Amelia Earhart Park is a

urban park An urban park or metropolitan park, also known as a municipal park (North America) or a public park, public open space, or municipal gardens ( UK), is a park in cities and other incorporated places that offer recreation and green space to r ...

in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, just north of

Hialeah Hialeah ( ; ) is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. With a population of 223,109 as of the 2020 census, Hialeah is the sixth-largest city in Florida. It is the second largest city by population in the Miami metropolitan area, whi ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. It offers a number of recreational attractions like bike trails, skateboarding, and

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...

History

This Miami-Dade County regional park was the southern undeveloped portion of decades old Naval Air Station Miami. It was never an airport and never part of the City of Miami-owned Miami Municipal Airport which was on the east side of LeJeune Road and south of NW 119th Street (E. 65th Street) in Hialeah. Amelia Earhart's last ill-fated trip around the world flight left from Miami Municipal Airport in 1937 en route to San Juan, PR, and then south from there and across the Atlantic to Africa. Miami Municipal Airport was renamed Amelia Earhart Field in October 1947. When the Navy discontinued operations at Naval Air Station Miami the U. S. Marine Corps moved to the Navy property from Master Field, another large airport on NW 27th Avenue, east of Amelia Earhart Field . Marine Corps Air Station Miami only operated a couple of years before the Marines shut it down. The federal government's General Services Administration was then charged with disposition of the property and they granted a Dade County bid to assume ownership of the air station's existing airport facilities except for a portion reserved for the U. S. Coast Guard's Air Station Miami. The county named the airport "Opa-locka Airport" due to the name of the city immediately east of the airport. Community leaders, notably Bill Graham (dairy farmer and developer of the Miami Lakes community) successfully lobbied the federal government to be granted about half of the property on the southern portion of the former Naval Air Station, extending from LeJeune Road westward to approximately W. 2nd Avenue in Hialeah, to be given to the county for a large regional park. The remaining southern portion of undeveloped air station land was auctioned off to private developers west and north of Amelia Earhart Regional Park. Amelia Earhart's Farm Village is named after Bill Graham, son of former state senator Ernest R. "Cap" Graham, and the developer of the Miami Lakes residential and commercial development west of Opa-locka Executive Airport.

Facilities

The park offers of bike trails. They include

single track Single may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Single (music), a song release Songs * "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004 * "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008 * "Single" (William Wei song), 2016 * "Single", by ...

and

fire road A firebreak or double track (also called a fire line, fuel break, fireroad and firetrail in Australia) is a gap in vegetation or other combustible material that acts as a barrier to slow or stop the progress of a bushfire or wildfire. A firebre ...

trails with a number of climbs, downhills, and banked corners. The Bill Graham Farm Village is a

farm A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used ...

replica featuring a demonstration shed where visitors can watch horseshoeing, cow-milking,

livestock Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animal ...

judging and

sheep shearing Sheep shearing is the process by which the woollen fleece of a sheep is cut off. The person who removes the sheep's wool is called a '' shearer''. Typically each adult sheep is shorn once each year (a sheep may be said to have been "shorn" or ...

, as well as a

petting zoo A petting zoo (also called a children's zoo, children's farm, or petting farm) features a combination of domesticated animals and some wild species that are docile enough to touch and feed. In addition to independent petting zoos, many genera ...

, exhibit hall,

sugar cane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, perennial grass (in the genus '' Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fibrous stalk ...

press and pony ring. Near the barn is a country store and an adjoining insect

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

. There is fenced,

dog park A dog park is a park for dogs to exercise and play off-leash in a controlled environment under the supervision of their owners. Description Dog parks have varying features, although they typically offer a 4' to 6' fence, separate double-gated ...

, an 18-hole disc golf course, and other amenities which include paved walkways, playgrounds, benches, shade trees,

waste Waste (or wastes) are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product, by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor economic value. A waste prod ...

dispenser stations.

Gallery

Image:AEParkPath.jpg, A bike path through

Australian pine ''Casuarina'' is a genus of 17 tree species in the family Casuarinaceae, native to Australia, the Indian subcontinent, southeast Asia, islands of the western Pacific Ocean, and eastern Africa. It was once treated as the sole genus in the fam ...

s Image:AEParkDock.jpg, Fishing dock by a lake across near bike trails

References

;Notes ;Bibliography * ''MTB Review''
Trails.mtbr.com
2006 * ''South Florida dot Com''
Southflorida.com
2006 {{Greater Miami Parks in Miami-Dade County, Florida Dog parks in the United States 1980 establishments in Florida Monuments and memorials to Amelia Earhart Protected areas established in 1980

History

Facilities

See also

Gallery

References