Miami

Miami, a city and the county-seat of Dade county, Florida, U.S.A., in the S.E. part of the state, on the N. bank of the Miami river and on Biscayne Bay. Pop. (1900), 1681; (1905, state census), 4733It is served by the Florida East Coast railway and by lines of coastwise steamships, and is the point of departure of the P. & O. steamships for Nassau and Havana. Miami is the centre of a farming country in which citrus fruits, especially grape-fruit, pineapples and winter vegetables are raised for northern markets. There is excellent rod-fishing; Spanish and king mackerel and blue-fish are shipped from Miami in large quantities; and in Biscayne Bay there are important sponge fisheries. An alligator "farm" and the Subtropical Laboratory of the U.S. government are points of interest. In the city is Fort Dallas (now abandoned), where American troops were quartered during the Seminole War; and Miami is still the trading point of the Seminole Indians, being immediately south of the Everglades, their home. In 1909 a project was on foot to cut a channel from Miami to Lake Okechobee and from the other side of that lake west to the Gulf at Fort Myers, thus providing an inland waterway and draining much swampy but fertile land. In 1896 there were only two dwellings and one storehouse within the present corporate limits, but in that year the place was chosen as the southern terminal of the Florida East Coast railway, which was afterwards extended towards Key West. Soon afterwards Henry M. Flagler (b. 1830), the owner of the railway, began the construction of the magnificent Royal Palm hotel, and Miami became a popular winter resort. Then came the development of commerce by the improvement of the harbour, by donations from Mr Flagler and grants by the United States government.