On Biscayne Bay.
The northernmost settlement on this Florida bay is Biscayne, first settled twenty-five years ago. The site is one of natural beauty and importance. The land is high, with very little prairie. Several orange and lemon groves have been put out during the past two years. There are pretty tropical flowers, stately cocoanuts, and the ruins of several old stone houses burnt many years ago.
Lemon City, three miles south, and the largest town on the bay, contains 150 families. It has a hotel, a church, and an excellent school. It is the terminus of the Bay and Key West schooner line. The harbor is deep. Buena Vista has the deepest water on the bay. It is a mile south of Lemon City. It is a very small town. It has one store, hotel, and the yard of the Pensacola Lumber Company is situated here. Schooners carrying 300,000 feet of lumber arrive along the shore. The back country is well settled. The largest shipment of beans for the whole bay was shipped from the Buena Vista wharf last season.
Historic Miami is situated three miles south. It is a picturesque region. The oldest cocoanuts in the State wave their nuts above the deserted barracks of Fort Dallas. The Miami River is narrow, silent, and slow-flowing, with rocky banks. There are only three families here, but the Miami River bottom-lands are full of people, owing to vegetable farms, which make this an important shipping-point.
Cocoanut Grove, the home of the yachtsman, is five miles south of Miami. The Peacock Inn is a "veritable English caravansary." This settlement is described as being "popular with travellers, leaders in social functions, and a favorite resort of professionals from all paths of life in need of rest and recreation." There is a hotel, a store, union chapel, and four clubs—the Housekeepers' Club, Girls' Pine-Needle Club, Biscayne Bay Yacht Club, and a Knights of Pythias Society—all in active operation. There is a casino for social purposes, and a yacht-club house which was built in 1888. The club signal is a red field bordered with blue. Ralph Munroe is commodore, and Kirk Munroe is secretary. Many prominent people belong to the club, and the winter season is gay at Cocoanut Grove.
Harry R. Whitcomb.
Umatilla, Fla.