Miami News Freedom Tower

The history of the iconic Miami News Tower which may better known as Freedom Tower for its role in processing Cuban refugees during the 1960s.

Cover: Miami Daily News Tower in 1925

The Miami News/Freedom Tower is one of the area’s most iconic buildings. It is a National Landmark property, the highest status accorded to a historic building or site, and is a stately structure, sheathed in a Spanish Plateresque style, hovering over one of Miami’s grandest boulevards and affording its occupants with a vibrant waterfront view.

Before there was the tower, there was, on a portion of its footprint, the fledgling city of Miami’s first railroad station. Built by the Florida East Coast (FEC) Railway, whose entry into Miami in April 1896, transformed, overnight, a barren wilderness into a thriving metropolis. The picturesque station sat in the northeast confines of the neophyte community. The northern boundary of the city was just a few blocks from the FEC railroad’s terminus into Miami.