Today’s Miami is now the third most popular American city
for international tourists, after Los Angeles and New York.

All started back in 1895 when two families, the Tuttle and Brickell possessed most of the land in the area of the Miami River.  Meanwhile a wealthy Investor from New York City named Henry Flagler (top-left picture) purchased the Jacksonville-St. Augustine & Halifax Railroad and proceeds to rename it to Florida East Coast Railway.  This entrepreneurial venture took him and his new railway in a collision course right in to the properties of the Tuttle and Brickell families.  But luckily the Flagler and Tuttle Family came to terms allowing the new railroad to reach Biscayne Bay by 1896. 

Henry Flagler fell in love with the perfect climate and lush vegetation of South Florida so he went on to invest more into it, he dredged a channel, built streets, instituted the first water and power systems, and financed the town's first newspaper, the Metropolis.

In less than a year after Flagler's investments, on a fateful July 28th, 1896 at 2 p.m., the incorporation meeting took place. The vote was restricted to all men* who resided in the area of the Miami River and who had lived in Dade County for at least six months. Its citizens wanted to honor the man responsible for its fast growth by naming it "Flagler". He declined the honor, persuading them to use an old Indian name, "Miami".  Finally the motion was made and unanimously carried to incorporate and organize a city government under the corporate name of “The City of Miami”,  This is how one of the most dynamic and famous cities in the world started.