Place:Miami-Dade, Florida, United States

Watchers
NameMiami-Dade
Alt namesDadesource: USGS, GNIS Digital Gazetteer (1994) GNIS12030691
Miami-Dadesource: Getty Vocabulary Program
TypeCounty
Coordinates25.617°N 80.533°W
Located inFlorida, United States     (1836 - )
See alsoBroward, Florida, United StatesChild county (source: Source:Population of States and Counties of the United States: 1790-1990)
Palm Beach, Florida, United StatesChild county (source: Source:Population of States and Counties of the United States: 1790-1990)
Contained Places
Cemetery
Flagler Memorial Park
Palms Woodlawn Cemetery
Census-designated place
Andover
Country Walk
Cutler
East Perrine
Fisher Island
Fountainbleau
Gladeview
Glenvar Heights
Golden Glades
Goulds
Homestead Base
Kendale Lakes
Lakes by the Bay
Leisure City
Naranja
Ojus
Olympia Heights
Palm Springs North
Pinewood
Princeton
Richmond Heights
Richmond West
Scott Lake
South Miami Heights
Sunset
Tamiami
The Crossings
The Hammocks
Three Lakes
University Park
West Little River
West Perrine
Westview
Westwood Lakes
Inhabited place
Adventura
Aladdin City
Aventura
Bal Harbour
Bay Harbor Islands
Bay Heights
Bayshore
Biscayne Gardens
Biscayne Park
Brickell Hammock
Brownsville
Bunche Park
Carol City
Coopertown
Coral Bay
Coral Gables
Coral Terrace
Coral Way Village
Country Club
Cutler Ridge
Cutter Bank
Deering Bay
Doral
El Portal
Flagami
Florida City
Fortymile Bend
Franjo
Frog City
Glenwood Heights
Gold Key
Golden Beach
Green-Mar Acres
Hawley Heights
Hialeah Gardens
Hialeah
Highland Lakes
Homestead Air Force Base
Homestead ( 1904 - )
Howard
Indian Creek Village
Indian Creek
Inlikita
Interama
Islandia
Isle of Normandy
Kendall Lakes
Kendall West
Kendall
Key Biscayne
Kings Bay
Lake Lucerne
Lindgren
Mart Law Seminole Village
Medley
Miami Beach
Miami Gardens
Miami Lakes
Miami Shores
Miami Springs
Miami
Normandy Shores
North Bay Village
North Miami Beach
North Miami
Ocean View Heights
Opa-locka
Palm Springs
Pennsuco
Perrine
Pinecrest
Pinewood Park
Pops Hammock Seminole Village
Port of Miami
Redland
Saga Bay
Silver Palm
Smallpox Tommies Old Place
South Allapattah
South Beach
South Miami
Sponge Rocks
Sun-Tan Village
Sunny Isles Beach
Sunny Isles
Sunrise Harbor
Sunset Corners
Surfside
Sweetwater
Tenmile Corner
The Keyhole
The Pines
Vanderbilt Park
Virginia Gardens
West Miami
Westchester
Westgate
Unknown
Coconut Grove
Lemon City
Modello
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog


Contents

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Native people

The earliest evidence of Native American settlement in the Miami region came from about 12,000 years ago. The first inhabitants settled on the banks of the Miami River, with the main villages on the northern banks.

The inhabitants at the time of first European contact were the Tequesta people, who controlled much of southeastern Florida, including what is now Miami-Dade County, Broward County, and the southern part of Palm Beach County. The Tequesta Indians fished, hunted, and gathered the fruit and roots of plants for food, but did not practice agriculture. They buried the small bones of the deceased with the rest of the body, and put the larger bones in a box for the village people to see. The Tequesta are credited with making the Miami Circle.

European explorers and settlers

Juan Ponce de León was the first European to visit the area in 1513 by sailing into Biscayne Bay. His journal records he reached Chequescha, a variant of Tequesta, which was Miami's first recorded name. It is unknown whether he came ashore or made contact with the natives. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and his men made the first recorded landing when they visited the Tequesta settlement in 1566 while looking for Avilés' missing son, shipwrecked a year earlier. Spanish soldiers led by Father Francisco Villarreal built a Jesuit mission at the mouth of the Miami River a year later but it was short-lived. After the Spaniards left, the Tequesta Indians were left to fend themselves from European-introduced diseases like smallpox. By 1711, the Tequesta sent a couple of local chiefs to Havana, Cuba, to ask if they could migrate there. The Cubans sent two ships to help them, but Spanish illnesses struck and most of the Tequesta died.

The first permanent European settlers arrived in the early 19th century. People came from the Bahamas to South Florida and the Keys to hunt for treasure from the ships that ran aground on the treacherous Great Florida Reef. Some accepted Spanish land offers along the Miami River. At about the same time, the Seminole Indians arrived, along with a group of runaway slaves. The area was affected by the Second Seminole War, during which Major William S. Harney led several raids against the Indians. Most non-Indian residents were soldiers stationed at Fort Dallas. It was the most devastating Indian war in American history, causing almost a total loss of population in Miami.

After the Second Seminole War ended in 1842, William English re-established a plantation started by his uncle on the Miami River. He charted the "Village of Miami" on the south bank of the Miami River and sold several plots of land. In 1844, Miami became the county seat, and six years later a census reported there were ninety-six residents in the area. The Third Seminole War was not as destructive as the second, but it slowed the settlement of southeast Florida. At the end of the war, a few of the soldiers stayed.

Establishment

Dade County was created on January 18, 1836, under the Territorial Act of the United States. The county was named after Major Francis L. Dade, a soldier killed in 1835 in the Second Seminole War, at what has since been named the Dade Battlefield. At the time of its creation, Dade County included the land that now contains Palm Beach and Broward counties, together with the Florida Keys from Bahia Honda Key north and the land of present-day Miami-Dade County. The county seat was originally at Indian Key in the Florida Keys; then in 1844, the County seat was moved to Miami. The Florida Keys from Key Largo to Bahia Honda were returned to Monroe County in 1866. In 1888 the county seat was moved to Juno, near present-day Juno Beach, Florida, returning to Miami in 1899. In 1909, Palm Beach County was formed from the northern portion of what was Dade County, and then in 1915, Palm Beach County and Dade County contributed nearly equal portions of land to create what is now Broward County. There have been no significant boundary changes to the county since 1915.

Hurricanes

The third-costliest natural disaster to occur in the United States was Hurricane Andrew, which hit Miami in the early morning of Monday, August 24, 1992. It struck the southern part of the county from due east, south of Miami and very near Homestead, Kendall, and Cutler Ridge (now the Town of Cutler Bay). Damages numbered over US$25 billion in the county alone, and recovery has taken years in these areas where the destruction was greatest. This was the costliest natural disaster in US history until Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf region in 2005.

Name change

On November 13, 1997, voters changed the name of the county from Dade to Miami-Dade to acknowledge the international name recognition of Miami. Voters were acting pursuant to home rule powers granted to Dade County, including the ability to change the name of the county without the consent of the Florida Legislature. The change in name also addressed a source of public dissatisfaction with the name "Dade" which was chosen to honor Francis L. Dade, who had been killed in the Dade battle in the 1830s. The massacre did not occur in South Florida, but in the west central part of the state, in present-day Sumter County, near Bushnell. There is also a Dade City, which is closer to the site of the massacre.

Miami-Dade is the only hyphenated county name in the United States (although Alaska's Matanuska-Susitna Borough is similarly adorned).

Timeline

Date Event Source
1836 County formed Source:Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources
1840 First census Source:Population of States and Counties of the United States: 1790-1990
1840 Marriage records recorded Source:Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources
1888 Court records recorded Source:Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources
1914 Birth records recorded Source:Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources
1920 No significant boundary changes after this year Source:Population of States and Counties of the United States: 1790-1990

Population History

source: Source:Population of States and Counties of the United States: 1790-1990
Census Year Population
1840 446
1850 159
1860 83
1870 85
1880 257
1890 861
1900 4,955
1910 11,933
1920 42,753
1930 142,955
1940 267,739
1950 495,084
1960 935,047
1970 1,267,792
1980 1,625,781
1990 1,937,094

Note: Monroe

Cemeteries

Cemeteries of Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States

Research Tips

External links

http://miami-dade.gov/


This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Miami-Dade County, Florida. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.