The 1920s land boom made Miami Beach famous, and the great 1926 hurricane nearly unmade it, ending the Florida boom in a single storm. But the rebuilding is what gave us the Beach we know. Through the 1930s, developers threw up hundreds of small, affordable Streamline-Moderne hotels along Ocean Drive and Collins Avenue, each one curved and finned and crowned with neon. Lincoln Road became the “Fifth Avenue of the South.” And when the war came, roughly half a million troops trained on these beaches — many of whom, unable to shake the sand from their shoes, came back to stay.
It started with a bridge. Collins ran short of money finishing a two-and-a-half-mile wooden span to the mainland — the longest in the world at the time — and Fisher loaned him the cash in exchange for land. On March 26, 1915, Collins, Fisher, and the Lummus brothers folded their separate beach companies together and chartered the Town of Miami Beach. Fisher then sold it to the world: grand hotels, polo fields, and a Times Square billboard that promised “It’s always June in Miami.” For one publicity stunt he posed a baby elephant as a golf caddie for a president-elect. America’s winter playground was open for business.
Why People Visit Miami Beach
Miami Beach rewards visitors who want style with their sand: the world’s great Art Deco strip, a wide Atlantic beach, walkable streets, and neon nights. Add the South Beach glow and the year-round Florida sun, and the man-made island makes an easy case for itself.
