How the place was made
The railroad and the towns, 1895 to 1930. Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway reaches Homestead in 1904 and the towns of South Dade are laid out along it: Goulds as a siding named for a railroad employee in 1903, Naranja as a Flagler town in 1904, Princeton as a depot named by Gaston Drake for his alma mater, Homestead at the railhead where William D. Horne buys the first lot. Homestead incorporates in 1913 as the second oldest municipality in the county and the Detroit colony founded by the Tatum brothers in 1910 becomes Florida City at incorporation on 29 December 1914. The Redland is settled from 1897 and its schoolhouse opens in 1904; the Overseas Railroad continues to Key West in 1912; US 1 is designated over the Dixie Highway in 1926. The 1926 and 1935 hurricanes and the end of the Keys line close the era. [R17] [R15] [T1]
The base, the parks and the subdivisions, 1940 to 1980. Homestead Army Air Field opens on 16 September 1942 and returns as Homestead Air Force Base in February 1955. Everglades National Park is dedicated in December 1947 with its main entrance west of Homestead; Biscayne National Monument follows in 1968 after the Seadade refinery and the Islandia resort are defeated, and becomes a park in 1980. Richmond Heights is platted in 1949 for returning Black veterans beside the old naval air station, whose land later takes Zoo Miami in 1980. The Cutler Ridge subdivisions are platted from 1954 and Cutler Ridge Shopping Center opens in 1960; Turkey Point's first units open in 1967 and its nuclear units in 1972 and 1973; the Turnpike extension arrives in 1973 and 1974; the Urban Development Boundary first appears on the county's 1975 land use map. [J1] [A39] [A43] [A31]
The storm, August 1992. Hurricane Andrew makes landfall at Elliott Key and then near Homestead early on 24 August 1992 with winds of about 165 mph. It destroys more than 63,500 houses and damages more than 124,000 others in Dade County, leaves about 175,000 people homeless and causes about 25.3 billion dollars of damage in Florida in 1992 dollars. Most of the buildings at the air force base are severely damaged, four of five Naranja Lakes condominium buildings are destroyed, Florida City loses more than 120 homes, the Cutler Ridge Mall is nearly destroyed, Zoo Miami loses its aviary and 5,000 trees, the Deering Estate and the Fruit and Spice Park are wrecked, the visitor centres of both national parks are lost. On this map 155 nodes enter before 1992 and 216 from 1992 onward; 23 carry the Andrew flag because the sources record their destruction and rebuilding. [T36] [T37]
The rebuilding, 1992 to 2007. We Will Rebuild convenes in 1992 under Alvah Chapman; the Homestead CRA is created on 7 June 1994 and the Florida City CRA in 1995; the base reopens as a reserve installation in 1994 and survives the 1995 closure round; the Homestead Air Base Developers airport plan of 1996 ends with the Air Force's Record of Decision in January 2001. Homestead Miami Speedway opens on 3 November 1995 as the recovery project Homestead recruits. The South Miami-Dade Busway opens on 3 February 1997 on 8.2 miles of the abandoned railroad right of way from Dadeland South to Cutler Ridge Mall, reaches SW 264th Street in April 2005 and Florida City in December 2007. The Naranja Lakes CRA is created in October 2002 for the area that took a decade to recover. Palmetto Bay incorporates in September 2002 and Cutler Bay in 2005, both campaigns born of the recovery. [J44] [J5] [R1] [R2]
The growth decade and the Transitway, 2010 to 2026. The eight ZCTA series rises from 191,276 in the 2010 Census to 265,396 in the ACS 2020 to 2024 five year estimate; the largest increase between consecutive displayed series points is 23,391, between the 2010 Census and ACS 2011 to 2015, and the latest displayed step is 10,273. The SMART Plan of April 2016 names the corridor, the county's transportation planning board chooses bus rapid transit over Metrorail in August 2018, construction runs from 2021 and Metro Express BRT service begins on 27 October 2025 with fourteen new stations. The Rapid Transit Zone is extended along the corridor in September 2022. Southland Mall's 80 acres change hands in May 2022 and the Southplace City Center redevelopment breaks ground on 27 February 2025; Homestead Station opens in 2019 and the Cybrarium in March 2021 in downtown Homestead; Keys Gate III, Amazon's Naranja building and the apartment filings along US 1 fill the capital lane. [R1] [R2] [R11] [J16]