History of the City of Opa-locka, Florida

Opa-locka, Florida is a city located in Miami-Dade County, which had a population of 15,376 as recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2005.  The city was created by developer Glenn Curtiss and was based on an Arabian Nights theme, with streets names such as Sabur Lane, Sultan Avenue, Ali Baba Avenue, and Sesame Street.  The city maintains the largest collection of Moorish Revival architecture in the Western hemisphere.

The name Opa-locka derives from the Native American name for the area, “Opa-tisha-woka-locka,” meaning, “The high land north of the little river on which there is a camping place.”  It was eventually shortened to Opa-locka.  The Moorish architecture theme that dominated early construction and architectural inspiration halted when the 1926 Miami hurricane badly damaged the city and brought the Florida land boom to a halt.

Other notable events and people that shaped Opa-locka as a city were that Amelia Earhart launched her historic trip around the world from Miami Municipal Airport, just south of the city.  Also, the famous German dirigible Graf Zeppelin visited airport which later became Opa-locka Airport.  This was part of a regular stop on the Germany-Brazil-United States-Germany scheduled route.

Opa-locka has been plagued by severe and continual increases violence in recent years, largely due to a significant decrease in police forces to patrol the city.  Commentary in the Miami New Times said that the police department had been “steadily deteriorating” for the twenty year period leading up to 2009.  The Opa-locka police force decreased from 50 to 16 during this time.  The Miami New Times received memorandums which, in Godfrey's words, “reveal an agency rife with controversy.”  In January 2005, after negative Florida Department of Law Enforcement evaluations of the Opa-locka police force surfaced, the Miami-Dade Police Department stepped in for analysis.  The agent ultimately sent the Miami-Dade county commissioner a report that stated that it would cost $7 million per period to take over the Opa-locka police duties.  Later that year, Opa-locka allocated $3.5 million to its officers and the city manager fired James Wright, the police chief, in January 2008 after people accused Wright of corruption.