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| DADE COUNTY This county has a land area of 2,733 square miles. Its population in 1910 was 11,933. Originally, Dade county included the present area of Palm Beach county, which lies to the north of it; and the history of the development of these two counties really began with the extension of the Florida East Coast Railway into this section. The Legislature of 1913 created a new county from the northern section of Dade, which it called Broward county, after the late lamented ex-Governor of Florida. This action, however, was subject to ratification by the majority of the people of the section, which failed to approve the measure. In spite of its extreme southern location, Dade county includes as its county seat the thriving city of Miami, which, in less than twenty years, has grown from an Indian trading post to be a city with a population which is growing so fast that an enumeration today is wholly inadequate six months later. It is located in the center of a section of remarkable fertility, and with a wonderful variety of fruits and vegetables, many of which are unknown to the northern consumer. It is equipped with every municipal improvement and convenience that the most ambitious cities in the north can boast of. It has a splendid system of schools, churches of many denominations, and its enterprising citizens are planning the development of its harbor on Biscayne Bay to accommodate deep draft and ocean-going steamships. Its importance in the future is hardly to be estimated in the commerce of the state, and eventually the products of an immense and fertile territory will be shipped direct by water transportation to the markets of the world. Homestead, lying twenty-eight miles south, is another center of rapidly developing agricultural and fruit growing interests. It is the last city on the mainland of Florida to be touched by the over-seas rail line of the Flagler system. The area of Dade county includes a large number of the important Florida Keys. The western section of the mainland is largely occupied by the southeastern portion of the Everglades, and the possible development of this vast area for agricultural purposes will add much to the importance of these cities. Miami is one of the centers from which is being operated the development of the Everglades country, and here one of the largest of the drainage canals which are to lower the level of Lake Okeechobee, finds its way to the ocean level. In the northeastern corner of this county is located Fort Lauderdale, well known in the early history of Florida as a military post, and now the center of a large fruit and agricultural development. A few miles south is the little city of Dania. The products of Dade county are largely from its groves and vegetable plantations. Citrus fruits reach their perfection here and immense groves of grapefruit and orange trees supply the northern markets with their earliest products of tropical fruits. It is in this county, more than in any other of the state, that the products of northern soils are grown side by side with the fruits of the tropics. In no section of Florida is the development of natural resources and possibilities being pushed with greater vigor than in the county of Dade. FLORIDA 1513-1913, Past, Present and Future, Four Hundred Years of Wars and Peace and Industrial Development, 1914, 742 pages, pages 618-619
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1996 - Present | last updated June 2021 banner created & courtesy of Jeff Kemp Some original material 2008-2010 courtesy of Patrice Green, former State and County Coordinator, who died in May 2019 
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