While the modern history of Dade County begins
with the arrival of the first permanent white settlers, in the early
part of the 19th century, the remoteness of the area limited its
development to a handful of farms and plantations, plus a few small
settlements, until the arrival of the railroad in 1896. The city of
Miami was incorporated in the same year.
The original Dade County settlements were all
built near the Biscayne Bay, but the great influx of new residents, in
the early 1900s, made it necessary to build canals to drain the
uninhabitable land of the Everglades. The steady arrival of newcomers
gave way to the Florida Land Boom of the 1920's, but transportation
problems, a major hurricane and, finally, the Great Depression, brought
the Boom to a halt.
Steady growth continued, however, and in the
years following World War Two, the county has become a major
metropolitan area. The arrival of Cuban refugees in the 1960s and 1980s,
plus a large influx of other immigrants, has transformed Dade into a
multi-cultural society.
In 1991, the population of Dade County was
nearly two million. Tourism and transportation are among the major
industries, along with light industry, construction and fishing. There
are twenty-five incorporated towns and cities in the county. The
largest, at around 350,000 people, is the county seat, Miami.
In review, Dade County was officially organized
from Monroe County February 4, 1836. Some one hundred sixty one
years later, November 13, 1997, Miami -Dade County has emerged. As
with any change in a political structure, the voters decided that
increased name recognition was worth the change.
(Reference The Florida Handbook 1999-2000, p. 445.)
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