Title
Brochure for Opa-Locka and The South Florida Archaeological Museum, circa 1972
Subject
Archaeological museums and collections
Arabian nights
Moorish revival (Architecture)
Description
Brochure for Opa-locka and the South Florida Archaeological Museum printed in 1972 [date inferred]. Brochure includes a history of the town of Opa-locka; covered are the founder, Glenn H. Curtiss, the naming of the town, the architecture and the airport. Also covered is a brief history of the South Florida Archaeological Museum. Pictures include the Clearwater City Hall, Glenn H. Curtiss, the Opa-locka Railroad Station on Ali Baba Avenue, the Florida Aviation Camp at Opa-locka in 1926, and the tower at the contemporary Opa-locka Airport. The brochure is printed in blue ink.
Creator
South Florida Archaeological Museum (Opa-locka, Fla.)
Source
State Library of Florida, Florida Ephemera Collection
Identifier
sle_miami-dade_09
Coverage
Late 20th-Century Florida (1968-2000)
Transcript
[panel 1]
Opa-locka and The South Florida Archeological Museum
[Photograph of Opa-locka City Hall]
[panel 2]
[Photograph of Glenn H. Curtiss]
Glenn H. Curtiss, 1878-1930, Founder of Opa-locka
A man of great ideas and deeds but of few words, Mr. Curtiss is remembered by his surviving friends for his courage, high sense of duty, and honor. He also had a profound sense of history, and a genuine interest in the American Indians and. their culture. The Pueblo Indians of the southeastern United States and the Seminoles of Florida were of special interest to him. Members of the Miami-West India Archaeological Society feel it is appropriate that their South Florida Archaeological Museum can make its contribution to the citizens of the city Mr. Curtiss built.
[Photograph of Opa-locka Railroad Station]
Opa-locka Railroad Station on Ali Baba Avenue
[panel 3]
[Photograph of Florida Aviation Camp]
Florida Aviation Camp at Opa-locka, 1926
Considering the enormous contributions made by Glenn H. Curtiss to the development of aviation, it is not surprising that Opa-locka has always been an aviation town. The Florida Aviation Camp established by Mr. Curtiss in 1926 was deeded by him to the U.S. Navy just before his death in 1930. It became a small reserve training field, and in World War Il one of the largest Naval aviation installations in the country. Now operated by the Dade County Port Authority, the Opa-locka Airport is one of the nation’s busiest.
[Photograph of Tower of present Opa-locka Airport]
Tower of present Opa-locka Airport
[Inside]
SOUTH FLORIDA ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM
City Hall Complex
777 Sharazade Boulevard
Opa Locka, Florida
Open Sundays 1-5 P.M.
Special group tours at other times arranged
Frank S. FitzGerald-Bush, Director
Phone 681-7011 or 624-3551
[Photograph of Opa-locka City Hall]
The Miami-West India Archaeological Society, founded in 1968 as the Dade County Chapter of The Florida Anthropological Society, established the South Florida Museum in 1971 in quarters supplied by the City of Opa-locka in the west wing of the City Hall. Here are displayed specimins and artifacts discovered by the Society’s members, including materials dating from the prehistoric ages, the preColumbian period, and the subsequent centuries. Although only a fraction of the Society's materials can be shown in its limited space, the display is one of the finest and most comprehensive in South Florida.
The late Glenn H. Curtiss, pioneer aviator, inventor, and aircraft manufacturer founded Opa-locka and gave it its name, which he coined from the original Indian name for the place, Opatishawockalocka. Variations of the spelling and meaning of the original name are encountered, but the most logical would seem to be that given in the Federal Writers Project American Guide Series volume, Guide to Miami and Environs (published 1941) in which, on page 138, it is so spelled and defined as the Seminole word for hammock. Remnants of the ancient hammock which, until 1938, stood east of Lejeune Road are still to be seen on the south side of Opa-locka airport. The first extensive archaeological project launched in Dade County included in 1934 excavations in this hammock, and fragments of the Tequesta pottery design called Opa-locka Incised were first found there and thus so named. A fragment of this pottery design is on display in the South Florida Museum.
Opa-locka is commonly, but incorrectly, thought of as a product of the great land boom of the 1920's. In fact, the boom had peaked in late 1925, when Opa-locka was still in the planning stages, and Mr. Curtiss, at the persuasion of his mother, continued the project in the hope that he would provide a beautiful city as a living monument to his memory. Not even the disasterous hurricane of September 1926, which struck when the town was just nine months old, deterred Mr. Curtiss from that goal. He continued to pour his own money into his dream city until his death in 1930.
To design the street-plan of Opa-locka Mr. Curtiss chose Clinton McKenzie, noted town-planner whom George Merrick had commissioned to lay out his city of Coral Gables. Desiring an unique architectural motif for his city, Mr. Curtiss selected Bernhardt E. Muller, an architect noted for what he had named "The Robin Hood Style" (best described as a romantic English-eclectric) to design a city which was to be a medieval English fantasy. When he described his plans to his friends, Frank and Irene Bush, late in 1925, Mrs. Bush explaimed, ‘‘Oh, Glenn, it’s like a dream from the Arabian Nights!’’ This chance remark led Mr. Curtiss to send to Mr. Muller’s office in New York City a copy of the Tales From the Arabian Nights illustrated with fine water colors. With the book went a note from Mr. Curtiss saying, ‘‘This is what I want Opa-locka to be like.’’ The resultant Arabian Nights fantasy, though neglected and in places obliterated, still remains as a beautiful reminder of Mr. Curtiss’s dream and the talent of his architect, Mr. Muller. After visiting the South Florida Archaeological Museum, a walk through the courtyard of City Hall, and even a drive to the Seaboard Railway Station on Ali Baba Avenue, will provide visitors with something of the feeling of a not-quite vanished dream.
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