Articles by Paul S. George

Bay View Inn in 1880s

Miami in 1893 – Part 2 of 2

In the previous installment of this series, we followed the journey of Dr. Walter Graham through Miami and other portions of southeast Florida in 1893, at a time when that region was essentially an undeveloped wilderness. We left Graham as…


Aerial of Fort Dallas in 1894

Miami in 1893 – Part 1 of 2

Pre-incorporation Miami, that is the period prior to 1896, was a subtropical Eden with its clear streams and dense foliage, its billowing clouds, and stunning light, its sounds of birds and other wildlife in an untrammeled wilderness. Our information on…


Turtle at Sufside Town Hall

History of the Town of Surfside – Part 2 of 2

In our first article on the history of the Town of Surfside, we examined its early decades as a municipality while noting that its contemporary story deviates sharply from those earlier times. While no available data exists for the number…


Surf Club in 1931

History of the Town of Surfside – Part 1 of 2

For Greater Miami and other parts of Florida, the stock market crash of October 1929 only deepened an economic downturn that followed the collapse of the real estate boom of the mid-1920s.  Those economic conditions, however, did not deter the…


Dade County Courthouse under construction in 1926

Dade County Courthouses

The area that became the City of Miami was host to the county courthouse on several occasions before it became the permanent county seat in 1899. Around the time Florida achieved statehood in 1845, the area along the Miami River…