Glenn Curtiss
The Arc
Glenn Curtiss was one of the founding figures of American aviation — a former bicycle and motorcycle racer (once billed as "the fastest man on earth") who became an aircraft designer and manufacturer, a rival of the Wright brothers, and a central figure in the birth of the airplane. By the late 1910s, wealthy and famous, he turned his attention to South Florida, where he had been wintering, and to the flat, cheap land northwest of Miami near his airfields.
During the 1920s land boom, Curtiss became a developer of planned towns, and he built three of them, each with a different concept. Hialeah he developed with cattleman James Bright as a place of industry, aviation, and entertainment — including the famous Hialeah Park racetrack. Miami Springs he laid out as a Pueblo- and Mission-styled garden suburb. And Opa-locka he built as an extravagant Moorish fantasy — domes, minarets, and Arabian Nights street names — the single most eccentric architectural statement of the entire boom. He died in 1930, not long after the boom that made his developments possible had collapsed.
Why They Matter
Curtiss is the third great builder of boom-era Miami, alongside Merrick and Fisher, and the one who shaped the inland northwest while they shaped the south and the beach. The cities he planned are now major pieces of the metro — most consequentially Hialeah, which grew from his aviation suburb into one of the largest Cuban-American cities in the country, a working-class capital of exile Miami he could never have foreseen.
He also represents the link between Miami and aviation — the industry that, through Miami International Airport, would become central to the city's role as a Latin American trade and travel hub. That Miami's airport-adjacent geography was first developed by one of aviation's founders is a fitting piece of the city's origin.
Where You See Them Today
Hialeah, Miami Springs, and Opa-locka are all Curtiss's creations, and Opa-locka still wears its Moorish architecture — the largest collection of Moorish Revival buildings in the Western Hemisphere — as the strangest surviving artifact of the boom. His curtiss-mansion in Miami Springs is preserved. And the aviation geography he helped establish underlies the airport that defines so much of west Miami-Dade, including Doral.
Further Reading
- Histories of Glenn Curtiss and early American aviation
- Arva Moore Parks, Miami: The Magic City
- Opa-locka and Miami Springs historical society materials
- HistoryMiami Museum collections
Neighborhoods: Hialeah · Miami Springs · Opa-locka · Doral Eras: The 1920s Land Boom Related people: George Merrick · Carl Fisher