Recently, I had the opportunity to tour a part of Miami that isn’t often explored….
The Miami River is a river that drains out of the Everglades and runs through the City of Miami. This 6 mile river river flows from the terminus of the Miami Canal by the Airport into Biscayne Bay. It was originally a natural river inhabited at its mouth by the Tequesta Indians. The Port of Miami is located at the mouth of the river where we began our trip.
Martin County artist Kevin Hutchinson invited me to accompany him on a tour of the river hosted by 3 Miami-Dade firefighters who know the waterway well. We wanted to explore the river’s connection to Martin County.
The Martin County connection to the river goes back artists Jim Hutchinson and Howard Schafer who used Miami River scenes as inspiration for their paintings. They traveled down there often. It was exciting to recognize this boat from a painting done years ago.
The river is divided into 3 distinct areas. The mouth of the river flowed right through downtown Miami, it was right there, we could have stepped out onto the street.
As we made our way inland a bit, we passed through Little Havana where the cuban fishing boats lined the docks.
The 3rd and most interesting part of the river was the western most part, the shipyards….
There were many cargo ships back here, and this is also has been the landing place for all types of contraband. However, government crackdown has greatly reduced that activity.
As we moved slowly past the ships and deeper into the river, I felt the gaze of workers upon us..
Finally, we reached the end of the river, the place where the Miami Canal (C-6) begins its 77 mi journey up to Lake Okeechobee.
Before the rocky ledge was broken up to allow the water to flow freely, there where actually rapids here. All of this was done in the early part of the 20th century to drain the Everglades Agricultural Area.
-tw
To view all of the images: http://www.thomaswinter.com/places/miamiriver/
More information from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_River_(Florida)
Map of the Miami River area: http://www.miamirivercommission.org/PDF/24x18MRC09MapFinalWeb.pdf
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