The History of South Beach

South Beach consists of twenty-three blocks of real estate in Miami Beach, Florida....but what a twenty-three block area it is! It sits on an island between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay.

South Beach has been a playground for the rich and famous for close to a century now but it started out as farm land...specifically coconut farming. Two brothers, Henry and Charles Lum, bought 165 acres in 1870 and Charles built the first house in Miami Beach on the beach in 1886. The brothers Lum left the island in 1894. They sold the land to a surveyor by the name of John Collins. John found fresh water on the island and enlarged the parcel of land from what is now 14^th Street to what is now 67^th Street.

The Lummus Brothers, not to be confused with the Lum Brothers, two Miami business men, bought four hundred acres of Collin’s land in 1912. Their idea was to build a small city on the ocean front. The houses were to be modest single family dwellings.

John Collins began construction of a bridge that would connect South Beach to Miami in 1913 but he ran out of money before the project could be completed. Then a man who was already very wealthy from the sale of Union Carbide, Carl Fisher, came to the island later in that same year. His idea was to make South Beach a city unto itself and completely separate from Miami. He loaned John Collins the money to complete the bridge and he also financed the now famous restaurant, Joe's Stone Crab.

John Collins, the Lummus Brothers and Carl Fisher joined forces and incorporated the Town of Miami Beach on March 26, 1915. The area between 6^th Street and 14^th Street is still known as Lummus Park even today although the Lummus brothers sold it to the city in 1920.

South Beach has had its ups and downs in development. It has gone from rags to riches to rags and back to riches more than once since the 1920’s.

The tropical climate and the hard-packed, white-sand beaches attracted millionaires like Harvey Firestone and J. C. Penny during the 1920’s...it also attracted the criminal element .

The 1930’s saw an architectural revolution of sorts. Art Deco was all the rage and many of the buildings of that period have been refurbished and are in use today.

The Army Air Corp took control of Miami Beach after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941.

In the late 1960’s there was a big upsurge in Miami Beach when Jackie Gleason decided to air his weekly show from the area. When the television show, Miami Vice aired it gave another huge boost to the area. Both of these programs changed the face of Miami Beach.

In the 1980’s the fashion industry discovered South Beach and brought about a kind of renaissance to the area.

Today Miami Beach is one of the premier entertainment destinations of tourists world wide and is an especially desirable destination for European travelers.