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Bay View Hotel, second on Biscayne Bay. Lemon City 1892,
Moved to Miami 1899 via barge
State Archives of Florida |
By Jane Feehan
Lemon City didn’t have its own government but did have plenty of economic clout in early South Florida. It was older than Miami, with settlers arriving in the 1850s and in significant numbers in the 1870s. Historians suggest first settlers were English descendants in the Bahamas referred to as “Conchs;” they had also found their way to the Keys.
Geography usually determines city growth; this community sat at the only deep-water access or Biscayne Bay at the time, near today’s 61st Street. The port, though not a port of entry, provided shipping access for crops and a pipeline of supplies for settlers. The little settlement also sat near Little River, Arch Creek and Snake Creek, waterways that facilitated transportation.
Many pioneers came to this area to stake a claim for land after the Homestead Act of 1862. They settled the area to farm, as did many who arrived in Florida in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Enterprising arrivals parceled land for real estate sales, which proved to be profitable.
James E. Ingraham, then president of South Florida Railroad and later associate of Henry Flagler, visited Lemon City in 1892. He was on an expedition from Fort Myers through the Everglades to assess agricultural opportunities. That the expedition included Lemon City suggests the growing importance of the community. This predated his fateful trip in 1895 to Miami where he met Julia Tuttle to talk about extending Flagler’s railway there after the freeze destroyed crops in mid- and northern Florida.
Guy Metcalf, pioneer, newspaperman and cousin of Fort Lauderdale's founder Frank Stranahan, also recognized the growing importance of Lemon City. He owned a real estate company that built a rock road to Lemon City from Lantana during the late 1880s or 1890s.
Named Lemon City for the lemons that grew there, the settlement was first mentioned in Dade County public records in 1889. When residents wanted a post office soon after, they applied with the federal government under the name “Motlo” in honor of a Seminole chief. The government approved the post office but sent back the paperwork with the name Motto. Residents briefly referred to their new town as that, but by 1893 resumed calling it Lemon City.
It may not have been an official town, but Lemon City was often noted in the social columns of The Miami News and The Miami Herald commencing in 1904. Comfortable homes were built as well as schools and several businesses, including a sawmill, an oil company and reportedly one of the largest asphalt companies in the South. The community attracted winter visitors and eventually hosted tent camps for tourists.
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A.B Hurst Sawmill,
1909 Lemon City
State Archives of Florida |
Lemon City could also boast an active community improvement association, which promoted the building of schools and a library. The Lemon City Library reportedly first opened in 1892. It is recognized today as the oldest operating branch library in Miami-Dade County. Historian Ron Blazek wrote that Coconut Grove was first to open a library but issues surrounding definition of a public library obfuscate claims of “first.” This writer found public notices in The Miami News in October 1904 for the formation of the Lemon City Library Association.
Lemon City was eventually overshadowed by Miami’s growth after Henry Flagler extended his Florida East Coast Railway to Miami 1896. Lemon City faded in status and was annexed by the city of Miami, along with Coconut Grove and other small communities in 1925.
Today, Lemon City boundaries overlap those of Miami. Known as Little Haiti since the 1970s with its new immigrants, it was recognized in 2016 as an official neighborhood of Miami. The neighborhood is home to nearly 30,000 residents from Haiti and other islands in the Caribbean. Today they celebrate cultural distinctions in food and art and language.
Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan
Tags: Lemon City, Little Haiti, Miami in the 1800s, Miami in the 1920s
Sources:
The Miami
News, Oct. 1, 1904
The
Herald, June 14, 1925
Blazek, Ron. Tequesta:
Journal of the Historical Association of Southern Florida, No. 42, 1982
University of
Florida, The Ingraham Expedition, 2015. https://www.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/ingraham/expedition/LemonCity.htm
Florida
International University, City of Miami Planning Dept., Historic Lemon City/
Little Haiti/ Creole District
McIver, Stuart. Glimpses
of South Florida History. Miami: Florida Flair Books, 1988.
Wikipedia
A.B. Hurst Sawmill: http://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/141893
Bay View Hotel: http://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/118340
