The Mysterious Renaming of a Miami River Island
Just Island on the Miami River has been the victim of a prank! Whodunit? What's the history here? Jason Katz tries his luck at finding out...
On a recent stroll around Miami via google maps, something caught my eye. An island which I’d normally known as Just Island—yes, as Islandia publisher, it’s crucial I’m familiar with all area islands—appeared on the map as Jest Island. Never having done any deep research on the island, I thought maybe I’d just remembered it incorrectly. Perhaps it’d always been Jest Island?
When in doubt, I let the record keep memory for me.
The History of Just Island
In this case, the record supported my memory. Platted in 1923 by Miami developer William G. Just, the island was part of his eponymous subdivision.
At the time of this platting, Just was a known entity in Miami—a banker and developer who’d built what was then the tallest hotel in South Florida: El Comodoro. The El Comodoro, located at 33 SW 2nd Street—albeit in different shape—still stands today.
The Just family settled on their island. By the time of his death, they’d built a couple of small cottages and a gatehouse. They also used some canal fill to build a small bridge between the island and the mainland. Its name? Just Causeway.
Though there were quiet, peaceful times on the island, it wasn’t always that way. "During prohibition I had to watch the shoreline all the time," Just recalled. "Those rum and scotch runners from Bimini thought they had a perfect layout here to land and switch their cargo either to another boat or an auto."
In 1974, years after Just’s death, and with a new owner, the Island was sold to a developer who built the still-standing Isla del Mar condo.
Discovery Doctrine
I’ve lost the plot a little bit though, haven’t I? How do we arrive at our current state of affairs? An island with some decent Miami history all of a sudden is the butt-end of a joke; it’s called Jest.
Back when I was researching the mystery of a street called Pizza, I learned from a faithful follower of Islandia Journal that it’s kind of easy to change place names if google trusts you (your hundreds of restaurant, product, or business reviews are highly ranked.)
It got me thinking about the historical practice of naming—from where our place names come. Take Miami-DADE or BROWARD counties, for example: One is named for a 19th century Seminole-hunting general and the other for a governor whose greatest claim to fame was wreaking havoc on the Everglades. Going even farther back, I consider the colonial Doctrine of Discovery, a 1493 papal decree which essentially allowed anybody who claimed land on behalf of the church to give it a name, even if the land was already occupied.
To rename a small, innocuous island on the Miami River by switching one letter and making a pun, or to rename a street in a concrete pit where the buses don’t run? These are minuscule—even promising—offenses. Heck, if I were trusted by google, I might just be out here renaming islands and streets myself… (if you are trusted by google and renamed this island, contact me.