The 1907 Jamaica Earthquake

During 1906 and 1907 three catastrophic earthquakes and subsequent fires nearly destroyed three cities:

• 1906 April 18 -- San Francisco, California -- 7.8 magnitude
• 1906 August 16 -- Valparaiso, Chile -- 8.6 magnitude
• 1907 January 14 -- Kingston, Jamaica -- 6.5 magnitude

Just as the press of today compare the Haiti and Chile earthquakes, writers in 1907 compared Kingston with San Francisco and Valparaiso. Here are some examples. This illustration is from Leslie's Illustrated Weekly, January 31, 1907. The following eyewitness account is from Collier's Magazine, February 2, 1907:

"In the middle of the afternoon ... the city began to fall to pieces. ...

"The shock was not severe as compared to that at San Francisco or at Valparaiso. ... But the flimsy nature of Kingston's architecture led to a ruin from the quake more complete than on the Pacific Coast last April. Practically all the houses in the business district were shaken down. This district extended along the harbor front for more than twenty blocks, and back from the quays for two or three blocks. Kingston's two big tourist hotels, the Myrtle Bank and the Constant Springs, were wrecked; the Supreme Court, the Merchant's Exchange, the Customs House, and many churches went to ruin before the fire broke out. After the first quake a number of shocks less severe were felt. ...

"Refugees from the destroyed city described the terror of the inhabitants on the day of the earthquake as extreme. Women with children clasped in their arms prayed in the streets while the choking dust of the fallilng walls rose up and darkened the sky. Parties fleeing through the streets were pitched headlong by the quaking earth, and were separated in the darkness. When the ruins could be inspected, it was found that many persons had been buried under debris; at least one man was taken out practically unharmed after the fire had burnt over him and the ashes had cooled. Hospital camps were established on the docks and in the outskirts of the ruined city. Many of the injured were sent off to Spanish Town and Port Royal. ...

"After the shock of January 14, fire broke out and completed the destruction of the city. The camping scenes at San Francisco were reenacted; relief work was, in the beginning, prompt and effective; and ... the spirit of mutual help ... prevailed."

-- Rebecca A. Smith, Curator of Research Materials

Christmas in Downtown Miami, 1953

A half-century ago, shoppers flocked to Burdines in downtown Miami, the biggest and best department store in the region. Throughout the 1950s, to get everyone in the holiday mood, Burdines annually lit a huge neon Santa between its two buildings. It worked--old timers still fondly remember seeing the Burdines Santa. This December 15, 1953, view of the sign looks south on Miami Avenue.

Credit: Miami News Collection, Historical Museum of Southern Florida, 1989-011-23202.

-- Rebecca A. Smith, Curator of Research Materials

Halloween in Pahokee

This snapshot shows us children dressed for a 1943 Halloween party at Pahokee, Florida. From right: a monkey and his organ grinder, a girl who has raided her mother’s closet, a store-bought skeleton, and a mysterious costume—what is the boy on the left impersonating?

Pan Am Captains Martin & Martin

When Frank Carroll Martin renewed his membership, he chose the new category of Senior. This level requires a birth date to prove that the member is 65 years of age or older, so I called Mr. Martin to record his date of birth, which did not appear on his application.

As I spoke to Mr. Martin, I noticed airplane pictured on the check he had enclosed with his renewal. Curious, I asked him if he had been a pilot. Frank said that he had been a Pan Am Clipper skipper and that his father, Frank Crawford Martin, had been an original China Clipper pilot.

I invited Frank to come to the museum to see some of the Pan Am Collection and to have lunch with the President/CEO Bob McCammon. During lunch, his father’s extensive flights during World War II brought forth many tales about Miami’s place in aeronautical history. Frank informed us that the majority of the soldiers captured from Rommel’s Africa Corps were housed as POWs in South Dade. He told us that the St. Sebastian Apartments in Coral Gables were used as barracks for Royal Air Force student pilots and navigators who were trained almost exclusively in Miami due to its advanced aeronautical facilities. One particularly interesting story relayed was that near the end of the war, his dad piloted the then Prince Feisal of Saudi Arabia to America for his first visit and, true to the “it’s small world” axiom, Bob’s father had flown the prince on the second leg of this same journey in California.

Frank Carroll Martin served as a Pan Am captain for more than fifteen years. He is currently the Area Coordinator for the Blue and Gold Program of the United States Naval Academy, in which he and his associates identify and mentor fine young men and women to become Midshipmen.

Frank is proud of Miami’s place in aeronautical history and the accomplishments of his father that changed the lives and history of the African American community in South Florida. The rewards of Frank Crawford’s labor are still being reaped today; the work of Frank Carroll will be seen tomorrow in the lives of young officers that will serve our nation with distinction.

Captains, the Historical Museum salutes you both!

-- Hilda Masip, Membership Officer

Top picture: Pan Am China Clipper, ca. 1935. HMSF, 1992-233-11.
Bottom photo: Frank Crawford Martin. Courtesy of Frank Carroll Martin.

Independence Day

Sometime around 1905, someone sent this patriotic postcard to Ralph Munroe in Coconut Grove. Happy flag-waving Fourth!

Image no. 1994-624-6

-- Rebecca A. Smith, Curator of Research Materials

Royal Poincianas

It’s June in Miami. Roadside vendors offer tasty mangos and lychees, and that most glorious of trees, the Royal Poinciana, is in bloom. Someone introduced the Poinciana, a native of Madagascar, to South Florida more than a century ago.

In 1894, Palm Beach’s first grand hotel opened—the Royal Poinciana. Back then, tourist season only lasted from the beginning of January to the end of February, so guests never saw the hotel’s namesake in bloom. We who live here, however, admire them throughout South Florida’s cities and suburbs.

In 1916, Charles Torrey Simpson admitted that “I said when I first saw one of these trees in bloom that I was willing to endure the torment of mosquitoes, sand burs [sic], land crabs and all the pests and vermin of Florida in order that I might live in a land where the royal Poinciana flaunted its splendid blossoms to the sky.”

Many South Floridians agree.

Top postcard: “Poinciana Tree, Miami, Fla.” Miami: J. N. Chamberlain, ca. 1915. Image no. 1984-100-17.

Bottom postcard: “Royal Poinciana Hotel, Palm Beach, Fla.” Milwaukee: E. O. Kropp, ca. 1905. Image no. 1990-258-1.

-- Rebecca A. Smith, Curator of Research Materials

Mosquito Season

The rainy season has finally arrived, and with it have come the mosquitoes. While Gray Kingbirds feast, South Floridians try not to be bitten. In pioneer days that meant wrapping newspapers around one’s limbs and keeping close to a smoking smudge pot. Nowadays we use bug spray or retreat indoors (the museum’s indoors and air-conditioned, and it’s a good time to visit). Meanwhile, consider the mosquito’s place in history.

A previous blog entry, “An Epidemic Stampede,” described late 19th century Yellow Fever epidemics. The 1888 railroad car panic in that entry’s illustration resulted from ignorance—no one in Florida knew how Yellow Fever was transmitted, so it seemed best to stay well away from the sick. Seven years earlier, though, Cuban physician Carlos Finlay had identified the pesky mosquito as the culprit. His hypothesis languished for nearly two decades, until Dr. Walter Reed and other doctors were called to Panama to find out why so many canal workers were catching Yellow Fever. Dr. Reed confirmed and publicized Finlay’s hunch—to control Yellow Fever, control the mosquitoes.

So, South Floridians, empty the standing water from the flower pots in your gardens (where mosquitoes breed), and use bug repellant and mosquito nets when you venture into their territory. Just don’t expect Mosquito Control to kill them all—they were here first.

This picture: “The Male Musquito.” [sic] In Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. 1859. Image 2007-260-1

-- Rebecca A. Smith, Curator of Research materials

An Epidemic Stampede

Recent news, filled with fears of a pandemic, brings to mind earlier epidemics. Settlements in hot and humid Florida, for example, endured a number of Yellow Fever outbreaks until about a century ago.

In this 1888 illustration, a woman on a train has fallen ill. Her terrified fellow passengers, believing her contagious, are stampeding out of the railway car. Yellow Fever had broken out in Jacksonville in July, and most of the city’s inhabitants fled, fearing for their lives. Of the nearly 14,000 who remained, confined by a quarantine, 4,700 sickened and 430 died before the epidemic ended with the arrival of cold weather in November.

A few years later, Miami also endured a Yellow Fever epidemic. For three months the tiny, new city was quarantined. Of the less than 2,000 residents, more than 200 people fell ill and 14 died. The crises passed with the arrival of cool weather in January 1900.

Returning to this picture, I wonder. Has the woman caught Yellow Fever or has she fainted from a too-tight corset?

“Scene on a Refugee Railway Train in Florida—a Case of Yellow Fever: the Stampede,” from a sketch by James Mott. In Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, September 28, 1888. Image 2005-271-1.

-- Rebecca A. Smith, Curator of Research Materials

The Hampton House

The Hampton House was a popular motel and social hub for African-Americans during the 1950s and 1960s. Wedding receptions and beauty contests enlivened the motel's pool deck, and night after night locals and out-of-towners packed the club, enjoying great music and good company.

Did you know that Muhammad Ali, in town for his epic bout with Sonny Liston, stayed at the Hampton House? Dr. Martin Luther King, in Miami to meet with civil rights organizers, held press conferences at the hotel ... and found time for a dip in the pool. In addition, a slew of famous musicians including Sammy Davis, Cab Calloway and James Brown visited the Hampton House.

This 1967 photograph from the City of Miami Collection shows beauty contest contestants arriving for a stay at the Hampton House.

As society integrated, the Hampton House faded and by the mid-1970s the motel closed.

Now the Hampton House is coming back to life. The hotel is being restored as a museum and music archive. Find out more here: Hampton House video from Miami-Dade TV.

Historic photos of the Hampton House are currently on display at the Historical Museum’s Black Crossroads: The African Diaspora in Miami exhibition.

-- Kara Sincich, External Relations Coordinator

Which “One Way”?

This picture ran in the Miami News on March 19, 1969. It is now a part of the Miami News Collection in the Research Center at the Historical Museum.

It depicts a confusing situation at NE 15th Street & 2nd Avenue in downtown Miami. Two “One Way” signs show 15th Street as being only one way, but in opposite directions. Apparently the newspaper’s efforts were rewarded, as one of the signs was replaced the day the story ran.

In answer to your unasked question, Miami drivers, “Yes, it was always this bad.”

-- Robert Harkins, Assistant Curator – Object Collections

The House of Shells

I stumbled upon this gem while refiling postcards. Apparently inspired by the Bottle Cap Inn, someone covered the exterior of this shop with sea shells, dubbed it The House of Shells, and opened for business selling curios and, presumably, souvenir shells.

The building is encrusted with abalones; Queen, King and Horse Conchs; tritons and murexes—no wonder these once common snails have become so scarce!

The House of Shells is listed in Miami city directories from 1941 to 1947, after which we can assume it went out of business. This short life can probably be attributed to its location, 1299 SW 32nd Avenue, far from the tourists who should have been its best customers and across the street from a cemetery (Woodlawn Park).

The Bottle Cap Inn, covered inside and out with—you guessed it—bottle caps, lasted much longer. But that is another postcard and another story.

-- Rebecca A. Smith, Curator of Research Materials