Miami River Greenway

The United States of America took possession of Florida from Spain under the terms of the 1821 Treaty of Paris. In 1830, the U.S. implemented the Indian Removal Act, forcing Seminole Indians south into the Miami and Everglades area. The Second Seminole War erupted in 1835 and was marked by the killing of Miami-Dade County's namesake, Major Francis Longhorn Dade. During the war, settlers attempted to take Seminole Lands, relocate Seminoles west of the Mississippi River and reclaim runaway slaves.



Construction of the first three wooden buildings in Fort Dallas, named after U.S. Navy Officer Commodore Alexander James Dallas, commenced in 1838 on plantation land leased from Richard Fitzpatrick near the mouth of the Miami River's north shore. When the Second Seminole War ended in 1842, Fitzpatrick sold the land to his nephew, William F. English.



Starting in 1842, English reconstructed the plantation and added new buildings to the complex, which included the construction of the ollitic limerock slave quarters before you today in Lummus Park. After English left for the California Gold Rush in 1849, the Army requisitioned Fort Dallas on the English property. The Army renovated the building, adding a second wooden floor for soldier barracks on top of the remaining rock structure, which was also used as a storehouse.



Following the end of the Third Seminole War (1855-1858) the Fort Dallas area became central to Miami's settlement. Subsequent uses of the building have included a trading post, the county courthouse, and the Miami post office. In 1923, the building was transformed into a restaurant, known as the "Fort Dallas Tea Room," and in 1925, Dr. R.C. Hogue purchased the Fort Dallas area to construct the Robert Clay Hotel.



In 1925, in an effort to preserve this historic structure, the Miami City Commission provided a site for its relocated in today's Lummus Park, Miami's first designated park, originally called "City Park." Lummus Park is named after former Miami Mayor (1900-1903) John "J.E." Lummus. The Fort Dalls "long building" was disassembled stone-by-stone, barged up the Miami River, and rebuilt in City Park by the Miami Women's Club and the Everglades Chapter of the Daughters of the American Reolution (DAR). Reconstruction was completed in September 1929, and the Miami City Commission designated it a historic site in 1984.



(captions)

(right) Fort Dallas, circa 1880's. Florida Memory Project

(left) "Long Building" at its Original Location, 1909. Hugh C. Leighton Company

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