Miami Freedom Tower

The Miami Freedom Tower is a beautiful and historically significant Mediterranean Revival tower in the heart of Downtown Miami. Today, the tower is used as a museum by the Miami-Dade College to host exhibitions, including the works of masters such as Dali, Goya and Da Vinci. The college has plans to install new exhibitions which will honor the tower's historical significance to Miami as the original home to a major newspaper and later as an immigration checkpoint where thousands of Cuban refugees were processed.

Originally, the site of the tower served as the first Florida East Coast (FEC) Railway Station in Miami. This crucial railway, developed by Henry Flagler in the late 1800s, brought settlement and development to Florida. In 1896, the railway reached its Miami site on Biscayne Bay, the largest and most accessible natural harbor on Florida's east coast. To further develop the area surrounding the Miami railroad station, Flagler dredged a channel, built streets, instituted the first water and power systems, and financed the town's first newspaper, the Metropolis. The City of Miami was then incorporated in that same year. The Flagler Museum site and museum in West Palm Beach provide more information about the FEC.

In 1925, the 17-story landmark tower was completed. Its design is based in part on elements borrowed from the Giralda Tower in Seville, Spain and is decorated by a Mediterranean style cupola. The site's new important role would be to serve as the headquarters and printing facility for the Miami Daily News (Flagler's original Metropolis newpaper had been bought and renamed).

The next stage in the site's history is what gives the tower its modern name: The Miami Freedom Tower. The Miami News vacated the building to move to a new facility in 1957. Two years later, when the Cuban Revolution occurred and waves of thousands of Cuban political refugees began to arrive in South Florida, the federal government converted the tower into an immigration processing center. The landmark tower would become Miami's own "Ellis Island" until the 1970s and would remain a symbol of political freedom and economic opportunity until today.

Admission to most museum events is free.