History
The island was created by land reclamation in 1926 with material dredged from the ship channel to the Port of Miami, and was originally named Causeway Island. The island was later named for John W. Watson, Sr., who was Mayor of Miami 1912-1915 and 1917-1919. In 1932 Watson Island was considered for the site of Miami's Pan-American Exposition, a World's Fair and "International Merchandise mart." By the end of the 1940s, however, the site of the Exposition, now called Interama, was moved North to where Oleta River State Park is today.
The Goodyear Blimp base in Florida was located on Watson Island for many years. Vestiges of the old base still remain such as the imprint of the mooring circle and a paved path for a small tram that would transport passengers to the airship.
Plans to develop the island started in the late 1990s and came to fruition when Jungle Island opened its doors in the summer of 2003. Since then, the Miami Children's Museum relocated to the island and as of 2004, the State of Florida was offering a site in the Island Gardens project on Watson Island to host the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) Permanent Secretariat. As of March, 2006 the Florida Department of Transportation was planning to construct a tunnel from the Port of Miami on Dodge Island under the main shipping channel to the MacArthur Causeway on Watson Island. On May 24, 2010, construction began on the Miami Port Tunnel tunnel project. The tunnel is set to be completed by 2014.
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