Miami History:
From the 3rd century until the 18th century BC there were several Native tribes in South Florida.
The Calusa in Southwest Florida which were the largest of the tribes. They controlled the others, the Jaega and the Ais people at the East Okeechobee Area, the Mayaimi at Lake Okeechobee, and the Tequesta Indians.
Tequesta Indians settled in the 3rd century BC, thousands of years before the Europeans arrived in the southeastern parts of present-day Florida.
They were called "Tequesta" by the Spaniards in honor of their chief.
Their central village was on the bank of the Miami River and had been at that site for about 2,000 years.
In 1998 archaeologist Dr. Robert S. Carr discovered remnants of that village which is now known as the Miami Circle.
Following the conclusion of the Bureau of Archaeological Research (BAR) that the Miami Circle is ancient, of human origin and most likely part of an ancient Ceremonial site, the City of Miami and the State of Florida bought the site from the developer for $ 26.7 MIO to protect it. The 2.2-acre property with the circular structure became a waterfront park which opened in 2011 and is managed by History Miami.
By the 1800s, most Natives had died because of settlement battles, slavery, and diseases.
There are still two Indian Tribes in South Florida, the Miccosukee with about 700 members and the Seminole Tribe of Florida with about 4,000 members.
Both tribes descend from the Muscogee (Creek) people and share a common ancestry and cultural heritage.
Following conflicts with British settlers and other tribes, various Creek groups moved into Florida, which was under Spanish control at the time.
The large influx occurred after 1814, when Upper Creeks fled to Florida after being defeated by Andrew Jackson.
To avoid to be forced on the Trail of Tears to reservation in Oklahoma they were hiding in the Everglades.
These groups, along with remnants of earlier Florida indigenous peoples, became known as Seminoles, which translates to "wild runaway" or "wanderer".
The Seminole Tribe of Florida is one of the wealthiest tribes in the US with an estimated net worth of $12 billion, thanks to its successful gaming enterprises, which include operating the Seminole Hard Rock brand and several casinos.
This wealth enables them to provide substantial annual payments to members, which can turn children into multi-millionaires by the time they turn 18.
Yearly payments to members in the Miccosukee tribe are between $60,000 and $160,000 mostly because of the Hotel and Casino.
Therefore, they try to keep the membership of the tribe very controlled. To be member of the tribe 50% of your Blood has to be Indian, and this from the mother’s side. In comparison, by the Navajo Indians, who own Monument Valley, only a 16th of the blood must be Navajo Indian blood in order to be member of the tribe; that tribe has now 168,000 members.
The Seminole Wars (1817–1858) were a series of conflicts between the U.S. Army and the Seminole and Miccosukee people in Florida leaving Miami's surrounding area open to white settlement.
The US army built Fort Dallas which was established on the plantation of Richard Fitzpatrick and William English in 1836 and operated as a US military post until 1857. Although no battles directly occurred in Miami itself, conflicts were fought throughout Florida.
In 1567, Father Juan Rogel, S.J., and Brother Francisco Villareal, S.J., came to La Florida for the second time, and settled among the Tequesta Indians near the confluence of the Miami River and Biscayne Bay in southeast Florida.
The Spanish abandoned the mission by the Tequesta because of increasing animosity and hostility between two widely variant cultures.
Ephraim Tanner Sturtevant (July 28, 1803 – December 12, 1881) the father of Julia Tuttle, settled on Biscayne Bay Southern Florida in March 1870, where he occupied himself in cultivating tropical fruits and flowers. He also took an active part in the Reconstruction government, was twice appointed County Judge, and in 1872 he was elected to the Florida State Senate for four years.
Julia Tuttle, Sturtevant only surviving daughter and originally from Cleveland Ohio, came for the first time in 1875 with her husband, visiting a 40-acre (16 ha) orange grove her father had purchased. She loved the experience, but returned to Cleveland, Ohio, with her family.
In 1886, her husband died and in 1890 her father died too. Her father left her his land in Florida, so she sold her home in Cleveland, Ohio and relocated to Biscayne Bay.
Tuttle purchased the James Egan grant of 640 acres (2.6 km2), where the city of Miami is now located, on the north side of the Miami River, including the old Fort Dallas stone buildings, and the two-story rock house built by Richard Fitzpatrick's enslaved workers some 50 years earlier and which was converted into her home in 1891.
At that time the area was known as Biscayne Bay Country.
The original site where her house was is today the Hyatt Hotel Downtown Miami and the James L. Knight Center.
By 1900 it was only designated as a promising wilderness, and the only other settlers living around the Miami river besides the Seminole indians and Julia Tuttle were the Family of Charles Mann who operated a Trading Post and Fishing Camp up the river and traded with the Seminole indians and William and Mary Brickell.
William Brickell also originally from Cleveland Ohio, lived in the White House while he worked as an aide to President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. In 1868 Brickell and his wife Mary, whom he met and married in Australia, purchased two tracts of land (2000 acre) which stretched from Coconut Grove to the Miami River and operated a trading post and a post office. and William and Mary Brickel who operated a Trading Post and Post Office.
Julia Tuttle had a dream and saw the opportunity to establish a new city on the Miami River.
She knew that the best way to attract settlers and to develope the area was by haveing the railroad come down.
Julia Tuttle contacted first Henry Plant owner of the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad.
Plant had built several hotels for his railroad travelers, and in Tampa he built the Tampa Bay Hotel with 511 rooms in the style of a Moorish palace, an enormous hotel costing over $3,000,000 and covering 6 acres situated on 150 acres of land.
It Opened on February 5, 1891, and was the first hotel in Florida to have an elevator, and electric lights and telephone in every room.
Henry Plant was very interested in Julia Tuttle’s idea and sent a team of surveyors from Tampa to the estuary of the Miami River at Biscayne Bay to find out if it was feasible to build a railroad through the Everglades.
But unfortunately, the expedition got lost in the Everglades and arrived on the Miami River with over a week delay.
After that experience he lost all interest in this project.
Mrs.Tuttle did not give up and tried to induce Henry Flagler to extend his Florida East Coast Railway to Fort Dallas.
Henry Morrison Flagler, together with John D. Rockefeller owned also the Standard Oil company and had built his railroad at that time on the East coast all the way to Palm Beach. But he did not show any interest in the beginning. After numerous fruitless letters and an unsuccessful trip to St. Augustine to talk to him in person good fortune for her expansionist ambitions came in the form of the Great Freeze of 1894-1895, which devastated the old orange belt of central and northern Florida, wiping out valuable groves and fortunes alike.
Everything in Florida froze all the way down to Palm Beach, only the southern part around the Miami River was spared.
Orlando was the center of the Citrus industry at that time and was economically totally wiped out. For many years it stayed a little Cow-Town until Walt Disney came to build Disney World in the sixties.
The story goes that Julia Tuttle sent a box of oranges and orange blossoms up to the office of Henry Flagler in New York to show him that the sun is still shining and there is no frost in South Florida and that sparked his interest in the project.
Flagler took a train from New York to Palm Beach, and then a ship to the Miami River to meet with Julia Tuttle, William and Mary Brickell in the Brickel Mansion on the South side of the river. There they decided to estalish the city. At first they wanted to call the city Flagler City, but Mr. Flagler was against it, and so it was named “City of Miami”, after the river. The river got his name from the Mayaimi (or Maymi) Indians.
Julia Tuttle and the Brickell’s gave 100 acre each to Flagler for him to built the railroad down, and each kept 100-acre land in the city limit. So, the first city was built on 400 acre.
The City was founded on July 28, 1896, in the Lobby Bar, a Pool Parlor, with about 368 inhabitants, 162 (44 %) of them Black Bahamian immigrants. They were fundamentally important because at that time 300 votes were necessary to incorporate a city. For all her effort Julia Tuttle is called “The Mother of Miami”, the only woman to have founded what would become a major American city.
Flagler sent Joseph McDonalds, who had built all the other hotels for Flagles in Florida, to build his hotel, the Royal Palm Hotel. He also sent a young 28-year John Sewell with his younger brother Everest “Ev” Sewell and 12 black workers who had worked for Flagler successfully on several projects before , to help Julia Tuttle to plan and organize the city and to build roads.
Biggest problem for the settlers was water. There was water from the Everglades, but that water is sour water and if people drink it too often, they can become sick. Until they found out, that in all South Florida up to Palm Beach, under the 20-25 feet layer of oolitic limestone, there is an Aqueduct, the Floridian aquifers, with fresh, cold naturally filtered Drinkwater.
The first roads were built using crushed and with water mixed oolitic limestone known also as Miami Coral Rock.
Julia Tuttle insisted that the city would be a dry city, no Alcohol was allowed to be sold and consumed except in her hotel the "Miami Hotel" and in Flagler’s new hotel, the "Royal Palm Hotel", and only at certain times. After her death in 1898, when she died on Meningitis, her son “forgot” to put the non-alcohol clause in property contracts, and Salons, Bars and Brothels which were before established outside the nordern city limits, moved in the city.
First settlements within Miami's city limits were Lemon City, now Little Haiti, and Coconut Grove. Settlements outside the city limits were Biscayne, present-day Miami Shores, and Cutler, present-day Palmetto Bay.
Many of the settlers were homesteaders, attracted to the area by the offer of 160 acres (0.6 km2) of free land by the United States federal government.
First Mayor became John B. Reilly a manager of Florida East Coast Railway in1896, Second Mayor J. E. Lummus 1900 – 1903.
J.E. Lummus moved to the Miami area together with his brother J.N. Lummus, and owned a general store until 1908 when he began investing in real estate and banking. the Lummus brothers were both bank presidents. J.E. Lummus was president of the Bank of Biscayne Bay. His brother, J.N. Lummus was president of Southern Bank & Trust when they helped Carl Fisher and John Collins to develop Miami Beach.
Lummus Park, Miami Beach, and Lummus Park, Miami, The Lummus Park Historic District are named after them.
The Third Mayor was John Sewell (1903 – 1907) himself and his brother Everest "Ev" G. Sewell was the13. Mayor and this 3 times until his death in 1940.
Everest organized a very successful advertising campaign to attract settlers and tourists and came up with the slogan: “Miami, where the summer spends the winter”
During the American Spanish War (23. April bis 12. August 1898) many Soldiers were trained in and around Miami.
Early 20th century, many settlers moved from the northern states to Miami which crated a strong increase in population.
The Collapse of the Florida land boom in 1920, a hurricane in 1926 and the recession in the 1930s slowed down the upswing for a short time.
During the 2nd World War, Miami was a base for the US defense against German U-boats and many soldiers were trained here before they were shipped to Europe and at the End of the war many remembered their training time here, and moved to Miami. Miami had already 172,172 inhabitants in 1940.
After Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba in 1959 many wealthy Cubans, the Elite, fled to Miami.
The first building they saw coming into the port was the Freedoms Tower, at that time one of the tallest buildings of the skyline with 255-foot (78 m). Built in 1925 as headquarters for the first Newspaper of Miami, the Miami News it was used as their office building until 1957. The Tower stayed unoccupied until 1959 when Fidel Castro took over Cuba and 500,000 Cuban fled to Miami. In 1960 the Government took over the building for immigration purposes.
The Cubans arriving at this time were very hard working, good businesspeople and helped the economic growth of the city a lot.
From 1972 until 1981 because of political instability, persecution, frequent economic crises, natural disasters between 55,000 and 100,000 Haitians fled to Miami and established themselves in the Edison/Little River area of Miami, which eventually came to be referred to as Little Haiti.
In 1980 the "Mariel Boat Lift" happened when Fidel Castro opened Prisons and Mental institutions and sent those people over to Miami which brought a lot of social problems and started the time of the Cocaine Cowboys with drug wars and many violent crimes. It was the time of Carlos Lehder, Griselda Blanco the Godmother of the Medelin Cartel and Pablo Escobar, and lasted until about to the mid 1990's when the situation was cleaned up.
Today because of Technology & Surveillance, Targeted Enforcement, Community-Based Policing and Specialized Task Forces implemented in the late 90's by the District Attorneys office Miami is one of the safest cities in the US and an excample for other cities in the US and international who are trying to copy Miamis system in their cities.
There are only a very few homeless people on the streets of Miami. Part of it is a 2024 Florida law banning public camping, but also because of social help centers as for excample Don Camilo house and Good Shepherd which even have a medical center for the homeless people. Another reason is the Miami-Dade County’s comprehensive, data-driven approach to homelessness, led by the Homeless Trust. The plan, Priority Home, aims to combat rising evictions through rapid re-housing, emergency rental assistance, and, as of late 2025, exploring innovative solutions like tiny homes for 550+ households. A big help was also that the city decriminalized homlessness and instead the city tries to reintegrate those people.
On August 24, 1992, Hurricane Andrew hit and devastated large parts of South Miami but Downtown and Miami Beach were spared.
Between 1990 – 2000 the city became a multicultural metropolis, a Center for international trade and cultural and financial center of the American South, special for South American businesses. Miami has most international Banks of any City in the US, even more than Manhattan.
Miami is a city with high cultural diversity. While english is of course the official language, over 130 other languages are spoken also in the Miami metropolitan area. Spanish is dominant, spoken by roughly 60%–70% of the population at home.