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| Opa-Locka City Hall circa 1960 Florida State Archives |
With a stellar career behind him, aviation pioneer Glenn H.
Curtiss helped form the Opa-locka Company in 1926. Real estate was his next
frontier.
Curtiss (1878 -1930) and company opened an office in
downtown Miami off Flagler from which to advertise and sell homes in a new city.
Opa-Locka, 12 miles north of downtown, was formally established May 14, 1926. The
name is a shortened version of a Seminole phrase meaning “wooded hammock.”
The site was at or near his flying school, Florida Aviation
Camp in northern Dade County. The Opa-Locka Company claimed the new development
served as a transportation hub. The
Seaboard Airline Railway (later Seaboard Coast Line) established a stop there on
a route that traveled north and south.
Curtiss brought a unique thematic concept to Florida real estate
development. He was inspired by the collection of Middle East folk tales, One
Thousand and One Arabian Nights. The aviator hired New York architect,
Bernhardt E. Mueller (1878-1964) to transform his vision into reality. For a photo
collection of Opa-Locka’s singular architecture and more on Mueller, see https://www.discoveropalocka.org.
Ads in Miami newspapers described the new city as a planned
community with an Arabian theme implemented in public buildings and neighborhood
houses. Its administration building,
showing off a Moorish Revival theme, featured impressive minarets pointing to
the sky. The layout of the new project was designed by New Yorker Clinton McKenzie
and included street names such as Ali Baba Avenue, Shahrazad Boulevard and Sultan
Avenue. Those names remain.
According to area newspapers, the Great Miami Hurricane of
1926 did not affect Opa-Locka as it had other towns of Dade and Broward counties,
but it slowed sales. By 1930, Opa-Locka counted 339 residents. In July of that
year, Glenn Curtiss died leaving an aviation legacy and a unique city with many
elements of its Moorish Revival architecture visible to this day. There’s more,
however, that defines Opa-Locka’s history.
The airport in Opa-locka welcomed blimp flights, including the
famed Graf Zeppelin in 1933. Miami officials, excited
by the prospects of such travel, had set aside hundreds of acres and spent
$40,000 for a dirigible docking port at the Opa-Locka Naval Reserve Base,
dedicating it Jan. 13, 1930. News accounts claimed it was the only port in the
world municipally owned.
Opa-Locka airship news may have attracted aviator Amelia
Earhart's attention. She, with navigator Fred Noonan, began the
first international leg of their ill-fated round-the-world-trip on June 1, 1937 from Opa-Locka.
Today, Opa-Locka holds a yearly
Fantasy event, with participants dressing in Arabian costumes. The city, 4.2
square miles, has three parks, two lakes and a Tri-Rail station. It’s home to more
than 16,500 residents (2024).
Sources:
Miami News, Jan. 24, 1926
The Miami Herald, Feb. 23, 1926
The Miami Tribune, April 13, 1926
The Miami Herald, Dec. 15, 1926
The Miami Herald, Dec. 19, 1926
Miami News, July 24, 1930
The Miami Herald, July 24, 1930
City of Opa-Locka
https://www.discoveropalocka.org
