Opa-locka keeps an Arabian Nights street map

Opa-locka is easy to misread from a car window.

The domes, arches, minarets, and street names are not random. The city grew from Glenn Curtiss’s 1920s plan for a themed community inspired by Arabian Nights stories. Curtiss was an aviation pioneer, but here he was also selling a dream of a new South Florida town. Architect Bernhardt Muller helped shape the look. Street names such as Ali Baba, Aladdin, Sesame, Sultan, and Sharazad still carry that idea.

That might sound playful, but it was also serious city-building. Opa-locka was chartered in 1926, the same year a major hurricane damaged many South Florida places. The early plan included a hotel, golf course, airport, train station, zoo park, and other pieces of a planned town.

The buildings that remain give Opa-locka a look few Florida places can match. They also show how bold the 1920s land-boom years could be. Florida was not just growing. It was selling visions, themes, and whole new ways to picture a city.

If you go looking, check local history and preservation information first, then move slowly through the street grid. Opa-locka’s story is in the names as much as the buildings.