Miami Beach Was a Swamp. Here's Who Built It, and Who Paid for It

A little over a hundred years ago, Miami Beach was a narrow island of mangrove swamp. This is the story of how it became the most famous beach in America, and who was left out of the picture. A Quaker farmer who came for avocados and built a wooden bridge across Biscayne Bay. A millionaire who pumped sand from the bottom of the sea, sold paradise with an elephant and a president, and died almost penniless. A hurricane that nearly erased the city. The war years, when a quarter of all Army Air Forces officers trained in its hotels. And the woman who stood in front of the bulldozers and saved the Art Deco postcard we all know. Chapters 0:00 Intro 1:06 The swamp 1:54 The Quaker farmer 2:30 The bridge 3:11 Carl Fisher 4:43 Built from the sea 5:58 Selling paradise 7:36 Who was left out 9:12 The 1926 hurricane 10:28 The fall of Carl Fisher 11:21 The Army moves in 13:43 After the war 14:37 Saving the postcard 15:38 Look again 16:13 What I think Visuals: archival photographs and postcards (public domain / Creative Commons, Wikimedia Commons), stock footage, and AI-generated reconstructions of scenes for which no photos exist. Reconstructions are illustrative. Sources Florida Memory, State Archives of Florida: Carl G. Fisher, John S. Collins Wikipedia: Miami Beach, Florida; Carl G. Fisher; Rosie the Elephant; 1926 Miami hurricane National Park Service, Biscayne National Park historic resource study Miami Design Preservation League (MDPL), history of the Art Deco District City of Miami Beach, World War II exhibition (2024) Flashback Miami: Miami Beach Wartime Training Center LIFE: When Miami Beach Went to War National Museum of the US Air Force: Maj. Clark Gable WLRN and Miami New Times on the 1936 worker ID ordinance The Canadian Jewish News: Miami Beach and the Jewish community University of Virginia, The Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 #MiamiBeach #HiddenHistory #BeforeThePostcard #FloridaHistory