Miami

Back in the good times of the early 1920s,  prospective investors were  looking over plans for a new real estate development called ‘Miami Shore’ at North Burleigh. They built their  wooden or fibro bungalows  on estates such as ‘Miami Shore’,  spent their holidays by the beach , or rented the cottages to other holiday makers.  Alternatively, they could stay at the  ‘up-to-date’ two -storey  wooden hotel, the Hotel Miami   opened  by E.H. Berry in 1925. 

Nobbys: The less well-heeled pitched their tents at Burleigh Heads and then walked and fished along the beautiful beach flanked by the two ‘Nobbies’. The name ‘Nobbies’ was a relic from the days when Burleigh local, timber-getter and bullocky , Frederick Fowler had grazed his head bullock,   which he called ‘Nobby’, along  the headlands.

Behind the dunes lay the  ‘great swamp’, a vast wetland of ti-tree, heath and wallum. The native wildflowers, orchids and ferns flourished in the swamp and   holiday makers often  trekked into  this wilderness,  gathering  armfuls of  different specimens to display in their homes back in  Brisbane.

 Miami Community:  During the Depression in the 1930s, relief workers,  employed as part of a government scheme,  laboured to drain the swamp and   slowly the ‘great swamp’  diminished with future land reclamation.  In 1932, the recently  formed Miami Progress Association  approached the South Coast Town  Council to plant the distinctive  avenue of Norfolk Island Pine between the two ‘Nobbies’. World War 2  also shaped and stimulated the commercial life of the area, beginning with the establishment of a large US military camp near Nobby’s and the commencement  of rutile mining along the beach. Later, in 1944,  two former army huts were used to construct the Miami Ice Works, a landmark of  the area to this day.  Many of the postwar homes, shops and holiday flats were built from recycled military buildings.

Following the war, the Miami community developed  with the founding of a Surf Life Saving Club, the construction of facilities  such as tennis courts,   the roller skating rink , ‘the Miami Rollerdome’ and the Pizzey Park Sporting Complex. In 1962, Page Newman built  the Nobbys Beach  chair-lift which later formed part of the Magic Mountain entertainment park. A gamble which paid off, the chair-lift  carried 40,000 people in its first year of operation.  A building and tourism  phenomena of the 1960s,   local  motels featured names such as the El Rancho Restel, the Florida Car-o-tel and the Pineapple Motel.

The first High School between Southport and border, Miami High,  opened in 1963. Like the distinctive sign  ‘Miami High’ on the scarp of the quarry,  the school  was  both a landmark  and  symbol for a population growing up on the coast. Miami itself changed little during the dramatic development and expansion of the 1970s and 80s. If you look carefully some of the those first bungalows constructed between the 1930s and 50s are hidden between the two Nobbys.

[Return to Heritage Tour]             Return to Main History & Heritage Page