Our Tours
The tours, which starts and ends at the Crime Tours Museum, includes the era of Prohibition, drug smuggling, the history of gambling, and the wacky things that South Florida criminals have done. The bus tours lasts approximately 1.5 hours and makes at least three stops: at Stranahan House, the historical district along Himmarshee Street, and Evergreen Cemetery. Depending on the tour, the destinations might vary.
Given Miami’s relatively late start as a civilization and its distance from other major US cities and limited law enforcement resources, it’s no wonder so much crime has happened here. This has been the Wild West with beaches and palm trees from the beginning.
From Pirates and ship wreckers galore, the bank robbing and moonshine making Ashley Gang, the Era of Prohibition Rum Runners, Al Capone, Meyer Lansky’s gambling empire, the Italian Mafia, to cocaine smuggling, South Florida was the prescription drugs and pill mills capital of the nation. South Florida has always been a great place to be a crook.
South Florida’s history is filled with shadowy figures, real cops, real crooks, and really good people who have dominate the culture and history of South Florida.
South Florida has gone from being a frontier town with less than a hundred inhabitants to a place that covets the billions it earns from the millions of tourists who visit it each year.
The South Florida Black History tour is the story of the famous, the infamous and the unknown African-American South Floridians whose struggles, setbacks, defeats and accomplishments tell the story of the ultimate victory that those who have faithfully kept their “eyes on the prize”.
In the 1930’s, Miami’s black “Overtown” neighborhood got its name from the many whites who crossed “over” into “colored town” to listen to the music of Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Josephine Baker, Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday. Racism and corruption was growing steadily among the orange blossoms in South Florida’s backyard.