Allapattah - A Mix to the Max

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5   A few old "Florida Crackers" still resided here, many of them ex-farmers, nurserymen and former grove owners.  Allapattah, extremely fertile, was known as the breadbasket of Miami for generations.  Dairies, groves and truck farms abounded until the early twenties when the land boom started crowding out agriculture.  Most of the major nurseries were still based in Allapattah in the sixties, although many did much of their growing down south closer to Homestead, having profitably sold their land.  There was at that time a lot of vacant land, overgrown with huge old live oak trees dripping with ghostly Spanish moss, the ground a tangle of palmetto scrub and weeds, fluttery with native butterflies.   Snakes, big-eared wood rats, squirrels, gopher turtles, possums and frogs abounded, along with an amazing variety of birds.  Parrots, parakeets, small monkeys, huge iguanas and other big lizards and pie-plate size poisonous Surinam toads,  all escapees from the many exotic animal import companies in the area, were a source of amusement and amazement.  

Manatees fed regularly off the docks on the Miami River.   In the middle of the river was Musa Isle, owned by the Miccosokee Indians, with a village where they had lived for centuries, complete with chickees, plantains and bananas (genus musa, for which the island was named), chickens and just onto the mainland, on a major thoroughfare, a tourist attraction with alligator wrestling shows and crafts to buy.   Across the river we could see the women, wearing their colorful long-skirted clothes in the shade of the chickees, piecing together tiny squares of cloth on hand-driven Singer sewing machines to make skirts and jackets for sale, or stringing bright beads for necklaces and bracelets.  The smoke from their cook-fires sometimes drifted across the water. 

A small scattering of horses still were stabled nearby; a western outfitting store and a feed and a seed store  were both still doing good business.  Up until 1965 there was a small working farm, complete with cows, pigs and poultry, just three blocks west of Allapattah, grandfathered in, here at the heart of a major city.  Beekeepers, orchid growers and others flourished.  Until a very few years ago, we bought honey from bees who undoubtedly had fed on our own flower garden.  The lady, one of our Fuller Brush customers, kept bees for decades.  When she went blind, her husband donned protective clothing and went along to help while she tended her beloved hives by touch alone. 

Exotic Gardens, one of Miami's leading florists, housed in a quaint, arched, coral rock building in the heart of Allapattah, had its greenhouses and some of its growing fields a half mile from our house.   The fresh produce market for all of Dade Country still exists nearby,  centrally located and convenient access for grocery stores, restaurants and canteen services throughout the county, along with many grocery and restaurant supply companies.  The very first Burger King in American opened at the northwest edge of Allapattah in 1954 and is still there!

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5     See also Allapattah Cuisine.

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