Miami Beach History is one of migration, colonization and capital investment. It is said that Miami Beach’s origin is in 1913 when John Collins, a New Jersey Quaker, and Carl Fisher started creating a bridge across the bay when they initiated an agricultural project near Miami oceanfront.

But, yes, there is history before them. Tequesta Indians, one of the first tribes in South Florida, discovered the area and, later, in the 16th century, the Spanish colonizers occupied it in spite of negotiations with the natives. The Seminole arrived in the area and engaged in fierce war 1836 until 1857. When the war ended some soldiers stayed.

The area's greatest change came in 1891 thanks to Julia Tuttle, who, after inheriting a small piece of land from her father, purchased 640 acres of a citrus plantation on the north bank of the Miami River.

During the Depression years, a new group of investors and businessmen, mainly Jewish, arrived in Miami Beach and built a large number of small hotels that forty years later would become the Art Deco District.

World War II brought another 100,000 people, mainly soldiers and their families, to Greater Miami and the Beaches. In the sixties, more than half-a-million Cuban exiles fled to Miami creating the city's contemporary identity.

With the multi-billion dollar capital investment in the 80's and 90's, Miami Beach was transformed into the international Mecca for travel and business that we know today.