The Miami Herald has been documenting life in South Florida through pictures for a long time now -- the paper's photo archives go back to well into the 1940s. The archives, which includes millions of photos, were just digitized last year. Now the paper is sharing those old photos with the public through a new website called Flashback Miami.
Flashback Miami was the brainchild of Herald editors Amy Driscoll and Monika Leal. The two create posts of photos centered on a single event or themes like Muhammad Ali’s heavyweight championship bout with Sonny Liston at the Miami Beach Convention Center or music festivals from the '60s.
All the photos on the website were taken by Miami Herald photographers who, Driscoll says, have a unique perspective on South Florida.
“It’s history in a way that other organizations are not going to know or keep,” Driscoll says. “So we, as journalists have been on the ground in a really sort of granular way looking at what’s happening in our communities for decades. When you see these photographs they're not always photographs that the chamber of commerce would necessarily love. But they’re photographs of the way we were, and they inform what we are today.”
Driscoll and Leal will be diving into the history of the Miami Marine Stadium and the Dade County fair in upcoming posts. Check out some of Flashback Miami's photos below.
Undercover cops
Gambling, bookies and bolita: a state beverage undercover agent kicks down a door in 1955.
Remnants of the Allies
A WWII blimp base used to be where ZooMiami is today.
Snake handlers
The Serpentarium on South Dixie Highway hosted snake shows. This photo was taken in 1977.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas
The "first lady of the Everglades."
