The Founding of the City of Miami

The City of Miami was incorporated on July 28, 1896, the earliest date on Miami-Dade County's list of its 34 municipalities.

The county's Management and Budget department publishes that list, and Miami heads it: the next entry is Homestead on February 8, 1913, followed by Florida City on December 29, 1914 and Miami Beach on March 26, 1915 (Miami-Dade County Municipalities). Coral Gables (April 1, 1925) and Hialeah (September 1, 1925) follow on the same list (Miami-Dade County).

The City of Miami's own history page does not print the day. It says the railroad tracks reached Miami by April 1896 and that a meeting to incorporate the city was held in July (City of Miami history). The city and county accounts therefore agree on the month and the year, and the county supplies the date of July 28.

The year still appears in the city's own documents: the City of Miami's FY 2026-27 proposed Budget in Brief lists the year of incorporation as 1896 and the city's area as 55.9 square miles, 36.07 of land and 19.87 of water (City of Miami Budget in Brief, city profile).

Official Miami sources give two different counts for incorporation: the City of Miami says 444 citizens, and Miami-Dade County says 344 voters.

The city's history page states that the city was incorporated in 1896 with 444 citizens (City of Miami history). Miami-Dade County's About page says the City of Miami was incorporated later that year with 344 voters (About Miami-Dade County). One figure counts citizens and the other voters, but neither page explains the gap, and no other official source read for this page settles it. Anyone quoting a number should name which agency it comes from.

For scale, the county says that by the late 1890s there were fewer than 1,000 residents in all of Dade County, and that a census six years after the county seat moved to Miami in 1844 counted 96 residents in the area (Miami-Dade County).

In 1842, long before incorporation, William English laid out a Village of Miami on the south bank of the Miami River and began selling lots, according to the City of Miami.

The city's Fort Dallas designation report says English came to the Miami River in 1842, at the close of the Second Seminole War, after buying a tract of land from his uncle, Richard Fitzpatrick, for $16,000; envisioning a new town there, he laid out the Village of Miami and began to sell lots (City of Miami Planning Department, Fort Dallas report). The city's history page also dates the charting of the Village of Miami on the south bank to 1842 (City of Miami history).

English came from Columbia, South Carolina, built his plantation using the labor of approximately 100 enslaved people, and was elected Senator to the Legislative Council in 1844 (Fort Dallas designation report). His village did not become the city. After a Seminole attack at Indian River in 1849, the Army reoccupied the plantation as Fort Dallas; troops withdrew in 1850, returned in 1855 and abandoned the fort for the final time in 1858, and English left for the California Gold Rush and died there (City of Miami Planning Department).

The stone building from his plantation lived on as a Miami residence, store, post office and trading post, and for a short time as the Dade County Courthouse, and in the late nineteenth century it belonged to Julia Tuttle, who used it for storage (Fort Dallas designation report). William Wagner, one of the area's first permanent residents, built his house between 1855 and 1858 and ran a sutler's store near the original fort; the city calls it the oldest known house in Miami-Dade County (City of Miami historic preservation).

In 1897, the year after incorporation, William and Mary Brickell sold the City of Miami ten acres for a municipal cemetery, according to the city's designation report.

The City of Miami Cemetery designation report says the cemetery was laid out and divided into plots in 1897 and 1898, and that Julia Tuttle, known as the Mother of Miami, was the twelfth person buried there; other pioneer families named include the Belchers, Burdines and Seybolds (City of Miami Cemetery designation report). The cemetery is at 1800 NE 2nd Avenue, was designated a city historic site in 1983 and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1989 (City of Miami historic preservation). The designation itself was Ordinance No. 9660 of the Miami City Commission, dated 7/28/83 (designation report).

Public open space came next. The city created the public green space known as Lummus Park in 1909, and that decision spurred development of one of the last remaining residential neighborhoods in downtown Miami, most of it built before 1926 (City of Miami historic preservation, Lummus Park).

Lummus Park is also where the city placed the building saved in the first public preservation effort in Miami's history. When plans were announced in 1925 to demolish the Fort Dallas stone building for a high-rise hotel, the designation report says the public joined together for the first time in the city's history to save something historic; a committee led by the Miami Woman's Club and the Daughters of the American Revolution raised the money, and the city agreed to accept the building and rebuild it in Lummus Park that year (Fort Dallas designation report).

Dade County came first: the county was created on January 18, 1836, under the Territorial Act of the United States, according to Miami-Dade County.

On February 4, 1836 the Florida legislature voted to name the new county for Major Francis Langhorne Dade, killed at the beginning of the Second Seminole War on December 28, 1835 (About Miami-Dade County). On November 13, 1997, voters changed the name to Miami-Dade County (Miami-Dade County Municipalities).

The county and the city are separate governments with separate founding dates. The county describes its Board of County Commissioners as the governing body of unincorporated Miami-Dade, providing major metropolitan services countywide and city-type services to unincorporated areas, and counts the City of Miami among its 34 incorporated municipalities (Miami-Dade County; Miami-Dade County Municipalities).

Lummus Park, at 404 NW 3rd Street, holds the only two buildings the City of Miami says survive from its pioneer era: the Fort Dallas stone building and the William Wagner House.

Sources by row: Fort Dallas; William Wagner House; City of Miami Cemetery; Flagler Worker's House; D.A. Dorsey House, all City of Miami historic preservation program pages.

The Flagler Worker's House, built around 1897, was one of at least 30 rental houses for the workers building the Royal Palm Hotel, and the city calls it one of its few surviving Folk Victorian buildings (City of Miami historic preservation). The D.A. Dorsey House at 250 NW 9th Street belonged to Dana A. Dorsey, who helped organize South Florida's first black bank and developed Overtown, the center of Miami's historic African-American community (City of Miami historic preservation).

A practical note for a walking visit: the names are easy to confuse, because the Fort Dallas building stands in Lummus Park at 404 NW 3rd Street, while Palm Cottage stands in a different park named Fort Dallas Park, at 60-64 SE 4th Street (City of Miami; City of Miami). The cemetery at 1800 NE 2nd Avenue is a third stop (City of Miami).

Last verified: October 18, 2026, against the Miami-Dade County municipalities list and About page, the City of Miami history page, and the city's historic preservation pages and designation reports for Fort Dallas, the Wagner House, the City of Miami Cemetery, Lummus Park, Palm Cottage and the Dorsey House.