![]() ![]() Despite the challenges, the City has regained the spirit it was founded with in 1926. The City experienced a decline, and was labeled a "struggling community" in South Florida. Navy opened a base at the Opa-locka Airport shortly after the hurricane which allowed the City to thrive after the hurricane but the base closed in the 1950s. ![]() Opa-locka currently has twenty buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places. ![]() The September 1926 hurricane badly damaged the City, destroying many of the structures, but the surviving Moorish style buildings continue to give Opa-locka its unique appearance. Curtiss completed his vision for Opa-locka he had built a self-contained city with a hotel, zoo park, golf course, archery club, swimming pool, airport, and train station. Curtiss and architect, Bernhardt Muller, built 105 buildings with an array of domes, minarets and outside staircases. The City was developed based on the Arabian Nights theme which is evident by the large collection of Moorish architecture throughout the city and with street names like Sabur, Sultan, Ali Baba, Sharazad, Aladdin and Sesame. The area was originally named by the Native Americans "Opa-tisha-wocka-locka" meaning "a big island covered with many trees and swamps" but the name was quickly shorten to Opa-locka. On May 14, 1926, Opa-locka was chartered as a town by twenty-eight registered voters. 125th Street, on the East – NW 45th Avenue on the West. The city boundaries are as follows: on the North-NW 151st Street, on the South - N.W. Opa-locka is an urban community occupying 4.2 square miles in the North-Western area of Miami-Dade County, Florida. The City of Opa-locka was the vision of aviation pioneer, Glenn Curtiss. ![]()
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