1656-13 The growth of aviation - Miami Beach Miami Beach replete J
The growth of aviation and of Miami Beach have been peculiarly linked.
Probably the first flying field in Florida was established at
Miami Beach in 1914. It was used by Glenn A. Curtiss in training
aviators for the United States government.
J. N. Lummus, who was pioneering Miami Beach as Curtiss was aviation,
gave Curtiss permission to use a tract of land as an airfield. Curtiss
built hangars where the Fleetwood hotel now stands, and his planes
buzzing over Biscayne Bay served, according to Lummus, "to keep the eyes
of the Miami populace on Miami Beach."
Just as fledgling fliers who became U. S. pilots in World War I received
their first training here, so did thousands of trainees for the Army Air
Force in World War II, 25 years later.
Short of housing for the army that had to be built almost overnight,
the government took over most Miami Beach hotels in 19142, using than as
barracks; the parks and golf courses as parade grounds. The whole city,
during the war years, was practically a military encampment.
Strangely, Miami Beach now has no airport although hundreds of thousands
of vacationers fly to the city every year and the jet plane has placed summer
less than 12 hours from any city in the country.
Planes are noisy, just as were Curtiss! first flimsy craft. The International
Airport on the mainland therefore serves the city very well. The airplane no
longer is needed to "keep the eyes of the Miami populace on Miami Beach."
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Miani Beach had a hotel a year before the community was incorporated.
The first hotel was built in 1914, owned and operated by W. J. Brown.
It stood between First and Second Streets.
At present, 46 years later, the city has 379 hotels with approximately
31,000 rooms.
Many of the early, and famous, hotel landmarks are gone. The Pancoast,
a glamor oceanfront resort of the '20s and 130s, has been replaced by a
modern structure.
Of the famed Fisher hotels, the Flamingo now is under the wrecker's
hammer, to be replaced by an apartment building. The Nautilus is no more.
The Deauville was wrecked a few years ago for the New Deauville. The
Fleetwood, from which Radio Station WIOD (Wonderful Isle of Dreams)
broadcast dance music in the boom days of 1925, is a club residence for
retired persons.
The second hotel in Miami Beach still exists. It is the Wofford, at
24th Street and the ocean. Just north of it was the old Collins home. Just
south of it is another glamor queen of the '20s, the Roney Plaza, which
still reigns in dignity with gardens, tennis courts, pool and cabanas.
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Who was the first resident of Miami Beach?
Probably it was William J. with, keeper of the Biscayne House of
Refuge, built in 1876 to "afford succor to shipwrecked persons..."
Other early residents included Capt. Richard Carney, a stockholder in the
company that planted coconuts on what is now Mimi Beach, and Charles Lum,
one of the company directors.
The Carney and Lum houses were erected in 1882 and Mrs. Lum spent the first
three years of her married life here.