History of Miami
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chief of construction on the Royal Palm Hotel, was elected chairman of the meeting. After ensuring that the required number of voters was present, the motion was made to incorporate and organize a city government under the corporate name of "The City of Miami," with the boundaries as proposed. John Reilly, who headed Flagler's Fort Dallas land company, was the first elected mayor.
Initially, most residents wanted to name the city "Flagler". However, Henry Flagler was adamant that the new city would not be named after him. So on July 28, 1896, the City of Miami was incorporated with 502 voters, including 100 registered black voters. The blacks provided the primary labor force for the building of Miami. Clauses in land deeds confined blacks to the northwest section of Miami, which became known as "Colored Town" (today's Overtown).
Twentieth century
1900s to 1930s:
The Magic City
Miami's growth up to World War II was astronomical. In 1900, 1,681 people lived in Miami, Florida; in 1910, there were 5,471 people; and in 1920, there were 29,549 people. As thousands of people moved to the area in the early 1900s, the need for more land quickly became apparent. Up until then, the Florida Everglades only extended to three miles (5 km) west of Biscayne Bay. Beginning in 1906, canals were made to remove some of the water from those lands. Miami Beach was developed in 1913 when a two-mile (3 km) wooden bridge built by John Collins was completed. During the early 1920s, the authorities of Miami allowed gambling and were very lax in regulating Prohibition, so thousands of people migrated from the northern United States to the Miami region. This caused the first Florida construction boom and many high-rise buildings were built: some early developments were razed after their initial construction to construct larger buildings. The population of Miami doubled from 1920 to 1923. The nearby areas of Lemon City, Coconut Grove and Allapattah were annexed in the fall of 1925, creating the Greater Miami area.
This speculation boom started to falter because of building construction delays. The transport system was constantly overloaded with bulky building materials. On January 10, 1926 the Prinz Valdemar, an old Danish warship on its way to becoming a floating hotel, ran aground and blocked Miami Harbor for nearly a month. Already overloaded, the three major