Modern History of Miami

The early 20th century saw Miami still riding a wave of prosperity. It peaked during WWI, when the US military established an aviation training facility there. After WWI, the first fully-fledged Miami boom was fuelled not just by the area's idyllic beachfront location and perfect weather, but also by gambling and the fact that it never really took to the idea of prohibition - though it was illegal, liquor flowed freely throughout the entire Prohibition era.

But the boom was cut short by a devastating hurricane, which was immediately followed by statewide recession and national depression. In the mid-1930s, a mini-boom saw the construction of Miami Beach's famous Art Deco buildings, and this reasonably prosperous period continued until 1942, when a German U-Boat sank an American tanker off Florida's coast. The ensuing freak-out created a full-scale conversion of South Florida into a massive military base, training facility and staging area.

After WWII, many of Miami's trainee soldiers returned and settled, and the city maintained its pre-war prosperity. In the 1950s, Miami Beach had another boom, as the area began to be known as the Cuba of America: punters and gangsters, enticed by Miami's gambling as well as its proximity to the fun, sun and fast times of Batista-run Cuba, moved in en masse. After the Castro coup in Cuba in 1959 Miami's Cuban population swelled.

In 1965, the two freedom flights that ran every day between Miami and Havana disgorged over 100,000 Cuban refugees. Tension built up between Cubans and the town's African Americans, who were relegated to an area north of downtown known as Colored Town. Riots broke out and acts of gang-style violence occurred. In the late 1970s, Fidel Castro opened the floodgates, allowing anyone who wanted to leave Cuba access to the docks at Mariel. The largest flotilla ever launched for non-military purposes set sail in practically anything that would float to cover the 90-mile between Cuba and Florida. The Mariel Boatlift, as it was called, brought 150,000 Cubans to Florida (including 25,000 prisoners and mental patients), and the resulting economic, logistical and infrastructure strain on South Florida only added to still-simmering racial tensions. The situation exploded on 17 May 1980, when an all-white jury acquitted four white police officers, being tried on charges that they beat a black suspect to death while he was in custody. When the verdict was announced, fierce race riots broke out all over Miami, lasting for three days.

In the roaring 1980s, the Miami area gained prominence as the major East Coast entry port for drug dealers, their product and the unbelievable sums of money that went along with them. A plethora of businesses and buildings sprung up all over Miami, and the downtown was completely remodeled. But this was still a city being reborn while in the grip of drug smugglers: shootouts and gangland slayings by cocaine cowboys were common. The police, Coast Guard, Drug Enforcement Agency, Border Patrol and FBI were in a spin trying to keep track of it all. And then it happened: Miami Vice.

The show, about two narcotics detectives clad in outrageously expensive designer pastels driving around in a Ferrari and million-dollar cigarette boats, was responsible for Miami Beach coming to international attention in the mid-1980s. The show's slick look, soundtrack and music video montages glamorized the rich life in South Florida, and before long people were coming down to see it. By the late 1980s, Miami Beach had risen to international standards of Fabulousness. Celebrities were moving in, photo shoots from all over the world were being shot there and the Art-Deco district was going through a renovation that turned the city into a showpiece.

Resources:

WWW.MIAMI.COM
WWW.MIAMIBEACHFL.GOV
WWW.GMCVB.COM
WWW.MIAMIDADE.GOV
WWW.MIAMI-FLORIDA.COM
WWW.MIAMI.CITYSEARCH.COM
WWW.FODORS.COM