North: SW 42nd Street (Bird Road)

South: SW 88 Street (North Kendall Drive)

East: SW127 Avenue

West: SW 157 Avenue

Little is known of the Kendale Lakes area in the 19th Century. The ramifications of the Swamp Act of the 1850 began to manifest themselves in the late nineteenth century, setting the stage for vast developmental activity in the region encompassed in the grant in the following century. Under the Swamp Act, a state could exercise several options with the land it received from the Federal Government. All of the land west of 57th Avenue (Red Road) and north of NW 7^th Street was awarded to the State of Florida in 1880 and in 1903.  In April 1896, Henry M. Flagler, a wealthy industrialist, brought his Florida East Coast Railway to the north bank of the Miami River from West Palm Beach. By 1903, the rail had entered the area now referred to as Kendale Lakes (Jensen & Wiggins 2001).

Kendale Lakes and other parts of vast, sprawling Dade County suffered greatly from the killer unnamed hurricane of 1926.  By then, this community and the rest of the region had fallen into a severe economic depression, but help was on its way with the onset of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, a program designed to lift the nation and its forgotten neighborhoods out of economic crisis through government-funded programs. Under the New Deal the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was created, mainly giving jobless men work in a host of environmental projects in the nation’s forested and park areas (Jensen & Wiggins 2001).

 Eventually, the federal government transferred CCC workers to labor in south Dade County. The post-World War II era brought great changes to the area, however Kendale Lakes remained largely rural (Jensen & Wiggins 2001).

Like the Kendall neighborhood, Kendale Lakes is concerned with traffic and education issues.  Kendale Lakes is the most affluent of the neighborhoods in the area, with higher property assessments within their boundaries.  The neighborhood of Kendale Lakes boast a population of 56,901, 18,080 households, and 14,988 families residing as of the census of 2000. In the Kendale Lakes the population was spread out with 25.6% under the age of 18, 9.2% from 18 to 24, 31.0% from 25 to 44, 23.0% from 45 to 64, and 11.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age in Kendale Lakes is 36 years, which is slighty higher then the county’s median age of 35.6 years (Census 2000).

            Kendale Lakes average household and family size, 3.13 and 3.40 persons respectively, is slighty higher than that of the county, 2.84 and 3.35 persons respectively. The neighborhood of Kendale Lakes has a higher household, $44,156, then that of the county, $35,966 dollars, and a higher family income, $46,001, and a lower family income of  $30,754, compared to $40,260 dollars for the county. The per capita income for Kendale Lakes was $17,592. Kendale Lakes poverty level is lower to that of the county, with only 10.3% of the population and 8.7% of families of the individuals in Kendale Lakes living below the poverty line, compared to 14.5 percent and 18.0 percent respectively for the county (Census 2000).

Jensen, Robert J. and Wiggins, Larry.  (2001).  South Dade: Homestead, Florida City,and Redland.  In (Becky Roper Matkov, ed.) Miami’s Historic Neighborhoods; A History of Community.  Historical Publishing Network.  San Antonio, TX

Piniero, Yudi. The Green Site. Miami Herald. Page: 3WK. March 5, 2006.

U.S. Bureau of the Census.  (2000).  Statistical File 3, P31 and P32 for Census Tracts 0103.00 and 0112.01.  http://www.census.gov