South Miami is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The city is part of the Miami metropolitan area of South Florida. The population was 12,026 as of the 2020 census.
Wilson Alexander Larkins (1860–1946) was 36 years old when he, his wife (Katie Estelle Burtashaw) and five children, and their livestock arrived in Fort Dallas (now the Lummus Park Historic District of Miami) in 1896. He purchased property west of Red Road and Sunset Drive, where he built a home and barn. He also built the first general store east of that area in 1898 at what is known today as Cartagena Plaza or Cocoplum Circle (actually in Coral Gables). As the community grew, he established a post office in the community. Larkins became the first postmaster, a role he held for sixteen years; he named the area "Manila", but the majority of the settlers, who began building homes around his store, preferred the name of "Larkins" in his honor.
A depot was placed along the Florida East Coast Railway in 1904, and in the same year, John Moses Dowling built the first house within what is now South Miami city limits. His son-in-law opened the first store on the west side of the tracks, called the White Palace Grocery. Mary E. Dorn was the first president of the Cocoplum Thimble Club, the first Women's club in Larkins.
In 1926, area residents wanted to incorporate their area, and because of the booming city to the north of them, they chose the name of "Town of South Miami". The original town boundaries were Red Road on the east, Kendall Drive to the south, Palmetto Road to the west (now Palmetto Expressway), and Bird Road and Miller Drive to the north. The year 1926 also saw the first street lighting and the first incoming class of freshmen at the newly chartered University of Miami campus, which abuts the city of South Miami eastern boundary along Red Road (SW 57th Avenue). Also founded with a university theme that same year was the Cambridge Lawns neighborhood of South Miami, situated just from the university campus. The neighborhood's Cambridge Lawns Historic District, some 30 homes in the Tudor Revival and Mediterranean revival style completed in 1928, were granted historic recognition by the City of South Miami in 2005.
Also in 1926, South Miami received extensive damage from the 1926 Miami hurricane. The town's leaders asked Congress to "relieve the people of their income tax for the current year," but federal assistance was not forthcoming.
In 1933, the original six square miles of South Miami were reduced to just over three miles (5 km) due to an effort to reduce municipal responsibilities. The city's size was reduced again in 1937, and many of the northern city residents sued to get out of the city. This is why the city of South Miami has the most irregular boundaries of any city in Miami-Dade County today.
Of mid-century South Miami, local historian Donna Shelley writes: