History of Miami
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railway companies soon declared an embargo on all incoming goods except food. The cost of living had skyrocketed and finding an affordable place to live was nearly impossible. This economic bubble was already collapsing when the catastrophic Great Miami Hurricane in 1926 ended what was left of the boom. According to the Red Cross, there were 373 fatalities. Other estimates vary, since there were a large number of people listed as "missing". Between 25,000 and 50,000 people were left homeless in the Miami area. The Category 4 storm was the 12th most costly and 12th most deadly to strike the United States during the 20th century. The Great Depression followed, in which more than sixteen thousand people in Miami became unemployed. A Civilian Conservation Corps camp was opened in the area.
In the mid-1930s, the Art Deco district of Miami Beach was developed. On February 15, 1933, an assassination attempt was made on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt by Giuseppe Zangara, an Italian anarchist, while Roosevelt was giving a speech in Miami's Bayfront Park. Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago, who was shaking hands with Roosevelt, was shot and died two weeks later. Four other people were wounded, but President-elect Roosevelt was not harmed. At his sentencing Zangara said, "I decide to kill him and make him suffer. I want to make it 50-50. Since my stomach hurt I want to make even with capitalists by kill the President. My stomach hurt long time." Zangara was quickly tried for Cermak's murder and was executed by the electric chair on March 20, 1933 in Raiford, Florida.
By the early 1940s, Miami was recovering from the Great Depression, but then World War II started. Many of the cities in Florida were heavily affected by the war and went into financial ruin, but Miami remained relatively unaffected. Early in the war, German U-boats attacked several American ships. Among the American ships was the Portero del Llano, which was attacked by a German submarine and sank within sight of Miami Beach in May 1942. To defend against those U-boats, Miami was placed in two military districts, the Eastern Defense Command and the Seventh Naval District, which was designed to defend against those attacks. In February 1942, the Gulf Sea Frontier was established to help guard the waters around Florida, and by June of that year, more attacks forced military leaders in Washington D.C. to increase the numbers of ships and men of the army group. They also had moved the headquarters from Key West to the DuPont building in Miami, taking advantage of its location at the southeastern corner of the U.S. As the war against the U-boats grew stronger, more military bases sprang up in the Miami area. The U.S. Navy took control of Miami's docks and established air stations at the Opa-locka Airport and in Dinner Key. The Air Force also set up bases in the local airports in the Miami area. Many military schools, supply, and communications facilities were established in the area. Rather than building large army bases to train the men needed to fight the war, the Army and Navy came
1940s: World War II