Former Site of Miami Shipbuilding Corporation (Miami, Florida)

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Founded in 1939 on the site of the Fogel Boat Yard, the Miami Shipbuilding Corporation received the first US Navy contract for the construction of small, fast and heavily armed "Crash Boats" in 1939.

Launching the first US ship of the type later in the same year, the Miami Shipbuilding Corp started the ball rolling on what would eventually result in one of the most storied ship designs of the Second World War, the PT Boat. Though Miami Shipbuilding only produced two prototype craft before further contracts were passed to more seasoned builders, the yard received a large contract for building crash boats for lend/lease to Russia, and ended up producing 50 of the type by the end of 1943. Further orders followed from Allied Navies, and by the end of the war Miami Shipbuilding had sent over 200 crash boats down its ways for the Russian, British, Australian Dutch and South African armed forces.

The end of the Second World War brought hard times for the shipyard as government contracts evaporated. The yard dabbled in the commercial and pleasure yacht sectors for a time before reinvesting in the concept of hydrofoil craft, but when the economy soured in the late 1970's the yard shut down its operations. The yard itself remained mostly vacant and unused for several years, but the main office building for the yards operations was used for the filming of "Miami Vice", where it served as the police headquarters for the show.

Eventually declared a Historic Site, the two-story Art Moderne style office building could not survive the pressures of real estate development and was razed to make room for the construction of condo's in the late 1990's.

For a complete list of ships built here during the Second World War, please see:
www.shipbuildinghistory.com/history/shipyards/4emergenc...