Orange Blossom Delivery 2.0: Re-imagining Miami's Origin Story

The Archaeological Society of Southern Florida's (ASSF) June meeting will take place at HistoryMiami Museum! Join us to learn about a little-known period in the lives of William and Mary Brickell. This event is FREE and open to the public!

Winter freeze, blossom delivery, Miami is born. For just over a century, this has been the prevailing narrative of Miami's origins. Only a few historians know that this story was far more nuanced. In the last two decades, an impressive amount of historical material has surface to present an even more interesting and intriguing reality: that of a team effort. As an old adage says, "there is no I in team," yet an American tradition holds fast to the need to designate one mother or father of a new city. Historian Cesar Becerra will go over the general trajectory of the Brickell's lives, and discuss the top ten reasons he believes the Brickells have been marginalized in our telling of the story of Miami's birth.

South Florida historian Cesar Becerra has researched the Brickells for 25 years, traveled to their home site in Cleveland, and spent a month traversing and researching their footsteps in Australia. Becerra is the author of three books on South Florida. . In 1999, he drove through 49 of the 50 states for The Travel Channel in a 1979 Chevrolet Malibu dressed as an american flag. He has been called the "best peripatetic historian" by the Miami New Times and an "everglades evangelist" by The Miami Herald. He has worked at The Barnacle, Indian Key, Big Cypress National Preserve, The Charles Deering Estate, Fairchild Tropical Gardens and The Gold Coast Railroad Museum.