Miami Metropolis

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…


Miami Daily News Tower in 1925.

Miami News Freedom Tower

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…


Brady's Grocery & Bank of Bay Biscayne on Avenue D in 1896.

Miami’s Christmastime Fire of 1896

As joyous as the holiday season of 1896 was for the South Florida community, there was foreboding on the part of its lone newspaper, the Miami Metropolis, over the damage a fire could bring to its wood frame buildings, and…


Royal Palm Hotel under construction in 1896

MIami’s First Christmas in 1896

Christmas 1896 in the newly-incorporated city of Miami was euphoric for many of its estimated 1,000 residents, who exhibited feelings of pride in for the transformation of a wilderness into an instant municipality in less than one year. In fact, some were already calling it the “Magic City.”