Opa-locka Thematic Resource Area

Opa-locka Thematic Resource Area
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Location	Opa-locka, Miami-Dade County, Florida
MPS
NRHP reference #	64000117
Added to NRHP	March 22, 1982

The Opa-locka Thematic Resource Area is a group of thematically-related historic sites in Opa-locka, Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The area comprises 20 surviving Moorish Revival buildings which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The buildings were designed in the mid-1920s by architect Bernhardt E. Muller as part of the development of Opa-locka by Glenn Hammond Curtiss, an aviation pioneer, and his development and sales company, Opa-locka Company. In developing Opa-locka, Curtiss sought to follow a theme inspired by the Arabian Nights. The designated buildings include the Opa-locka Company administration building, considered the anchor of the Opa-locka development, the Opa-locka railroad station, and the development's first commercial building, the Harry Hurt Building.

After Glenn Curtiss, an aviation pioneer, retired from aircraft development and manufacturing in the 1920s, he became a real estate developer in Florida. In 1926, during the Florida land boom of the 1920s, Curtiss founded the Opa-locka project on 4.2 acres of land in northwestern Miami-Dade County, Florida. The Opa-locka Company was the development and sales company established by Curtiss for his Opa-locka project.

Curtiss named the development "Opa-tisha-wocka-locka", which meant "a big island covered with many trees and swamps." He shortened it to Opa-locka. Curtiss hired the American architect Bernhardt E. Muller to design the town in the themes of an "Arabian Fantasy" or "Arabian Nights." Some sources indicate that Curtiss was inspired by his viewing of the 1924 motion picture The Thief of Baghdad.