, 54,
83, 84, 90, 103
Budge, Frank T., 19, 20, 27
Burdine, William, 35
Burkhardt, Henry John, 53
Burnett, David, 3, 87
Burtashaw, John, 109
Burtashaw, Katie “Essie”, 109
Burtashaw, Katie Estelle, 113
Burtashaw, Mary Comfort, 109
Burtashaw, Mattie Lou, 109
Bush, Frank Fitzgerald, 58
Bush, George, 80
Bush, James, 73
Bush, Jeb, 3, 5, 114
Butler, Raymond, 25
Byron, Victoria, 74
C
Caleb, Joseph, 72, 74
Calloway, Cab, 33
Campanella, Roy, 33
Campbell, Georgette Scott, 74
Canosa, Jorge Mas, 80
Capitman, Andrew, 47
Capitman, Barbara Baer, 47, 59
Capone, Al, 113
Carpenter, Hattie, 16, 17
Carpenter, Mrs. Stephen van
Rensselaer, 16
Carr, Robert S. “Bob”, 3, 26, 63, 95,
123
Carter, Aaron, 96
Castro, Fidel, 14, 47, 78, 81, 82
Chaille, Mrs. William Hickman, 60
Chalfin, Paul, 84, 85, 101, 102
Chaplin, Charlie, 85
Chapman, A.W., 131
Chapman, Manual, 115, 116
Chapman, William A., 13, 32
Cheek, William F., 85
Cherry, Gwendolyn Sawyer, 73
Christopher, Tilyou, 39
Chrysler, Walter, 85
Churchill, Winston, 114, 115
Clarke, D.C., 49
Cleary, Malinda, 3, 50
Cohen, Julia Hodapp, 3, 83
Cole , Nat “King”, 33
Collins, John, 41, 42, 43, 47
Collins, Lester, 61, 62
Cook, James, 83
Cooper, Lee T., 48
Cooper, Neva King, 132
Cornejo, Felix, 36
Cox, James M., 22
Craig, Sarah Marshall, 64
Crandon, Charles, 108
Crandon, Charles H., 98
Crawford, Luscious, 73
Curtiss, Glenn Hammond, 13, 57, 58,
63, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69
Curtiss, Lena Neff, 67
Curtiss, Lua, 64, 68, 69
Curtiss, Lua Andrews, 67
Cushman, Laura, 39
Cutler, William, 126
D
Dammers, 108
Dammers, Edward E. “Doc”, 101,
102, 106, 107
Dammers, James, 106
Danielson, Deering, 125
Danielson, Barbara Deering, 128
Danielson, Mrs. Richard, 85
Danielson, Richard, 86
Davenport, William, 7, 18
Davis, Arthur Vining, 108, 121
Davis, Mary Ann, 95, 96
Davis, Ossie, 74
Davis, Waters Smith, 95, 96
De Garmo, John “Piper”, 17
De Garmo, Walter, 11
De Garmo, Walter Charles, 91
De Leon, Nat, 116
De Paolo, Peter, 53
Dee, Ruby, 74
Deering, Charles, 11, 21, 38, 40, 116,
119, 127, 128
Deering, James, 12, 20, 22, 23, 38,
84, 85, 86, 101, 128
Deering, Marion, 128
DeGarmo, Walter, 12, 90
Dent, Bucky, 64
Dice, David Brantley, 120
Dixon, L. Murray, 39, 44, 47
Dorn, Harold, 110, 111
Dorn, Robert, 110
Dorsey, D.A., 13, 73, 75
Douglas, Marjorie Stoneman, 26
Douglas, Marjory Stoneman, 26, 93
Dowling, John Perry, 111
Dozier, Richard K., 74
Drake, Gaston, 130
206 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

DuBois, W.E.B., 33
Dubose, John, 95
Duda, Mark, 125
Duke, James B., 34
DuMond, Joseph, 115
Dunn, Ozella, 73
DuPont, Alfred I., 18, 23
DuPuis, John G., 61, 75
E
Earhart, Amelia, 64, 65
Eberson, John, 23
Eck, Christopher R., 3, 123
Egan family, 10
English, William F., 11, 25, 28, 30
Erwin, Robert, 111
Everett, James, 73
F
Fairchild, David, 36, 68, 92, 97, 104,
116, 117, 127
Farnum, William, 30
Fatio, Luis, 125
Feldman, Michael, 86
Fennell, Tom, Sr., 117
Fennell, Lee A., 134
Ferguson, George, 29
Field, Elnathan, 41
Fields, Dorothy Jenkins, 3, 13, 32, 73
Fink, Denman, 13, 102, 105, 107
Fink, H. George, 39, 133
Fisher, Ben J., 17
Fisher, Carl, 21, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45,
46, 50, 55, 56, 84
Fisher, Jackie, 43
Fisher, Jane, 43
Fitzgerald, Ella, 33
Fitzpatrick, Richard, 10
Flagler, Henry M., 12, 14, 18, 19, 20,
30, 35, 38, 40, 50, 53, 76, 110,
116, 119, 127, 129, 130, 131, 132
Flavin, Jennifer, 86
Fletcher, Robert R., 125, 126
Flynn, Charles, 106
Forbes, J. B., 22
Forbes, James, Jr., 22
Fornells, Pedro, 95
Forster, Frank, 104
Foster, Mac, 111
Foster, W.A., 111
France, Roy, 44
Franklin, Aretha, 33
Franklin, John Hope, 34
Frasure, Hoyt, 21
Frazee, Warren “Alligator Joe”, 30
Frazier, Eufaula, 73
Frow, Charlie, 16
Frow, Euphemia, 16
Frow, Grace, 16
Frow, Joe, 16
Frow, John, 87, 89
Frow, Joseph, 16, 88
Fuchs, Charles, 133
Fuchs, Charlie, 112
Fuchs, Karl Theodor, 112
Fulford, William Hawkins, 52
Fuzzard, William, 11, 126
G
Garcia, Maria Cristina, 78
Garreau, Joel, 118
Garrison, Wesley, 72, 73
Gawathmey, Charles, 55
Geiger, August, 20, 31, 42, 44, 132
George, Paul S., 3, 76, 118
Generethe, William Louis, 73
Gibbons, Floyd, 16, 17
Gibson, Theodore, 36
Gifford, John C., 90
Gilchrist, Albert W., 63
Giraldo, Antonio, 125
Gjebre, Bill, 72
Gleason, Jackie, 46
Gleason, William H., 40, 48
Glenn, Earl, 74
Godfrey, Arthur, 46
Goggin, John, 126
Gonzalez, Luis, 78
Goodlett-Taylor, Mary Ann, 3, 66
Goodman, Jim, 63
Goodwin, Phillip L., 104
Gordon, Hugh, 48
Gordon, John B., 48, 80
Graenicher, Dr., 112
Grafton, Thorn, 3, 57
Graham, Bill, 61
Graham, Bob, 62, 64
Graham, Ernest “Cap”, 61, 62
Graham, Pat, 62
Graham, Phillip, 62
Graham, William A., 62
Graham, William E., 62
Green, William, 51
Greer, Evelyn, 114, 116
Gribble, J.H., 54
Griffing, Arthur, 52
Griffing, Arthur Mertlow, 50
H
Hagan, Rebecca, 77
Haiduven, Richard, 124
Hampton, Martin Luther, 43, 102
Harrington, Fred, 65
Harris, Ellen S., 48
Hawkins, Roy, 48, 49
Hayden, J. J., 109
Hearst, William Randolph, 55
Hemingway, Ernest, 16
High, Robert King, 29
Highleyman, L. T., 21
Hinson, John J., 119, 120
Hinton, John, 109
Hoffman, F. Burrall , Jr., 84
Hohauser, Henry, 44
Holiday, Billie, 33, 72
Holmes, Oubell, 112
Hopkins, Ronald R., 73
Hopper, William E., Jr., 3, 38
Horne, Ida Campbell, 130
Horne, Lena, 33
Horne, William D., 130
Horowitz, Leonard, 47
Houghtaling, Frank, 60
Hughes, Langston, 33
Hurrell, Cliff, 69
Hurst, Albert Baxter, 48, 120
Hurston, Zora Neale, 33
Hutcheson, Emanuel, 73
I
Iglesias, Julio, 82
Ihle, Charles J., 53, 55
Infinger, Francis, 111
Ingraham, James E., 127, 130
Ives, Madie C., 61
J
Jackson, Ida Bell, 73
Jackson, James M., 12, 19, 20, 35, 60
Janes, J.B., 111
Jefferson, Joan, 74
Jeffries, J.B., 48
Jennings, Joe, 109
Jennings, May Mann, 132
Jennings, William Sherman, 13, 84,
132
Jensen, Robert J., 3, 129
John Paul II, 39
Johnson, John D., 73
Joyce, Peggy Hopkins, 85
Joyce, Stanley, 85, 86
Justison, Harold Debussy, 90
K
Kahl, J.A., 131
Kanen, Frank, 129
Kellogg, John Harvey, 67, 68
Kelly, John, 112
Kendall, Henry John Broughton, 119
Kershaw, Joe Lang, 73
Kiehnel, Richard, 90, 102
Kiley, Jed, 16
Killens, Clyde, 33
Killian, Dan, 119, 120
Kilpatrick, Gearge, 73
King, Harril C., 114
King, Martin Luther, 74
King, Riley B. “B.B.”, 33
King, William A., 130
Kingsley, Arthur, 109
Kleinberg, Howard, 3, 41
Klingbeil, A.K., 104
Knight, Telfair, 107, 108
Knowlton, A.L., 76, 77
Korsakoff, Alex, 36
Krome, Isabel, 130
Krome, William J., 130
L
Laesch, Katherine, 111
Laesch, William, 111
Lamb, Abraham, 112
Lamb, Annie Mae, 112
Lamb, J.J., 108
Lambeth, Penny, 3, 35, 36
Lang, Arthur, 109
Lapidus, Morris, 14, 46
LaPlante, Laura, 111
Larkin, Wilson, 109
Larkins, George, 121
Larkins, Wilson Alexander, 60, 109,
110, 111, 113
LaRoue, Samuel D., Jr., 3, 106
Lawrence, C.D., 112
Lawrence, Regina, 112
Laxson, D.D., 63
Leedskalnin, Edward, 133, 134
Legge, William, 118, 125
Lehman, Joan, 55
Lehman, William, 39
Levi, John, 41, 42
Levine, Bern, 116
Lewis family, 10
Lightbourne, A.C., 36
Liles, Harriet Stiger, 110
Lindbergh, Charles H., 93
Lindgren, Al, 132
Linke, Anna Theresa, 112
Linke, Fred, 112
Long, A.F., 109
Losner, Max, 131
Louis, Joe, 33
Lowe, Eugene, 73
Lum, Henry, 41
Lummus, Helen, 42
Lummus, J.E., 42
Lummus, J.N., 18, 42, 45
Lumpkins, Paul, 112
Lynn, Catherine, 58
M
Mabrity, Francis, 125
Machado, Gerardo, 78
MacKenzie, Clinton, 57
Madonna, 86
Manley, Marion, 39
Mann, Louise, 28
Mann, Mrs. Charles, 28
Manning, Warren Henry, 24
Marks, John R. III, 73
Marshall, Ben, 63, 64
Marshall, Brenda, 31
Marshall, Steve, 63
Marshall, Thurgood, 33
Martí, José, 76, 80, 82
Martin, Ernest, 31, 59
Martin, Mavis, 73
Martin, Ray, 112
Martin, Sylva G., 112
Martin, Sylva Graenicher, 112
Matheson, Anna, 98
Matheson, Finlay, 98
Matheson, Hugh, 98
Matheson, William J., 90, 95, 96, 98,
104, 120
Matkov, Becky Roper, 3, 6
Matthews, James, 54
Matthews, Janet, 125
Mayer, Theodore, 16
Mayer, Zelda, 16
Mays, John, 39
McArthur, J. Neville, 61
McCall, Lawton, 49
McCormick, Mrs. Cyrus, 85
McDonough, Bob, 53
McFarlane, Flora, 87, 91
McMullen, John, 82
McVeigh, Ferney, 49
Meade, George G., 96
Meadows, Gail, 3, 38
Meek, Carrie, 74
Menéndez de Avilés, Pedro, 10
Merrick, 108
Merrick, Althea, 13
Merrick, Eunice, 16
Merrick, George Edgar, 13, 16, 38,
39, 48, 53, 56, 91, 98, 100, 101,
102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107,
108, 110, 113
Merrick, Solomon Greasley, 100, 102
Merritt, Ada, 80
Meyer, Hank, 46
Meyer, Peggy Upton Archer Hopkins
Joyce Morner Easton, 85
Meyer, Sidney, 39
Milander, Henry, 65, 69
Millard, Leah, 64
Millas, Aristides, 3, 7, 18
Miller, Alvin, 59
Miller, Carrie Barrett, 36
Miller, Helen, 59
Miller, William, 36
Milton, Isreal, 73, 74
Mitchell, William, 119
Montgomery, Nell, 104
Montgomery, Robert, 101, 104, 114
Moon, Charles, 108
Moore, Clarence, 126
Moore, T.V., 48
Morley, Caroline, 73
Moss, Paul, 73
Motte, Jacob Rhett, 83
Mozell, John, 112
Mozell, Sarah, 112
Muir, Helen, 3, 15, 17, 115
Muir, Toby, 15
Muller, Bernhardt, 57, 58, 59
Munroe, Eva, 11
Munroe, Ralph M., 11, 16, 87, 88, 89,
94, 96, 126
Munroe, Wirth, 89
Murphy, Henry Killam, 104
Muss, Steve, 46
N
Nagymihaly, Gaspar, 86
Nellenbogen, V.H., 39
Nixon, Richard, 98
Nolen, John, 57
Norcross, Brian, 8
Nugent, James, 109, 119
Nunnally, James H., 38
O
Olmsted, Frederick Law, 56
Opsahl, John, 110, 111
Orr, Alexander, 113
Orr, Elizabeth, 113
Orr, George E., 113
Orr, Jack, 113
Orr, James, 85
Orr, John, 113
Osborn, Ezra, 41
Ott, Jackie, 58
Owens, Ruth Bryan, 54
P
Paar, Jack, 46
Paist, Phineas, 13, 101, 102, 103, 128
Palmer, Perrine, 39
Pancoast, J. Arthur, 43
Pancoast, Lester, 44
Pancoast, Thomas, 42, 45
Pantin, Leslie, Jr., 3, 81
Parker, Alfred Browning, 92
Parks, Arva Moore, 3, 10, 89
Paxson, J. Lamar, 111
Paxson, J.L., 111
Peacock, Alfred, 16
Peacock, Beverly, 16, 90
Peacock, Charles “Jolly Jack”, 11, 16,
35, 87, 88
Peacock, Isabella, 11, 16, 87, 88
Peacock, John Thomas “Jolly Jack”, 16
Peacock, Lillian Frow, 16
Peacock, Margarita, 90
Peacock, Mrs. Jack,, 16
Pearson, Steve, 37
Pei, I. M., 24
Pendray, J., 121
Pent, Edward, 16, 87
Pent, James “Tiny”, 16
Pent, John, 16, 87
Pent, Renie, 16
Perrine, Henry, 95, 97, 125
Perrine, Henry, Jr., 126
Pershing, John J., 16
Peters, Thelma, 60
Petsoules, Carmen, 11
Pharr, Kelsey L., 73, 75
Phillips, William Lyman, 101, 105
Pinkney, Enid C., 3, 36, 72, 75
Pinkney, Frank, 75
Plant, Henry, 12
Poe, Edgar Allen, 17
Ponce de León, Juan, 10, 95
Popenoe, Wilson, 117
Porter, Horace, 87, 91
Post, Augustus, 67
Powell, Adam Clayton, 33
Pryor, Arthur, 23, 67
R
Raffington, Tom, 46
Rahming, Emanuel, 73
Ramsey, Archie, 109
Ramsey, Marshall, 109
Ramsey, Sue, 111
Rand, Frederick H., Jr., 21
Randolph, A. Phillip, 33
Randolph, William, 130
Ransom, Paul, 89, 90
Rawls, Lou, 62
Reading, Susan Perry, 3, 109
Reagan, Ronald, 80
Reaves, Daryl, 73
Reaves, H.E.S., 73
Reaves, Jefferson, 73, 74
Rebom, Felix, 91
Redd, J.D., 131
Reed, Edward James, 119
Reeder, Clifford H., 35
Reeves, Henry E.S., 75
Reilly, John B., 36
Reno, Janet, 118
Reno, Maggie, 118
Reynolds, Joshua, 52, 53
Richards, Adam, 109, 111
Richards, Adam C., 109
Richardson, James, 112
Richardson, Lewis, 112
Richardson, Marie, 112
Richmond, Edith, 127
Richmond, Samuel H., 123, 127
Rickenbacker, Eddie, 16, 98
Robeson, Paul, 33
Robinson, Jackie, 33
Rockefeller, John D., 19
Rodriguez, Ivan, 128
Rogers, John, 109
Romans, Bernard, 125
Roney, N.B.T., 43, 46
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 111, 120
Ruhle, Ralph, 116
Rutledge, Priscilla, 74
S
Sargent, John Singer, 85, 128
Saunders, John, 38
Sawyer, William, 72, 75
Schaefer, Norah, 39
Scherr, Eileen, 116
Scherr, Franz, 114, 115, 116
Scherr, Jerome, 116
Schmidt, Mott B., 104
Schnell, Ray, 117
Scott, James E., 74
Scott, Paul, 39
Sears, Michael, 39, 40
Sewell, Everest G., 61, 66, 107
Sewell, John, 35
Seybold, John, 30, 35
Shappell, W.P., 54
Shelley, Robert, 111
Shelton, S.M., 103
Shimonski, Jeff, 116
Sicius, Francis, 78
Simmons, Captain, 92, 109
Simmons, David, 123
Simmons, Eleanor Galt, 92
Simmons, Wonda, 123
Skinner, Coulton, 104
Skinner, John, 104
Slesnick, Donald, 3, 60
Small, John Kunkel, 126, 127
INDEX ✧ 207

Smathers , Frank , Jr., 117
Smith, Adelle, 74
Smith, Earl, 134
Smith, James Archer, 134
Smith, Leonie, 73, 74
Smith, Lowell, 74
Smith, Samuel, 73
Smith, Samuel, Jr., 74
Snedigar, Red, 16
Snyder, Emerson E., 65
Soffer, Don, 55, 56
Soffer, Harry, 46, 48, 56
Soler, Frank, 82
Sottille, James A., Sr., 134
Spalding, George, 91
Stadnik, John, 68, 69
Stallone, Sylvester, 86
Stang, Helen, 112
Stang, Omar, 112
Stewart, Everete, 73
Stewart, Harold P., 49
Stiling, Edward, 131
Stirrup, Ebeneezer Woodberry Frank
“Abe”, 11, 88, 89, 127
Stirrup, Kate Biscayne, 127
Stolz, J. Perry, 43
Strickland, William, 103
Sturtevant, Ephriam T., 18
Suarez, Diego, 84
Sullivan, Ed, 46
Sweeney, Katherine Hauberg, 92
T
Tasker, Georgia, 3, 114
Tatum, Bethel B., 77
Tatum, J. H., 77
Tatum, John R., 77
Tatum, Smiley, 77
Tavernier, Anne, 16
Tebbetts, Merle C., 52, 53
Thomas, Lawson, 36
Thompson, John, 96
Thurston, Jonathan, 74
Tiger, Stephen, 3, 70
Tigertail, Tommy, 20
Toms, Gerry, 62
Toomey, Richard, 36
Torres Aranho, Jackie, 73
Torres, Bruce, 73
Townsend, Dave, 126
Tressler, Harry, 48
Trippe, Juan Terry, 92
Truman, Harry, 46
Tuttle, Julia, 11, 12, 18, 19, 20, 25,
35, 36, 39, 49, 60, 76
U
Uguccioni, Ellen, 3, 100
V
Vanderbilt, William K., 85
Versace, Gianni, 45
Vickers, Wilbur, 73
Villa, Horatio L., 3, 63
Villa, Pancho, 16
von Richthofen, Manfred, 16
W
Wagner, William, 11, 21, 25, 30
Wainwright, Alice, 86
Wake, Marjorie, 73
Walters, John, 125
Ware, R.F., 104
Warwick, Dionne, 33
Warwick, John, 114
Washington, Booker T., 32
Webb, W.V., 113
Weed, Robert Law, 39, 48, 91, 104
Weeks, John, 116
Weigall, T. H., 100, 105
Weintraub, Claire, 86
Weismuller, Johnny, 58
Weiss, Jennie, 42
Weiss, Joe, 42, 43
Weiss, Rose, 43
Welters, Gwendolyn, 73
Welters, Warren, 73
Wharton, Frank, 39
Wheeler, Mary, 110
White, Mable, 110
Whited, Charles, 98
Whitman, Stanley, 47
Widener, Joseph E., 64
Wiggins, Larry, 3, 129
Williams, Carl, 72
Williams, Daniel T., 73
Williams, Erma, 72
Williams, George, 73
Williams, Inez, 72
Williams, J.D., 72
Williams, Matthew, 72
Williams, Roger, 72
Williamson, George, 120
Williamson, Marshall, 112
Willy-Willy, 64
Witty, Helen Harrison, 116
Wolfson, Mitchell, 39
Wolpert, George, 22
Woodson, Carter G., 33
Wright, Roy C., 48, 49
Wyeth, Marion Syms, 104
Wyllie, Carol Graham, 62
Y
Yarborough, J.L., 111
SPONSORS
Alliance for Aging, Inc., 201
Amtech/TVC Latin America, 160
Antillean Marine Shipping Corporation Miami River, 156
Assurant Group/American Bankers, 170
Bal Harbour Village, 164
Barry University, 205
The Biltmore Hotel, Coral Gables, 180
Bunnell Foundation, 203
Casablanca on the Ocean, 182
Coconut Grove Playhouse, 179
CORT Business Services Corporation, 184
Dade Heritage Trust, 178
The Eaton Family, 198
Economic Opportunity Family Health Center, Inc., 142
Farrey’s Wholesale Hardware Company, Inc., 183
The First National Bank of Homestead, 194
Florida Auto Rental, 187
Florida Marlins Baseball Club, 145
Florida Memorial College, 188
The Floridean Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, 168
Fuchs Baking Company/Holsum Bakery, 146
Gusman Center for the Performing Arts, 206
Hyatt Regency Miami, 196
J Poole Associates, Inc., Realtors, 191
The Jackson Family, 138
Johnson & Wales University, 185
Keen Battle Mead & Associates, 177
Kubicki Draper, 158
Laura J. Mullaney, Realtor, 204
Maxim’s Import Corporation, 181
McArthur Dairy, 195
Miami MetroZoo, 166
Miami Transfer Company, 202
Miami-Dade Community College, 176
Miami-Dade County Fair & Exposition, 154
Miami-Dade County Public Schools, 150
Morgan A. Gilbert & Bertha Kitchell Gilbert, 199
Onyx Insurance Group, 189
Oscar L. Range Funeral Home, 204
Palmer Trinity School, 162
PineBank, N.A., 186
The Related Group of Florida, 192
Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd., 148
Salussolia & Associates, 172
The Sieger Suarez Architectural Partnership GS2 & EGS2, 174
TotalBank, 193
Town of Bay Harbor Islands, 152
Turnberry Associates, 197
The University of Miami John J. Koubek Memorial Center, 205
Village of El Portal, 200
Village of Pinecrest, 190
208 ✧ MIAMI’S HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS

ISBN: 1-893619-15-X