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| Florida tourist camp 1928 Florida State Archives/Florida Memory |
By Jane Feehan
Florida tent cities served as lodging for workers, refugees, survivors of storms, and criminals in the past but they also housed tourists who wanted to vacation on or close to the beach or who couldn’t find a hotel room.
Miami Beach boasts a “tent city” second to none. This “city” is located on the oceanfront between Smith’s Casino* and the government reservation. There are 20 tents or more, all well floored and comfortable.
Between 40 and 50 persons – men, women and children – compose this happy little community, where ceremony and etiquette has been abandoned and all live as one great, big family, enjoying life in all its fullness. All these people are tourists and all amply able to afford the luxuries of hotel life, but they prefer to spend their vacation in a tent by the seashore.
Last Saturday night these people chartered one of the ferry boats and enjoyed a moonlight ride to Cape Florida and return. Light refreshments were served and music indulged in.
But camps were also constructed to cope with a housing shortage. In July of 1925, a proposal was voted in by Fort Lauderdale to set aside an area in Progresso for 150 camp lots. Another camp was approved near "the Dixie" [highway] for construction workers.
Sources:
Tags: early Florida tourism, early tourism in Miami, Florida tourism in the 1900s,
film researcher
Florida tent cities served as lodging for workers, refugees, survivors of storms, and criminals in the past but they also housed tourists who wanted to vacation on or close to the beach or who couldn’t find a hotel room.
Hotels (and housing) were scarce in early 20th century South Florida, but locals wanted tourists’ business and encouraged them to stay at tent camps in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and other communities.
Frank Stranahan constructed a tent camp near his trading post on Fort Lauderdale's New River. His camp provided housing made of "palmetto constructed homes" for visitors in 1925. Another Fort Lauderdale camp housed 700 during that winter. Las Olas Inn across from the ocean provided "luxurious" tents for guests when rooms were were filled.
Below is a description of a popular tourist camp in Miami.
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| Tent City Gainesville, 1922 Florida State Archives/Florida Memory |
Between 40 and 50 persons – men, women and children – compose this happy little community, where ceremony and etiquette has been abandoned and all live as one great, big family, enjoying life in all its fullness. All these people are tourists and all amply able to afford the luxuries of hotel life, but they prefer to spend their vacation in a tent by the seashore.
Last Saturday night these people chartered one of the ferry boats and enjoyed a moonlight ride to Cape Florida and return. Light refreshments were served and music indulged in.
But camps were also constructed to cope with a housing shortage. In July of 1925, a proposal was voted in by Fort Lauderdale to set aside an area in Progresso for 150 camp lots. Another camp was approved near "the Dixie" [highway] for construction workers.
People came to Florida and stayed at camps for various reasons. Some stayed while they looked for work or opportunity. When one visitor was asked in 1926 why he came to Florida and stayed at a camp, he answered "because this is where the money is."
Most however, stayed at camps for inexpensive vacation lodging. Today, we call these RV parks.
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* Smith's Casino was a popular beach side pool in the 1920s that sat on the south end of Biscayne Boulevard.
* Smith's Casino was a popular beach side pool in the 1920s that sat on the south end of Biscayne Boulevard.
Sources:
Fort Lauderdale Sentinel, Jan. 6, 1925
Fort Lauderdale Sentinel, July 23, 1925
Miami Metropolis, Feb. 7, 1920
Fort Lauderdale Sentinel, Feb. 7, 1925
Fort Lauderdale News, Feb. 23, 1926
Tags: early Florida tourism, early tourism in Miami, Florida tourism in the 1900s,
film researcher
