Miami Beach started out as a plantation tract for coconuts when two entrepreneurs Henry and Charles Lum purchased 160 acres of what is now South Beach. Their little agricultural scheme, however, failed and the land passed on to the hands of John Collins, the New Jersey Quaker who planted the first grooves in Florida. Today, the cypress swamps and alligator infested waters of Florida are restricted to the Everglades national Park, but back in the nineteenth century, much of the land was a marshy waste. First the Army Corp of Engineers then visionaries like Carl Fischer dredged the thick mangroves to create the South's tropical wonder - Miami Beach.
With the city of Miami across the Biscayne Bay already bustling with life, many entrepreneurs recognized the potential of Miami Beach as a residential boomtown. In the year 1912, the Lumnus brothers found the Ocean Beach Realty Company in Miami Beach and the first wave of construction began. The following years saw rapid development on Miami Beach with the "longest wagon bridge in the world" - the Collins Bridge being constructed and the opening of various restaurants on the oceanfront, which included the infamous Joe's Stone Crab. The first hotel in Miami Beach, the W. J. Brown, opened its doors to customers in 1914 and with it Miami Beach has definitively arrived on the traveling scene in the United States.
In the 1996, the city of Miami Beach celebrated one hundred years of existence as an independent, self-sustaining tropical paradise. It its existence, the city has seen two world wars, the elegance and extravagance of the nations golden age - the 1920's, and the tragedy of the Great Economic Depression. Places such as the Art Deco National Historic District, the Cauley Square Village and the St Bernard de Clairvaux Church are just a few reminder of its rich and varied heritage. The real history of Miami Beach is filled in the souls of its people.
With the city of Miami across the Biscayne Bay already bustling with life, many entrepreneurs recognized the potential of Miami Beach as a residential boomtown. In the year 1912, the Lumnus brothers found the Ocean Beach Realty Company in Miami Beach and the first wave of construction began. The following years saw rapid development on Miami Beach with the "longest wagon bridge in the world" - the Collins Bridge being constructed and the opening of various restaurants on the oceanfront, which included the infamous Joe's Stone Crab. The first hotel in Miami Beach, the W. J. Brown, opened its doors to customers in 1914 and with it Miami Beach has definitively arrived on the traveling scene in the United States.
In the 1996, the city of Miami Beach celebrated one hundred years of existence as an independent, self-sustaining tropical paradise. It its existence, the city has seen two world wars, the elegance and extravagance of the nations golden age - the 1920's, and the tragedy of the Great Economic Depression. Places such as the Art Deco National Historic District, the Cauley Square Village and the St Bernard de Clairvaux Church are just a few reminder of its rich and varied heritage. The real history of Miami Beach is filled in the souls of its people.
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