Q. Name the people who lived on the banks of the Miami River 500 years ago and built Florida’s 41st National Historic Landmark Miami Circle™.

There has been a considerable amount of press coverage of Florida’s 41^st National Historic Landmark Miami Circle™, an archaeological discovery site located in downtown Miami. The site was discovered in 1998 and purchased in 1999 by the State of Florida for $26.7 million. It holds what some believe is evidence of the complex and planned architecture by the people who inhabited South Florida almost 500 years ago.

 

(Archaeological dig at Miami Circle™ site, ca. 1999. Credit: Scott Smith, Historical Museum of Southern Florida.)

Q. Who is America’s foremost ornithologist, who spent 7 months in Florida during 1831-32, observing bird life from St. Augustine to the Dry Tortugas?

Born in Santo Domingo, present-day Haiti, in 1785, America’s foremost ornithologist grew up in France. In 1820 he began his masterpiece, The Birds of America and traveled in search of birds to paint. In 1831 his expedition came to the east coast of Florida to find water birds and tropical species. Birds were drawn from freshly killed specimens or from life, and made to look as life-life as possible. The Birds of America consist of 435 prints of more than 457 species of birds and the Historical Museum of S. Florida is fortunate to have complete sets of the first and second editions of his masterpiece. 

A. John James Audubon

 

(Roseate Spoonbill, ca. 1831-2. Credit: John James Audubon, Historical Museum of Southern Florida.)

Q. What type of land, worldwide, is generally found in the same latitude belt as Florida?

Although we in Florida lie outside of the confines of the Tropic of Cancer, the climate ‘officially’ is classified as ‘wet and dry tropical’. In order for a climate to be truly tropical (dry, wet or otherwise), the coldest month of the year must have an average temperature above 64.4 degrees. Our coldest month, January, in Miami is 67.7 degrees, clearly within this classification. South Florida is the only part of mainland United States that officially has a tropical climate.

A. Desert, primarily

(Greetings from Florida postcard, ca. 1950 Credit: Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (November 10, 1883), p. 184., Historical Museum of Southern Florida. )

Q. When Miami’s present court house opened what was it known for?

The Dade County Courthouse building was built between 1925 and 1928 by architect A. Ten Eyck Brown with August Geiger as associate. During the summer of 1928 the building opened to the public serving as the Dade County Courthouse and Miami City Hall. Some, now infamous people, made their way into the courthouse. In 1930 Al Capone was tried for perjury and in 1933 Giuseppe Zangara, President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt’s would-be-assassin, was tried for attempted murder

A. A skyscraper or the "tallest building in the South"

(Dade County courthouse, ca. 1930. Credit: Verne O. Williams, Historical Museum of Southern Florida.)

Q. This pineapple plantation was sold to the Shoreland Company and turned into a $62 million development known as?

In the Homestead Act of 1862, the government decided to give away 160 acres of free land in the West and in Florida to each family who went. In the 1870’s a number of families moved to present day North Miami and its surrounding area as Homesteaders. By the early 1900’s these Homesteaders had a pineapple plantation, a grapefruit grove, and a coontie mill. During the 1920’s Land Boom, T.V. Moore’s former pineapple plantation in the North Miami area became much too valuable to be used for fruit growing.

 

A. Miami Shores

(A Good Wagon Load, ca. 1909. Credit: Leigh, Historical Museum of Southern Florida.)

Q. Name the birds that were shot almost to extinction in order to provide feathers for women’s hats.

Feathers adorned fashionable late-nineteenth century hats—so many that the birds who
contributed the feathers became endangered species. Plume hunters in the Everglades shot

out nests and slaughtered birds. Changing fashions and national laws ended the killing in the 1910s.

A. Egrets and Herons

 

(The cruelties of fashion: fine feathers make fine birds, ca. 1883. Credit: Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (November 10, 1883), p. 184., Historical Museum of Southern Florida. )

Q. What construction worker on the Royal Palm Hotel later became Mayor of Miami?*

A man once observed, "The Florida East Coast Railroad reached here the latter part of April, 1896, and the passenger trains were soon put on. Then it seemed that the flood gates were opened and people came from everywhere." This man and his brother would both go on to become mayors of Miami.

(Royal Palm Hotel and Brickell's Point, Florida. New York : S. Langsdorf & Co., ca. 1910. Credit: Historical Museum of Southern Florida.)

A. John Sewell

Q. The principle material used in the construction of the Castillo de San Marcos was a sedimentary rock formed from billions of tiny seashells. What is this rock called?

The Castillo de San Marcos was built between 1672 and 1695 for protection against pirate attacks. The material used to build it was very good for protection against cannon balls, because rather than breaking the wall they would sink into it and could later be reused by the defenders.

(Castillo de San Marcos, ca. 1900. Credit: William Henry Jackson, Historical Museum of Southern Florida.)

A. Coquina

Q. Name three items a Seminole might bring to a trading post.

William and Mary Brickell’s trading post stood for more than 30 years near the Miami River. The Seminole tribe would commute from the Everglades to the mouth of the Miami River. Goods were transported in dugout canoes to be traded for glass beads and sewing machines.

A. Deerskin, buckskin, alligator hides, egret plumes, comptie, vegetables or game.

(Seminoles in two dugout canoes, (Miami River) ca. 1900. Credit: A. Kauffman, Historical Museum of Southern Florida.)

Q. Jet service to Miami was inaugurated by Pan American with a flight from what city?

Today the Miami International Airport is one of the busiest airports in the world. One of the airlines that helped make this possible is Pan American Airlines. The airline's Florida connection began with its inaugural flight from Key West to Havana in 1927. President Juan Trippe began two Miami airports for his planes; one for seaplanes at Dinner Key and the other at today's Miami International Airport. Thus, the city became the hub of Pan Am's Caribbean and Latin American routes.

(Pan American passenger plane, ca. 1928. Credit: Pan American Historical Foundation Collection, Historical Museum of Southern Florida.)

A. Boston.