The city of Opa-locka was founded in 1926 by famed aviation pioneer Glenn Hammond Curtiss as Opa-tisha-woka-locka, a native Indian word meaning "The high land north of the little river on which there is a camping place." Shortly thereafter the name was contracted to Opa-locka, which was a good thing because even with the contracted name of eight letters and a hyphen, it is mistakenly spelled as OpaLocka, Opa Locka, Opa-Locka, Opalocka, etc. by numerous federal, state and county agencies, Google Maps, local television stations and private companies. The Florida Department of Transportation and Miami-Dade County Public Works can't even get it right on countless street signs and expressway signs which is pretty pathetic because it causes even more people to misspell it because they think those agencies have people who can spell official names correctly. See my other gallery containing numerous photos of misspellings at < https://pbase.com/donboyd/memories_opalocka_spelling

This gallery does NOT include photos taken at Opa-locka Executive Airport, formerly known as Opa-locka Airport and Naval Air Station Miami because the airport property was always to the west and north of Opa-locka's city limits. Most of those photos are in the Aviation Gallery at < https://pbase.com/donboyd/memories_aviation_opalocka and two photos are in the Cars Gallery because of Opa-locka Speedway which was west of Douglas Road on the Navy's property.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION