From Palm Beach County to Miami-Dade, 11 cities are celebrating their centennials in 2025 and 2026. WLRN News' series "History We Call Home" spotlights the moments, ideas and people that made these cities part of our community's fabric over the past century.
On a hot afternoon last August, the Venetian Pool in Coral Gables seemed almost idyllic. Little kids swam under the waterfall and into a cave. Their parents sunbathed under lush palm trees.
With two towers and a bridge, the 60,000-square-foot Venetian Pool built from coral rock is best known for its iconic Mediterranean Revival aesthetic, akin to that of Venice, Italy.
The Venetian Pool is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, a distinction city officials have long sought to maintain, and it annually attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors.
Long before it became one of South Florida's most popular tourist attractions, it was an eyesore.
Originally a quarry in the early 1920s, it was the source of much of the coral rock used to build homes and structures in the city. What was left after removing the rock was a large pit that wasn't very attractive to potential home buyers and developers.
The solution: transform the pit into a pool.
The people who quarried the coral rock to build many buildings in Coral Gables and the Venetian Pool more than a century ago were expert stonemasons from the Bahamas.
Bahamians' contributions to Coral Gables, particularly their quality craftsmanship in building the city, are being highlighted this year during the city's centennial celebration.
While the Venetian Pool represents the grandeur of their artistry, the two small neighborhoods where they lived showcase the durability of their work: the Golden Gate and MacFarlane Homestead subdivisions — built by both Bahamians and Black Southerners during racial segregation — feature original century-old homes in the Bahamian bungalow and shotgun wood-frame styles.
All of them have survived despite hurricanes and the test of time.
The Venetian Pool comes alive with entertainment acts
The Venetian Pool first opened in 1924, a year before the city was incorporated, under the name “Venetian Casino."
It debuted with Jan Garber’s orchestra playing poolside.
Another draw: Orator William Jennings Bryan spoke at the pool. He was a former secretary of state who ran for president three times and served in Congress.
It quickly became a popular attraction.
“The Venetian Pool was more than just the community pool, it was also a way to attract ... developers and people to purchase their homes,” said Coral Gables City Manager Carolina Vester, who started her career with the city over 20 years ago as a lifeguard at the pool and later worked as its manager.
"[Coral Gables founder] George Merrick set forth big attraction events where people were coming in to purchase property, and he had to entertain them," she said.
MORE ON THIS SERIES:
- History We Call Home: How the Great Land Boom shaped South Florida 100 years ago
- Coral Gables’ first church celebrated 100 years, seeks funding for historic preservation
- How Jupiter's forgotten life-saving station impacted South Florida and U.S. history
The Venetian Pool hosted beauty contests, dance performances and aquatic shows.
Jackie Ott “The Aqua Tot” was one of many celebrities who performed. He started at the age of 4, dressing up, swimming, aquaplaning and diving through fire hoops.
The pool would often also become a makeshift amphitheater where opera singers and orchestras would perform at the bottom of the drained pool.
On the city’s 90th anniversary, the Miami Symphony Orchestra recreated one of those music performances, assembling on the pool floor.
“ Not much has actually changed of how it looked a hundred years ago to what it looks like today,” Vester said. “And that's the beauty of preservation.”
During a $2 million renovation in 1987, a 10-foot tall diving board was removed.
Also, pumps were installed to recirculate water.
“We actually drain and fill the pool every single night from Memorial Day to Labor Day," Vester said. "That's about 820,000 gallons of water, and we don't waste it. ... We have two injection wells across the street, and they inject the water at high velocity back down into the aquifer about a hundred feet underground."
The water naturally percolates through the limestone bedrock, which acts as a filter, before it reaches the Biscayne Aquifer, Vester said.
"So we're constantly recirculating the water, both manually and naturally," she said. "That's very, very unique to the pool. This pool is one of a kind."
In preparation for the city’s centennial anniversary celebrations, the pool has been undergoing renovations since October. It is scheduled to reopen this summer.
Bahamian workers built The City Beautiful
Many locals know little about the Bahamian people who quarried the rock to build Coral Gables.
At the turn of the 20th century, a large portion of Miami’s Black population was from the Bahamas. Many farmers from there would travel seasonally to South Florida to work the region's agricultural crops.
“As laborers, they built churches and residences, hotels and businesses for Coral Gables, ‘The City Beautiful,’” said Dorothy Jenkins Fields, a Bahamian descendant and founder of the Black Archives Foundation. “I'm always so proud to be able to say that, because we were a big part of making it beautiful — not only with the construction, but also with the gardens and the landscaping.”
Entrepreneurs advertised their construction projects in Bahamian newspapers to attract workers.
The site where Coral Gables Senior High School is today was once a tent city for construction workers.
By the 1920s, Bahamians became essential to the local economy.
READ MORE: 'Long overdue': Historic marker celebrates Black community that helped establish Coral Gables
“These early pioneers knew how to use lumber to construct buildings, but they had no idea of how to deal with coral rock, which is the foundation of South Florida,” while Bahamians had experience using coral rock back home, said Marvin Dunn, a retired and renowned local historian and author of Black Miami in the Twentieth Century.
Many houses as well as structures around the city — like the Alhambra and Douglas entrances — were built with coral rock.
During this time of racial segregation and institutionalized racism, Bahamian workers faced many challenges here, including exploitation, unsafe working conditions and even displacement.
“There were no protections against accidents or injuries. Some people, in the course of building Coconut Grove and Coral Gables, died in accidents. No compensation. The amount of pay was barely above the level to sustain a family,” Dunn told WLRN.
Bahamians and Black Southerners who had been living near the University of Miami were pushed out to make way for student dormitories. As part of a deal with Merrick and the university, community members moved across U.S. 1 to an area now known as the Golden Gate and MacFarlane Homestead subdivisions.
“ In the mornings they would work for George Merrick. ... And in the afternoons they would come, and they would build their homes,” said Carl Leon Prime, president of the Lola B. Walker Homeowners Association and third-generation Macfarlane Homestead resident.
In his neighborhood, there are 36 original bungalow and shotgun-style houses with apparent Bahamian influences that have survived for more than a century. Many are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
“It shows real craftsmanship and attention to detail that you can't get anywhere else,” Prime said.
Today, many residents of those communities are descendants of the neighborhoods' pioneering families.
Leigh Cooper-Willis, 34, grew up in Golden Gate, like generations in her family before her.
“[My family] came to work for George Merrick, and then they lived in this house,” said Cooper-Willis, a fourth-generation descendant. “And then my grandfather was born on that property. Then my mother, and now I live there with my family, [with] my son.”
Prime also lives in the house that his grandfather built in 1936 at another location and moved to the current spot two years later.
“ We can tell the family history in the avocado trees in the yard,” Prime said.
When his grandfather moved the house, a tree was already planted there. Near it is the tree that his father planted and, between them, is the avocado tree that Prime planted himself as a child.
Earlier this year, the city of Coral Gables celebrated the predominantly Black neighborhood bordering Coconut Grove for its historic contributions in marking its centennial.
In an opinion letter published by the Miami Herald, Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago mentioned the commission will further honor this legacy by commissioning a public sculpture to be installed at Merrick Park across from City Hall.
