Chronology: Travel, Tourism and Urban Growth in Miami

Selected Events for Transportation
Year	Month	Day	Event	Related Resource
1825	December	17	The Cape Florida Lighthouse was completed. The site was the southern tip of Key Biscayne.	display
1836	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
1840			Simeon Frow arrived in Key West from Majorca. Later, he would become keeper of the Cape Florida Lighthouse, and his family would play a significant role in the history of early Coconut Grove.
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.
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.
1859			Simeon Frow became keeper of the Cape Florida Lighthouse. Having come recently from Key West and originally from Majorca, he held the post until the light went out during the Civil War. Later, one of his sons would hold the position.
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			John Frow became keeper of the Cape Florida Lighthouse. He took over upon Temple Pent's death.
1885			Henry Flagler purchases his first Florida railroad, initiating rail service between St. Augustine and New York.
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.
1894	February	11	Henry Flagler's Royal Poinciana Hotel opened in Palm Beach.	display
1894	April	02	Henry Flagler's railroad reached Palm Beach.
1895			John N. Lummus arrived in Miami. He saw immediate promise for the area's development, and returned a year later to work as a train dispatcher for the Florida East Coast Railway.
1895			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	April	15	The Florida East Coast Railway, owned by Henry Flagler, reached Miami and the first train arrived on this day. Prior to this date, most of the people in the area were homesteaders and the only "towns" were Coconut Grove and Lemon City.	display
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.
1897			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.
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.
1905			Henry Flagler decided to extend his Florida East Coast Railway further south, from Biscayne Bay in Miami to Key West.
1905	March	14	Government Cut was completed, linking the Biscayne Bay and Atlantic Ocean.
1906	October	18	A major hurricane hit Miami and the Keys killing hundreds of people, many of who were workers on the Florida East Coast Railway.	display
1908			T.V. Moore, also known in Miami as "The Pineapple King," took a leading role in defending farmers' rights. He helped to form the East Coast Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association in an effort to combat the heavy freight charges imposed by Flagler's FEC Railroad.
1911			John Collins began construction on the Collins Canal. He wanted a more efficient way to bring his avocados directly to the city.	display
1911			The Florida East Coast Canal (later called, the Intracoastal Waterway) was completed from Jacksonville in North Florida to Biscayne Bay in Miami.	display
1912	January	22	The Florida East Coast Railway reached Key West, crossing 91 miles of road and 38 bridges.	display
	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	22	Construction of the Collins Bridge began. It was slated to cost $75,000, though the final cost was nearly twice that.
1913	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			Collins Avenue, the first paved road on Miami Beach, opened. It was the first road on the island suitable for automobiles.	display
1915			Carl Fisher cleared Lincoln Road.	display
1915	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.
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
1918			The Tamiami Trail began to extend further west. In this year, forty-three miles were completed.	display
1919			The lower southeast coast of Florida opens to automobile traffic for the first time when Dixie Highway was completed through Broward County.
1919			Carl Fisher and other investors formed the Miami Beach Electric Company and the Miami Beach Railway Company.
1920			Carl Fisher's Miami Beach Railway Company helped to link Miami and Miami Beach. A single line connecting downtown and south Miami Beach ran via the County Causeway.
			5th Street, Alton Road, Collins Avenue, Washington Avenue, and Ocean Drive, the Miami Beach's main arteries, are all suitable for automobile traffic.	display
	October	06	The City of Miami renamed all its streets based on the quadrant system.
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.
1923			Barron Collier pledged millions to the Tamiami Trail project. In exchange for this, Collier County was created in southwestern Florida.
1925			The Kelly Air Mail Act of 1925 made possible the growth of commercial aviation in Miami and South Florida.
1926			Solid tire buses went into use on both sides of Biscanyne Bay after Florida Power and Light acquired Carl Fisher's causeway trolley line - the Miami Beach Railway Company - and contracted with the City of Miami for trolley and bus service on the mainland.
	January	10	The 241-foot barkentine Prins Valdemar overturned in Miami's harbor blocking the ship channel for several weeks. Construction stalled across the city, as much-needed lumber sat on ships that were unable to access the port.
	February	28	Venetian Way (now called the Venetian Causeway) opened to traffic. It was built over what had been the route for the Collins Bridge.	display
	May		The first Coral Gables rapid transit cars operated from downtown Miami to Ponce de Leon Boulevard in Coral Gables via Coral Way.	display
	November	11	Biscayne Boulevard was extended to Thirteenth Street.
1927	February	11	Biscayne Boulevard was extended to Twenty-ninth Street.
	July	28	The Greater Miami Airport Association was created.
	October	28	Pan American World Airways is born on this day with the flight of a Fokker tri-motor F-7 from Key West to Havana. By 1935, the airline was connecting Miami and thirty-two other Central and South American countries.	display
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.
	January	04	The first nonstop flight from Miami to New York took place.
	January	16	The first scheduled passender flight from south Florida to Cuba took place. It was a Pan American Airways flight from Key West to Havana.
	September	15	Pan American Airways established its base of operations in Miami. It had previously been in Key West.
1929			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.
1935			Coral Gables' high speed transit service ended. It had lasted nine years, but damage from a storm in 1935 was so extensive that it was permanently shut down. Thereafter, Coral Gables switched to an all bus system.
1935	September	02	A Labor Day hurricane hit the Florida Keys, killing 408 people. Damage to the railroad connecting Miami and the Keys was so severe that service between the two points on Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway ended.	display
1937			Voters rejected a ballot to unify all transit services in Miami except its jitneys.
1937	June	01	Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan departed from Miami beginning their 29,000-mile journey around the world. With 7,000 miles remaining, they disappeared over the Pacific on July 2.
1938	March	29	The Overseas Highway to Key West was completed.	display
1939			Voters approved a second ballot - two years after the first - that unified the City of Miami's transit system.
1939			The City of Miami discontinued using its streetcars over the course of two years. The city granted an exclusive franchise to the Miami Transit Company.	display
1940	November	14	George B. Dunn contributed to the consolidation of Miami transit services. Using the name of the Miami Transit Company, he took over the city-owned lines and merged Dunn Bus Service into the combined operation resulting in a fleet of 208 buses (half of which were new Macks) covering 193 route miles.
1940	November	16	Miami's trolley cars were used for the last time.	display
1942	February	19	*A German U-boat sank the the tanker Pan Massachusetts* twenty miles south of Cape Canaveral**. The ship was carrying one hundred thousand barrels of gasoline, and its sinking illustrated to South Floridians that the war in Europe had crossed the Atlanic.
	February	24	*A German U-boat sank the Republic* off West Palm Beach**. This came only five days after the sinking of another ship off Cape Canaveral.
	March	03	The Dade County Commission voted to change the name of the County Causeway to the MacArthur Causeway in honor of the general whose troops were then fighting in the Philippines.
	April	20	Construction began on the Richmond Naval Air Station. It was on the site of today's Metroozoo.
	May	14	*The Portero del Llano, attacked by a German U-boat close to the shores of Miami Beach*, burned and sunk within sight of the city.
1943	June	14	The Greater Miami Port Authority was created.
1945	June	11	The Dade County Port Authority was created. It replaced the Greater Miami Port Authority, which had been created two years earlier.
1945	August	01	The first ferry traveled to Virginia Key.
1946	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
1946	January	06	*The Miami Herald* began offering "the Clipper edition."** It was a smaller version of the Herald that they sent by air to the countries of Latin America.
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."
1953	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.
1956	June	07	Miami's chapter of the NAACP threatened a boycott of the Miami Transit Company if the city's buses did not desegregate. Whites had always been entitled to seats at the front of the bus.
1957			The United States federal court issued a ruling that ended bus segregation in Miami. Bus segregation was declared to be not only unconstitutional, but unenforceable as well.
1957	January	25	The Sunshine State Parkway opened. Later to be called the Florida Turnpike, it opened on this day between Miami and Fort Pierce. Leroy Collins, Florida's governor, dedicated the road at the Fort Lauderdale exit. At this time, the speed limit was 60 miles per hour and the cost of traveling its length was $2.40.
1959	January	24	Miami International Airport was dedicated.	display
1959	February	01	The 20th Street terminal at Miami International Airport opened.
1960	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.
	August	02	The Metropolitan Dade County Transit Authority was created.
	December	20	Operation "Pedro Pan" began. These flights from Cuba brought 14,000 children to the United States by 1962.
1965	September	08	Hurricane Betsy hit south Florida. Thirteen people died during the storm that caused a barge to sever Rickenbacker Causeway. Collins Avenue and Biscayne Boulevard were severely flooded.
1966	December	19	The maiden voyage of Ted Arison's "MS Sunward I" marked the beginning of Miami's cruise industry. Arison owned this boat that departed Miami for the nearby port of Nassau, Bahamas. Over time, hundreds of cruise ships would call at Miami's port on their way to destinations around the globe.
1968	December	29	The passenger terminal at the Port of Miami was dedicated.
1969	January	24	Feeder ramps opened from downtown Miami to Interstate-95. They allowed for traffic to flow more freely between the city and the highway at a variety of points downtown.
1973	April	07	Freedom Flights from Cuba to the United States ended.
1980	April	21	The Mariel boatlift from Cuba to the U.S. began as the first boats began to reach Key West. By the end, nearly 140,000 Cubans would be brought to South Florida.
1984			The City of Miami's Metrorail began operating.
1986			The Metromover began running in downtown Miami. This addition to the city's mass transit system came two years after the establishment of the Metrorail system.

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