History of Miami
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The area in which the city of Miami, Florida would later be founded by Europeans was inhabited for more than a thousand years by the Tequestas. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and his men first visited and claimed the area around Miami for Spain in 1566. A Spanish mission was established one year later. Fort Dallas was built in 1836 and functioned as a military base during the Second Seminole War. The Miami area was better known as “Biscayne Bay Country” in the early years of its growth. The few published accounts from that period describe the area as a wilderness that held much promise. The area was also characterized as “one of the finest building sites in Florida.” However, the Great Freeze of 1894 changed all that, and the crops of the Miami area were the only ones in Florida that survived. Julia Tuttle, a local citrus grower, convinced Henry Flagler, a railroad tycoon, to expand his Florida East Coast Railroad to Miami. On July 28, 1896, Miami was officially incorporated as a city with a population of just over 300.
Miami prospered during the 1920s but weakened after the collapse of the Florida land boom of the 1920s, the 1926 Miami Hurricane and the Great Depression in the 1930s. When World War II began, Miami, well-situated due to its location on the southern coast of Florida, played an important role in the battle against German submarines. The war helped to expand Miami's population to almost half a million. After Fidel Castro rose to power in 1959, many Cubans emigrated to Miami, further increasing the population. In the 1980s and 1990s, various crises struck South Florida, among them the Arthur McDuffie beating and the subsequent riot, drug wars, Hurricane Andrew, and the Elián González uproar. Miami remains a major international financial and cultural center. The earliest evidence of Native American settlement in the Miami region came from about 10,000 years ago. The region was filled with pine and hardwood forests and was home to plenty of deer, bear and wild fowl. The first inhabitants settled on the banks of the Miami River. The main villages were on the northern banks of the river. The early Native Americans created a variety of weapons and tools from shells. The inhabitants of the Miami area when the first Europeans visited were the Tequesta people, who controlled an area covering much of southeastern Florida, including what is now Miami-Dade County, Broward County, and the southern parts of Palm Beach County. The Tequesta Indians fished, hunted, and gathered the fruit and roots of plants for food, but did
Early settlement