Aviation in Miami: The First 100 Years

Pioneering Aviators

One major event helped shift negative public perceptions of flying nationwide. In May 1927, Charles Lindbergh captured the public’s admiration by completing the first successful trans-Atlantic flight. For Wall Street investors, this achievement signaled that there was finally money to be made in aviation beyond the military. It also led financier Clement Keys to form the North American Aviation Holding Company, which invested in fledging airlines. In Miami, Lindbergh’s flight led to the 1927 formation of the Greater Miami Airport Association, whose first goal was to establish a municipal airport and related infrastructure to meet the needs of all types of aircraft.

Taking its cue from the public adoration for pioneer aviators, the local aviation industry used iconic aviation figures and heroes such as Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart to promote aviation as not only safe, but also glamorous. Until that time, most airline passengers were wealthy businessmen and a few adventurous women. Earhart’s presence made women feel safe in the air. Lindbergh garnered publicity by flying a number of inaugural flights between Miami, Latin America and the Caribbean. And flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker used his war hero stature to sell travel aboard Eastern Airlines.

Unable to secure financial backing in the United States, Audubon went to Europe in 1826. There he found both subscribers and engravers for the project. The first prints were made that same year.

Over the next twelve years, Audubon divided his time between London and America. When abroad, he supervised the engraving and coloring of the prints. In America, he traveled in search of birds to paint.

Audubon returned from England in 1831 to draw new birds for the folio. His first expedition was to the east coast of Florida to find water birds and tropical species. George Lehman, a landscape painter, came to do backgrounds for the bird portraits.

Iconic Aviation Figures

A number of leading city and aviation officials worked to promote Miami’s prospects as an aviation center. Among them were Glenn Curtiss, Reginald Waters, E. G. Sewell and others who formally established the Greater Miami Airports Association (GMAA) in July 1927. The construction of a permanent airport was its main long-term goal.

Glenn Curtiss

Aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss started Miami first two flying schools, was a founding member of the GMAA and developed the cities of Hialeah, Miami Springs and Opa-locka.

Amelia Earhart

In 1937, Amelia Earhart launched her fatal around-the-world flight here in Miami but prior to that she visited Miami twice as a guest promoter for the aviation industry. During her first visit in 1932, she attended the opening ceremonies at Miami’s 36th Street Airport and helped promote the All American Air Maneuvers and during the second, she delivered a speech to a local organization. Earhart’s accomplishments encouraged women and children to feel safer about flying.

Miami was often in the picture when it came to aviation’s intersection with international politics.

Dirigibles and the Dornier DO X

Constructed in 1929, the German-built Dornier DO X, the largest, heaviest and most powerful aircraft of its time, paid a well-publicized visit to Miami (its first U.S. landing) in August 1931 while on its way to New York from Brazil.

Starting in the 1920s, the U.S. and other countries added dirigibles and mooring masts to their military defenses. Two U.S. dirigibles, the Macon and the Akron, moored at the U.S. Navy’s mast at Opa-locka during the 1930s.

In October 1933, the Graf Zeppelin, sporting a swastika (the symbol of the Nazi party) on its rudder, moored at the Opa-locka dirigible mooring mast while en route from Rio de Janeiro to Chicago. Concerned that such a display could provoke protest, Florida Governor David Sholtz established a secure perimeter at Opa-locka.

Terror in the Sky

In 1958, Miami became involved in one of the world’s first hijackings when Cuban militants hijacked a Cubana plane en route from Miami in a failed attempt to deliver supplies to Castro’s rebel forces. Following the 1959 Cuban Revolution, hijackings became a tactic used by both Cubans seeking to reach the U.S. and U.S. fugitives from justice seeking to escape to Cuba. The number of hijackings to Cuba from Miami increased from 15 in 1968 to 33 by 1969. In response, Eastern Airlines introduced some of Miami International Airport’s earliest passenger screening equipment.

The U.S. would not begin to take passenger screening seriously, however, until after the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s September 1970 hijacking and bombing of five U.S.-bound aircraft in Europe. Although no passengers were harmed, subsequent political hijackings did involve the massacre of passengers. After 9/11, passenger security screening – until then an airline responsibility – was consolidated under the Department of Homeland Security, which also oversaw aspects of entry control at U.S. land borders and ports of entry airports.

Plans for the hub operations of American Airlines and other carriers at MIA were radically redesigned to accommodate the more stringent requirements for passenger, baggage and cargo screening, as well as international entry controls. With the completion of the major North and South Terminal projects at MIA, Miami is ready to meet the dangers of the air.

The Story of Miami International Airport

For 65 years, Miami aviation authorities sought to build an airport worthy of a world-class city at various locations. From 1926 to 1945, Virginia Key, the Graves Tract and the Miami Master Airport were seriously considered. However, high costs, residents’ concerns about noise and crashes, and limited land for expansion ruled out these sites.

By the end of World War II, the U.S. Army Air Corps had built so much aviation infrastructure south of Pan Am’s 36th Street Airport (MIA’s present site), that the Dade County Port Authority (DCPA) elected to continue developing this site. From 1945 to 1960, Miami International Airport added a new terminal, maintenance bases for major airlines and improvements to the air field.

DCPA began making plans to build a larger, regional “jetport” in the Everglades that could accommodate supersonic aircraft in 1965. Concerns over the detrimental impact to Everglades National Park and South Florida’s water supply stopped this project. In 1976, another plan emerged to build a regional airport at Site 14, a location on the Dade-Broward county line. In response to citizens’ concerns, in 1990 the county commission ended all replacement airport studies and instructed the Aviation Department to maximize the MIA site.

Work accomplished over the past twenty years, including new terminals, a new efficient cargo “city,” a fourth runway, expanded roadway access, and the Miami inter-modal center, which centralizes ground transportation and car rental facilities, has tranformed MIA into the world-class facility that the city richly deserves.