Selected Events for Land Use Patterns and Real Estate Development Year Month Day Event Related Resource 1819 February 22 Spain ceded Florida to the United States. Although the two countries signed a treaty in this year, it was not ratified in the U.S. until two years later.   1821     Temple Pent, a Bahamian immigrant, arrived in the area that would later come to be known as Coconut Grove. He failed in his attempt to officially homestead in the area, but his family settled there anyway and became its first permanent residents. He was nonetheless significant in early Dade County history, serving as Justice of the Peace and the keeper of the Cape Florida lighthouse.   1823 July 03 Monroe County was created. It not only included all of what would later be Dade County, but all of the land in Florida south of Lake Okeechobee as well. The county seat was in Key West. display 1825 December 17 The Cape Florida Lighthouse was completed. The site was the southern tip of Key Biscayne. display 1835 December   The Second Seminole War began. One of the incidents that contributed most heavily to its start was the killing of 108 United States soldiers near Bushnell, Florida. The war lasted until 1842 and was the most significant of all the Seminole Wars. Some of the fighting occurred in southeastern Florida, some in the areas that would later be part of the City of Miami. During the war, Fort Dallas was established on the Miami River. display 1836 January 06 Dade County was created. At the time, it included present-day Martin, Palm Beach, and Broward Counties, though Monroe County retained the western Keys. Indian Key was the county seat of the newly created Dade County. Despite these early beginnings, by 1870 the county still had fewer than one hundred residents. display July 23 The Seminole Indians attacked the Cape Florida Lighthouse in the midst of the Second Seminole War. They set fire to the structure, but did not manage to completely destroy it.   1838     Fort Dallas was established. Situated at the mouth of the Miami River, it served as a base for the United States Navy before Florida became a state. It was from this base that the U.S. launched attacks against Florida's Indian population in the Second Seminole War. display 1842     The military abandoned Fort Dallas following the Second Seminole War.       William English acquired the Fort Dallas land formerly held by the military.   1844 March 09 Dade's county seat was moved from Indian Key to Miami. It would only be in Miami until 1889, when it was moved to Juno.   1845 March 03 Florida was admitted to the Union. It was admitted as a slave state, and at the time, almost one half of its 54,447 people were African American. display 1852     Temple Pent assumed the position of keeper of the Cape Florida Lighthouse. He held the position for one year, but he returned to it after the Civil War.   1855     The United States reoccupied Fort Dallas. They did so for use in the brief fighting of the Third Seminole War (1855-1858). William English had already abandoned the property in the early 1850s as he headed west for California. This continued fighting discouraged settlement in the Miami area.   1858 June 10 The United States Army abandoned Fort Dallas. While they had already been forced to reestablish their presence there once before, the end of major fighting against the Seminole tribes marked the end of the fort's usefullness.   1866 January   Temple Pent returned to his position of keeper of the Cape Florida Lighthouse. The first keeper following the Civil War, he held the position for two years, until his death in 1868.   1867     John Frow became Temple Pent's assistant keeper at the Cape Florida Lighthouse. Upon Pent's death a year later, Frow assumed his vacated position. Frow would also later be the first person to buy property in Cocoanut Grove.   1868     Edmund D. Besly became the first person to apply for a homestead in the area that is today called Coconut Grove. It was comprised of 160 acres and stretched between today's Twenty-seventh Avenue and the Moorings. After his death, his widow Anna and the newly immigrated Dr. Horace Philo Porter disputed the validity of the claim. Ulimately though, Anna Besley won out and was awarded the homestead in 1875.   1870     Henry Lum and his 15-year-old son Charles Lum make their initial visit to South Beach. Henry became very interested in raising coconuts.   1873 January 06 A post office was established in the area that is today called Coconut Grove. It was the first time that the larger area where the Pent's, Besley's, and Dr. Porter had settled was referred to by name. Some of the settlements had individual names, but the creation of this post office established the area's name as Cocoanut Grove (as it was spelled then). Dr. Porter was its first postmaster.   1874 February 08 The Cocoanut Grove post office closed when Dr. Porter left Miami to follow his wife to Boston.   1875 May 20 Anna Besley won control of her deceased husband Edmund's homestead in Cocoanut Grove.   1876     The United States government began construction on five stations along Florida's southeast coast. Their purpose was to assist ships and aid shipwreck victims.   1877     John Frow bought all of Anna Besly's land in Cocoanut Grove. Later, he would become the area's first land subdivider when he sold part of the 160 acres he obtained from Besly.   1882     Hamilton Disston, a wealthy Philadelphian, purchased four million acres of swamplands in the Everglades. His engineers worked with the goal of draining the Everglades to serve man. Few at this time understood the crucial significance of this sprawing ecosystem. It would not be long before salt began to seep into Miami's drinking water due to sinking water levels in the Everglades. display     J. William Ewan officially became the second homesteader in Cocoanut Grove. He had been in the area since 1874, arriving from Charleston, South Carolina.   1883 January 06 Henry Lum purchases two lots of land from the United States government along the ocean north of 11th Street. He paid between $0.75 and $1.25 an acre.   1884     John Frow became Cocoanut Grove's first land subdivider. He sold parts of his land to his brother Joseph Frow, James A. Waddell, three of his sisters, and several others. He kept forty-three acres for himself.   1885     Henry Flagler purchases his first Florida railroad, initiating rail service between St. Augustine and New York.   1886     Charles Lum builds the first home on Miami Beach. It stood on the site of the present Tides Hotel.   1889 February 19 The Dade County seat moved from Miami to Juno. It would moved back to Miami ten years later.   1890     The settlement of Lemon City began to take shape. It was two miles north of the Miami River on the shore of Biscayne Bay. The area - set roughly where today's Biscayne Boulevard and Sixty-first streets intersect - was then called Billy Mettair's Bight. The area had homes, hotels, saloons, and several other businesses. display 1891     Julia Tuttle and her children arrived in Miami. They did so after purchasing 640 acres on the north bank of the Miami River. It was the old Fort Dallas land. Like the family of William Brickell, hers was from Cleveland. It was there that the two had met. display February   John Collins, along with two other investors, purchases land in southeastern Florida. Shortly thereafter, Collins invests $5,000 in a soon-to-fail coconut venture on Miami Beach. display 1892     A road linking Lemon City with Lantana in Palm Beach County was completed. Lemon City thus became the first section of Miami to be linked to the cities and towns to the north.   1893 April 16 John Pent, Temple Pent's son, applied for a homestead in Cocoanut Grove. He was unable to prove his claim just northeast of today's Grand Avenue, however, his son Edward succeeded in doing so roughly a decade later. Even though this failed attempt at a homestead followed others that had been successful, the Pents were still the area's first permanent residents.   1894     Henry and Charles Lum's coconut venture fails. They leave Miami Beach, and John Collins gains control of their plantation.       Crops are destroyed as far south as Palm Beach when a severe freeze hits the east coast. Henry Flagler becomes convinced that the future of America's winter crops lay further south. He soon makes the decision to extend his railway to Biscayne Bay.   February 11 Henry Flagler's Royal Poinciana Hotel opened in Palm Beach. display April 07 The Lemon City Library opened. display 1895     In the winter of 1895, a severe blizzard hit New England. Solomon Merrick, the father of young George Edgar Merrick, lost his daughter Ruth during the accompanying flu epidemic. This loss was, according to George, crucial in his father's decision to purchase one hundred sixty acres of land in what would eventually become Coral Gables.       Julia Tuttle offered Henry Flagler land if he would agree to extend his railroad to Miami. He accepted her proposal and a contract was signed that allowed for his Florida East Coast Railroad to reach Miami the following year.   1896     Henry Flagler and Julia Tuttle created a district for Miami's black residents. It was between N.W. Sixth and Twelfth streets, and later became known as Overtown. By 1915, most of the city's 5,000 blacks lived in the general vicinity of this community.   February   James E. Lummus arrived in Miami and opened a general merchandise store. He maintained the store until 1908. display December 25 Miami's Christmas Day fire destroyed over three square blocks of businesses and houses. A witness to the blaze stated in the 1950s that there was, "nothing to do but throw stones at that fire. We had no equipment."   1897     Captain William H. Fulford acquired a 160-acre land patent from President Grover Cleveland through utilization of the Homestead Act. The land surrounded a railroad depot just north of Miami that had been established by the Florida East Coast Railroad a year earlier. Though only a mile from Ojus, the two communities remained separated due to the poor roads and difficult travel conditions. Later, however, all of these lands would be incorporated into North Miami Beach.       In the 1890s, settlers established farms along the east side of the Oleta River. In this year, the area was named Ojus by Albert Fitch, a farmer who wanted to grow pineapples in the rich soil. The word Ojus is a Seminole word for "plenty" or "lots of", and at that time, farmers in Ojus grew peas, beans, sugar cane, and tomatoes.   January   Wilson Alexander Larkins settled in the area of today's South Miami. He came with his family and livestock, building for them a home and a barn.   January 16 The Hotel Royal Palm opened for business fifteen days behind schedule. Henry Flagler built the hotel at a cost of $750,000 to draw passengers onto his new railroad line extending to Miami. The hotel stood until 1931. display 1898     Wilson Larkins opened a dry goods store, and outpost, and established a post office near his home and farm. It was not long after this that people began to settle in the area in greater numbers.   June 24 The first of 7,000 U.S. troops began to arrive in Miami. Some came to build fortifications on William Brickell's bluff, and some were on their way to fight against the Spanish in Cuba. A wide large area of the northern sector of today’s downtown became their home. Camp Miami, as it came to be known, was near the city's black area. The soldiers provoked several violent incidents there. display August 12 The last units of Camp Miami dispersed. With the war in Cuba ending so quickly, the soldiers' stay in Miami had only lasted for six weeks and ended before they were ever needed in Cuba.   October   William Burdine and his family moved to Miami. "Burdine and Son" had been operating in Bartow, a central-west Florida town, but when William's son John found quick success selling wares to soldiers stationed in Miami, the father made the choice to move the store to the growing city. The store's first home was on South Miami Avenue close to Flagler Street.   1899 July 06 The post office request made by William Larkins was made official, and the area became known as Larkins. He had tried to name the area Manila, but the residents of the area that is today South Miami preferred the name of Larkins.   1900     The Florida Audobon Society was founded. Early members and patrons included President Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Flagler, future Florida Governor William S. Jennings, and inventor Thomas A. Edison.   1903     The Army Corps of Engineers began dredging the first opening to the Atlantic Ocean, cutting through mangrove swamps at Government Cut. The project allowed for safer, more direct access to the port of Miami.   1904     Napoleon Bonaparte Broward was elected Governor of Florida. His campaign promise was to drain much of south Florida, creating an "Empire of the Everglades."   1905     Henry Flagler decided to extend his Florida East Coast Railway further south, from Biscayne Bay in Miami to Key West.   March 14 Government Cut was completed, linking the Biscayne Bay and Atlantic Ocean.   1906 January 20 The Halcyon Hall Hotel opened in Miami on the later site of the Dupont building. display 1907     John Collins discovered fresh water on the island of Miami Beach, leading him to plant avocados as well as other fruits and vegetables.       John Collins bought out one of his partners and became the sole owner of all land on today's Miami Beach between 14th and 67th Streets and from the bay to the ocean.   1909 April 30 Palm Beach County was created. It had been part of Dade County.   October 01 The Everglades Land Sales Company opened its office in Miami. Much of the land it sold was purchased sight unseen.   1911     John Collins began construction on the Collins Canal. He wanted a more efficient way to bring his avocados directly to the city. display     The Florida East Coast Canal (later called, the Intracoastal Waterway) was completed from Jacksonville in North Florida to Biscayne Bay in Miami. display November   A color line was drawn along certain streets throughout Miami. The city's white residents wished to restrict the expansion of areas inhabited by blacks. A year earlier, the 1910 census reported that 42% of the city's residents were black, and at the time, racial conflicts were becoming more common.   1912     Carl Fisher arrived in Miami Beach late in the year. He wanted to develop a new city in and of itself, separate from Miami. display     Lafe Allen and an associate purchased Captain Fulford's original grant plus additional property with the idea of developing and selling lots. Eventually, they purchased 557 acres of land.   January 22 The Florida East Coast Railway reached Key West, crossing 91 miles of road and 38 bridges. display May   Before the start of construction linking Miami Beach by bridge to the mainland, the Lummus Brothers acquired 500 acres to the south of Collins, from 14th Street to Government Cut. The land was bought from Charles Lum and Edmund Wilson for $80,000. The two brothers established the Ocean Beach Reality Company with a vision of a modest city composed of single-family residences fronting the ocean. The brothers became pioneers of beach-front property sales.   May   The U.S. War Department gives developers permission to construct a bridge spanning Biscayne Bay. Realty firms prepared for what they believed would be a surge in population upon the bridge's completion. The bridge would be named the Collins Bridge.   July 01 Thomas Pancoast arrived in Miami. He was secretary and treasurer of the Miami Beach Improvement Company. John Collins was the company's president. Together, both men pursued loans from the Lummus brothers, both of whom were involved in banking. display July 09 The Ocean Beach Realty Company filed the first plots of land on the beach. The Lummus brothers' plots preceded those filed by John Collins and Carl Fisher five and six months later respectively. display 1913     Joe Weiss, a Jewish waiter from New York, arrived in Miami and opened a lunch stand at Smith's Casino on in Miami Beach. In 1920, he and his wife, Jennie, opened their own restaurant called Joe's on the tip of Miami Beach that specialized in seafood and, eventually, Stone crab.   June 12 The Collins Bridge was completed. It connected Miami and Miami Beach and was awarded the title of "the longest wagon bridge in the world." display 1914     The W.J. Brown Hotel opened on Miami Beach. It was the first hotel to open on the island.       Collins Avenue, the first paved road on Miami Beach, opened. It was the first road on the island suitable for automobiles. display 1915     J.N. and J.E. Lummus sold some of their oceanfront property to Miami Beach for $40,000. To be named Lummus Park, the land was dedicated as both a public park and beach.       Carl Fisher cleared Lincoln Road. display March 26 John Collins, the Lummus brothers, and Carl Fisher consolidated their efforts and successfully incorporated the Town of Miami Beach. At the time, the Beach had three hundred residents, but a mere thirty-three registered voters. They elected J.N. Lummus as the first mayor of Miami Beach.   April 30 Broward County was created. It had previously been part of Dade County.   December 04 The Miami Traction Company began service with "Battery Cars". At the same time, other operators began to spread across the city. Winslow Bus Lines served Hialeah and Northwest Miami, the Miami Transit Company - operated by Freeman & Sons - served the section of the city north and east of Flagler, and the Dunn Bus Company served the area south of Flagler into Coconut Grove.   1916     The Lummus brothers offered free lots to anyone who promised to build homes on their land.       Fisher opened the Lincoln Hotel. It stood at the corner of Washington Avenue and Lincoln Road. display     Miami residents voted on Ordinance 199, the "Color Line Ordinance." It did not pass, but through racism and intimidation, whites severely restricted the movements of blacks out of "colored town."   1917     The status of Miami Beach was changed from town to city.       Lafe Allen made plans for a "perfect city" calling for 80-foot wide residential streets and 100 and 125-foot wide business thoroughfares. Today, the area's street layout is as the pioneer pictured it then with wide avenues named Fulford Boulevard (now known as NE 172nd Street) and Flagler Boulevard (now known as NE 19th Avenue). Then referred to as Fulford-by-the-Sea, today the area is North Miami Beach.       The Napoleon Bonaparte Broward Drainage District was created. The project's goal was to drain and reclaim a half million acres in Broward and northern Dade Counties. display October   The U.S. government purchased thirty-one acres of lowlands at Dinner Key in Coconut Grove. They immediately began filling in the marsh in order to create an instructional facility for the Navy. display 1918     The County Causeway was completed and the mainland and Miami Beach were connected at 5th Street. It was called the County Causeway until 1942 when the city renamed it the MacArthur Causeway. display     The Tamiami Trail began to extend further west. In this year, forty-three miles were completed. display     Christian Hospital opened at 1218 NW First Place. It was the first hospital that treated blacks in Miami.   1919     The lower southeast coast of Florida opens to automobile traffic for the first time when Dixie Highway was completed through Broward County.       Carl Fisher and other investors formed the Miami Beach Electric Company and the Miami Beach Railway Company.   March 18 Cocoanut Grove residents voted to incorporate their town. In doing so, they decided to drop the "a" from the original spelling, changing the town's name to Coconut Grove. display 1920     The Miami Beach land boom began in roughly 1920. Over the next nine years, a host of millionaires built mansions along Collins Avenue's "Millionaire's Row."       Carl Fisher's Roman Pools and Casino open at 22nd Street and the Ocean. display     The construction of Star Island was begun by the Army Corps of Engineers. display October 06 The City of Miami renamed all its streets based on the quadrant system.   1921     James Bright and Glen Curtis platted the subdivision of Hialeah. They soon began selling their plots on the Miami Canal. display March 20 The Miami Beach Congregational Church was dedicated. It was the island's first church, and was later renamed the Miami Beach Community Church. display November 27 The first lots were sold in Coral Gables. Conceptualized by George Edgar Merrick, the city began with the Merrick family grove and a Mediterranean architectural style. By 1926, the city covered 10,000 acres and had netted $150 million in sales with over $100 million spent on development. display 1922     The Bayshore Golf Course is completed. display     The Miami Herald is the heaviest newspaper in the United States as a result of its extensive land advertisement section.       Lafe Allen's Fulford-by-the-Sea Company began selling lots. During the Florida land boom of the 1920's, lots were sometimes sold eight times before ever being recorded.   1923     The Tamiami Trail encounters financial problems. Supporters of the project, calling themselves the "Tamiami Trail Blazers," drove a caravan of Fords, tractors, and wagons over the still incomplete Trail.       Barron Collier pledged millions to the Tamiami Trail project. In exchange for this, Collier County was created in southwestern Florida.   1924     The LaGorce Golf Course is completed. Fisher names it after his friend, Rockwell LaGorce. display January 10 The Nautilus Hotel opened for business on the present site of the Mount Sinai Hospital. display 1925 February 18 The Olympia Theater opened. It was the first building in Miami to be air conditioned. The theater hosted a variety of acts, but its specialty was the vaudeville show. It drew large crowds through the 1950s, but later faced demolition until being purchased by Maurice Gusman in 1971. display April 27 Coral Gables was incorporated.   June 11 The town of Deerfield was incorporated.   September 05 Greater Miami was created. Residents had voted three days earlier to annex Coconut Grove, Silver Bluff, Allapattah, Lemon City, Buena Vista, and Little River.   November 16 The town of Davie was incorporated.   1926     The Florida Legislature refused to provide Coral Gables' founder George Merrick with a university. In turn, he established the University of Miami, the largest private university in the South. Bowman Ashe was appointed the university's first president.   January   The Roney Plaza Hotel was completed and opened for business. display January   The Biltmore Hotel was completed after ten months of construction for a cost of $10 million. display February 05 The town of Miami Shores was incorporated. The area had formerly been called Arch Creek, and was later renamed North Miami. Another town called Miami Shores was incorporated in 1930.   March 02 Larkins was incorporated as the town of South Miami. Soon after, John Opsahl constructed the town's first concrete block building on Sunset Drive.   July 04 The Ku Klux Klan opened their headquarters in downtown Miami. The building stood at SW Fourth Street and Eighth Avenue. It was destroyed in the hurricane of September 1926.   September 18 A devastating hurricane hit Miami in the early morning of September 18. Storm forecasting had improved in 1926, but was nowhere near as accurate as it is today. South Florida residents had little warning about the storm, which killed more than one hundred people and caused millions of dollars in damage. display November 11 Biscayne Boulevard was extended to Thirteenth Street.   1927     The Million Dollar Pier is completed at the southern tip of Miami Beach. display     The Kennel Club opens at the southern tip of Miami Beach. display     Temple Beth David opens at 3rd and Washington Avenue. It is Miami Beach's first Synagogue.   February 11 Biscayne Boulevard was extended to Twenty-ninth Street.   June 01 The town of South Miami adopted a new charter and changed its name to the City of South Miami.   June 06 The town of Miami Shores changed its name to North Miami.   1928     A motorcade of 500 cars journeyed from Ft. Myers to Miami to celebrate the completion of the Tamiami Trail and the first paved connection of Florida's two coasts. display     The continued construction of the Tamiami Trail, aimed at providing settlers with easier access to lands further and further inland, hastened the collapse of the frontier Seminole economy, threatening the Florida Indians with assimilation and extinction.   1929     The city of Miami Beach acquires Flamingo Park and dedicates it as a public facility.       The North Bay Causeway opened. It linked Miami Beach with the mainland at what is today Seventy-ninth Street. The intersection at Seventy-ninth and Biscayne Boulevard subsequently gained importance, and as Miami emerged from the Great Depression and later World War II, it and its outlying areas experienced a period of intense development. Many of the buildings near this intersection built in the 1950s and 1960s were designed along classic Modernist lines.   November 14 A Sears Roebuck store opened in downtown Miami at the corner of the County Causeway (later renamed the MacArthur Causeway) and the newly redesigned Biscayne Boulevard. The building was designed by the Chicago firm of Nimmons, Carr, & Wright, and is today remembered as the first Art Deco building in the city. The facade has been incorported into the design of the Performing Arts Center, due to open in 2006.   1930     Miami Beach's Art Deco boom began as a host of developers began to build in that style.       The Boulevard Shops on Biscayne Boulevard were built. One block away from Miami's first Art Deco building - the Sears Roebuck store - this group of upscale retail shops was another fine example of this type of architectural design. They were designed by Robert Law Weed.   January 13 The Miami Civic Center opened on Biscayne Boulevard. It was later renamed the Mayfair Art Theater.   1931     The City of South Miami Chamber of Commerce was established.   1934     The Everglades National Park was created. Congress authorized 2,164,480 acres to be acquired for the park through public and private donations. Some of the largest landowners in the Everglades sought a minimun price for their land. The price of $5.00 per acre was chosen. display 1935     The Miami area began to emerge from the Great Depression. The recovery in South Florida preceded that which occurred in other cities. By the mid-1930s, a string of new hotels built in the Art Deco style began to rise from the ruin caused by not only the Depression, but the hurricane of 1926.   1936 December 20 Parrot Jungle Island opened. Started by Franz Scherr and originally located on Red Road, one hundred visitors paid twenty-five cents admission to see twenty-five birds and the flora and fauna of his park on this first day. Today, Parrot Jungle is home to over one thousand birds and has moved to a site along the MacArthur Causeway between Miami and Miami Beach. The original grounds on Red Road remain, and the park has renamed as Pinecrest Gardens.   1938 March 23 Fairchild Tropical Garden was dedicated. In 1935, Colonel Robert M. Montgomery and his wife Nell Foster Montgomery had purchased eighty acres and founded a public botanical garden, setting the stage for the establishment of the tropical garden that still exists today.   1939 June 12 The town of Hillsboro Beach was incorporated.   1940     The National Hotel opened in Miami Beach. Designed by Roy France, it was one of the last large hotels built in the Art Deco style.       The Deco Grossinger Beach Hotel opened. Later to be called the Ritz Plaza Hotel, it was designed by L. Murray Dixon in classic Art Deco style. Seven years later, the Delano Hotel opened directly across the street.   1941 April   United States Army soldiers began to arrive in Miami Beach, where many were to be housed throughout World War II. Many facilities were used, including hotels, restaurants, and golf courses. display June   A large group of white Coconut Grove residents protested the move of two black families into white sections of the community. The group succeeded in the blocking the two families, but shortly thereafter blacks began moving into white areas of Coconut Grove.   August   Five-hundred whites in northwest Dade County actively opposed the construction of a 250-acre black development on NW Seventh Avenue. They were supported by the Ku Klux Klan and carried banners to the county courthouse where they presented a petition with over 1200 hundred signatures in opposition to the development.   1942 April 15 Formerly called Municipal Pier, the Serviceman's Pier opened to recreation-seeking soldiers. The Miami Beach Pier Association's first president, Kay Pancoast, worked tirelessly to raise funds for the project, and within one year, over 200,000 servicemen visited the pier.   April 20 Construction began on the Richmond Naval Air Station. It was on the site of today's Metroozoo.   1943 June 14 The Greater Miami Port Authority was created.   August   The United States government had appropriated at least 188 Miami Beach hotels, 109 apartment houses, and 18 private homes.   1944 November   Only 68 Miami Beach hotels and 11 apartment houses remained as appropriated property of the United States government.   1945     The Mayor of Miami, Leonard K. Thompson, began pushing to consolodate Dade County into a singular entity. Voters rejected his plan, but many services, including sewage, education, and transportation, were already consolidating on their own.   June 11 The Dade County Port Authority was created. It replaced the Greater Miami Port Authority, which had been created two years earlier.   August 01 The first ferry traveled to Virginia Key.   August 08 Dade County established Virginia Beach as a black-only beach. The Virginia Key beach remained as such for years. display September 15 A major hurricane hit southern Dade County. Many structures were destroyed. Several buildings on the Richmond Naval Air Station were among those destroyed, including the base's blimp hangars in a large fires.   December 01 The Serviceman's Pier in Miami Beach closed.   1946     The Sherry Frontenac opened in Miami Beach. The construction of this hotel, designed by Henry Hohauser, marked a shift in the epicenter of tourist activity from the Lincoln Road area of Miami Beach to an area just north where hotels such as the Sherry Frontenac, the Delano, and the Fontainebleau were being built. There were certain aspects of the hotel's design, such as its smokestacks and "gangplank" bridge, that were quintessentially Art Deco. display January 01 The Dade County Port Authority bought the airport on NW Thirty-Sixth Street. They purchased it from Pan American Airways for $2.5 million. display April   Developers broke ground for what would be the extremely exclusive residential community of Bal Harbour. Robert Cabel Graham, a wealthy Detroit truck manufacturer and farmer, hired the firm of Harland and Bartholomew and Associates to design the community. Its exclusivity lay in the original agreement that required no lot be "sold, conveyed, or leased to anyone not a member of the Caucasian race, not to anyone having more than one-quarter Hebrew or Syrian blood."   April   The Florida Supreme Court ruled that Dade County's segregation of black residential districts was illegal. They were largely following the lead of other courts around the nation that had already banned such practices.   May   The Miami Housing Authority used a 24-acre tract of land in Coconut Grove to provide low-rent housing for blacks. When white residents of the community began to protest, a deal was struck. A seventy-four-foot buffer strip and a wall - parts of which still stand today - were constucted to divide the two populations.   1947     The Delano Hotel opened on Miami Beach next door to the National Hotel. The hotel was designed in the Art Deco style by Robert M. Swarthburg.       The Everglades National Park was dedicated. President Harry Truman was there for the dedication.       Marjory Stoneman Douglas released The Everglades: River of Grass. It was a landmark book in educating people on the significance of preserving and protecting the Everglades ecosystem. display July 21 Miami and Miami Beach adopted a tourist tax. It was a tax of 5% on hotel and apartment bills.   August 01 The City of Miami evicted a number of black residents from their homes. Their homes were destroyed to make way for Allapattah Junior and Elementary schools.   December 06 President Truman dedicated Everglades National Park. display 1948     The Saxony Hotel opened in Miami Beach. It was designed by Roy France, who also designed the National Hotel of 1940. The Modernist Saxony was part of a new generation of hotels built in Miami and Miami Beach. It and many of the other new buildings lacked the ornamental Art Deco motifs that were to be seen for the last times in the designs of the Sherry Frontenac and the Delano hotels. display 1949     The Casablanca Hotel opened. Roy France designed the hotel, which was named after the famous film staring Humphrey Bogart. The hotel can be described as Modernist in its design, but it also incorporated elements of the International Style and Hollywood-themed kitsch. The latter of these came to influence the way developers in Las Vegas, Nevada designed their resorts decades later. display October 29 The town of Hacienda Village was incorporated. It was to serve as a casino town.   December   The Sans Souci Hotel opened at 3101 Collins Avenue in Miami Beach. The hotel's partners had hired architect Roy France to design the structure. When they became disappointed with his work, however, they brought in someone else. The Sans Souci would become the first hotel in the Miami area designed by the architect Morris Lapidus. While the exterior was left much as France had originally intended, the interior was infused with the style of Lapidus. display 1950 December 29 Dade County bought the Venetian Causeway. They purchased it from the Miami Bridge Company.   1951     The Bombay Hotel opened. The hotel's name was later changed to the Golden Sands Hotel. It was the first hotel in Miami Beach to offer its guests a parking garage. Norman M. Giller designed the building. On why his was the first hotel to have a garage, Giller said that, "in the Art Deco days we were in a Depression, so nobody was thinking about cars, because not too many people had them."   September 23 A group of racist Miamians bombed a black apartment house in the community known as Carver Village. A Catholic Church and Jewish Centers were also targeted, but the bombing of the apartment house stood out as it came just as a number of blacks were ready to move into the all-white community. Authorities believed that the Ku Klux Klan was to blame for the attacks. display 1953     The Lido Spa opened on Belle Isle along the Venetian Causeway.   April 30 The town of Plantation was incorporated.   July 16 The Miami City Commission voted to establish a temporary City Hall. The old Pan American Airways terminal on Dinner Key was chosen as the site.   December 07 Miami's municipal pier collapsed.   1954 December 20 The Fontainebleau Hotel opened for business on Miami Beach at 4441 Collins Avenue. It was one of the Miami Beach hotels designed by architect Morris Lapidus. display 1955     The Eden Roc Hotel opened on Miami Beach. The hotel was designed by architect Morris Lapidus.   May 26 The town of Miramar was incorporated.   May 30 The town of Margate was incorporated.   1956     The Hotel Americana opened in Bal Harbour. It was designed by Morris Lapidus, architect of several already significant Miami Beach hotels. display January 03 George Engle unveils the Coconut Grove Playhouse. It was a renovated movie theater, yet resembled a Broadway playhouse with its lavish quarters for star actors and actresses, gold plumbing fixtures, and top-notch dining rooms and bars. It opened with the American premier of "Waiting for Godot."   June 13 The town of Lighthouse Point was incorporated.   July 25 Florida's House of Representatives upholds segregation by a vote of 89-1. Miami's Jack Orr is the sole dissenter.   1957     The Deauville Miami Beach Resort Hotel opened on Miami Beach. It stood on the site of what had been the McFadden Deauville Casino, and hosted acts such as the Beatles, Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin. Melvin Grossman, a protege of the renowned Modernist architect Morris Lapidus, designed the hotel.   December 10 Pembroke Park was incorporated.   1958 January 01 Pembroke Pines was incorporated.   1959 June 20 Cooper City was incorporated.   June 20 The town of Lauderhill was incorporated.   1960     The Lincoln Road Mall was built in Miami Beach. Lincoln Road business owners felt threatened by the trend towards building large tourist hotels with their own selection of upscale shops, such as the Fontainebleau, that were blocks away from Lincoln Road. They taxed themselves in order to raise the necessary funds for a large revitalization project. Morris Lapidus, designer of the Fontainebleau and other Miami Beach hotels, was hired for the project. Soon, the Lincoln Road Mall became one of the most significant arena for Modernist architecture in Miami Beach. display May 03 Dade County voters approved a new county-wide road system. With their vote, they allowed a $46 million bond to be issued for what would be a six year project.   1961     Developer Steve Muss arrived in Miami Beach. His father, Alexander Muss had established the family as developers with the founding of Alexander Muss & Sons in 1952. Steve would come to have dramatic influence in the ways that Miami Beach developed.   July 22 The town of Sunrise was incorporated.   1962 October 01 Dadeland Mall opened. At this time, it was only an outdoor strip-mall with fifty-eight tenants. One of them was a Burdines.   1963     The Bacardi U.S.A. building at 2100 Biscayne Boulevard was built. The building, which was designed by Enrique Gutierrez of Puerto Rico's firm of Sacmag International, is one of the many examples of Modernist architecture along Biscanye Boulevard. Unlike others, however, the Bacardi U.S.A. building incorporates a number of Latin American and Spanish motifs, such as Meso-American ball courts and mosaics done in tiles glazed in Spain.   1965 October 25 The Disney Corporation announces plans for Walt Disney World. The company plans to establish it in central Florida.   1967 February 19 The town of Coconut Creek was incorporated.   1968     Biscayne Bay was listed as a national monument. Congress cited its "rare combination of terrestrial, marine, and amphibious life in a tropical setting of great natural beauty."   1970     Extreme droughts across South Florida though this year and the next heightened awareness of the looming threats to the regions water supply. In addition, the Governor's Conference on Water Management in South Florida found that the quality of water was also declining.   1971     Maurice Gusman purchased the Olympia Theater. Architect Morris Lapidus was hired to restore the historic building. It was later transferred to the City of Miami and renamed Gusman Hall.   1972 October 20 The Gusman Philharmonic Hall opened.   1976     Florida's state legislature created the South Florida Water Management District. display June   The Miami Design Preservation League (MDPL) was established. Five designers were responsible, and their goal was to preserve the Art Deco style and all historic well-built buildings in Miami Beach. display 1977 December 02 The Fontainebleau Hotel was purchased by a group led by Steve Muss. It was part of a deal that Muss made with Hilton Hotels. The hotel's new name was the Fontainebleau-Hilton, and for the first time since it opened in 1954, a sign displayed its name.   1979     The Everglades were designated as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations. display     Anastasio Somoza Debayle, Nicaragua's ousted dictator, fled to Miami. Along with other members of his fallen government, roughly 15,000 wealthy Nicaraguans moved into or purchased residences in Miami during the late 1970s. The primary areas of concentration for these moves and purchases were Key Biscayne, Brickell Avenue, and the western suburb of Sweetwater.   May 14 The Miami Beach Art Deco District was listed as an historic landmark in the United States national register. It was the first district created in the twentieth-century (largely in the 1930s and 1940s) to receive this designation. display 1980     Biscayne Bay National Park was established. As the status was changed from a national monument to a national park, Congress authorized the acquisition of new keys and reefs in the bay. display July 07 The Metrozoo opened. This first section was twenty-five acres. display 1987     Bayside opened along the bay in downtown Miami. Full of shops, restaurants, and other attractions, its creation gave the city its first bayfront gathering place since the 1920s.       The Everglades were designated as a Wetland of International Importance. An intergovernmental treaty, the Convention on Wetlands, aimed to promote conservation and wise use of the area. display 1988     Lummus Park is listed as an historic landmark in the United States historical register.       Barbara Baer Capitman's Deco Delights was published. She had fought since the late 1970s to preserve the Art Deco style in Miami Beach and historic buildings throughout Miami. display February 01 The American Airlines Arena was built with dredging from the bay.   October 12 The Senator Hotel was demolished. Author and preservationist Barbara Baer Capitman had called it a "symbol of the Deco District." Nevertheless, the Royale Group proceeded to raze the strcture as the nearly seventy year-old Capitman was taken away by Miami Beach police. The company was seeking to build a parking garage on the site to service their other nearby properties.   1989     The Everglades National Park Protection and Expansion Act of 1989 was passed. The act authorized the Army Corps of Engineers to restore, as much as possible, the park's natural hydrological conditions, and the purchase of 107,000 additional acres of land to increase water flow on the park's eastern side.   1993 August 24 Groundbreaking for the Homestead-Miami Speedway took place one year after Hurricane Andrew hit south Florida. After Hurricane Andrew devastated South Dade, particularly the City of Homestead, longtime Miami motorsports promoter Ralph Sanchez met with Homestead's then-city manager Alex Muxo to negotiate a deal that would bring the facility to town with hopes of aiding in the revitalization of the city. Before completion of the project, H. Wayne Huizenga, owner of the Miami Dolphins, joined the team as a partner.   1994     The Everglades Forever Act was passed. Passed by Florida's state legislature, this act underwrote $685 million for construction, land acquisition, and water treatment. $320 million was to come from sugar farmers to clean up farm runoff, and the rest was to come from taxpayers. display 2000     Miami Beach was named the #1 Urban Beach by the Surfrider Foundation.

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