While waiting to hear if Congress had approved his grant, Perrine took up residence with his family at Indian Key, Florida, in 1838. This location was considered safer than the southern Florida mainland, as the Second Seminole War was still in progress. On August 7, 1840, Indians attacked Indian Key. Several people were killed, including Perrine, but his family escaped.[1][2]
History
Perrine's son, Henry Jr., and one of Perrine's business partners, Charles Howe, made various attempts to exploit the grant, with little success. Eventually homesteaders began to encroach on the grant, and in 1886 families that had started farms in the grant area formed a squatters union to fight eviction from their farms by the Perrine heirs. Two railroad companies, including the Florida East Coast Railway, joined with the Perrine heirs, and the courts eventually awarded 2,000 acres (8.1 km2) to the squatters, 10,000 acres (40 km2) to the Perrine family, and 5,000 acres (20 km2) each to the railroad companies (part of the original grant had been sold earlier).[1]
The community that became known as Perrine started as a railroad camp during the construction of the Florida East Coast Railway extension from Miami to Homestead. The first school in Perrine was opened in 1909.[1] The community developed in a segregated fashion, with the area to the east of the railroad all white and the area to the west of the railroad all black. Perrine incorporated as a city in 1948. A black mayor was elected a year later. The all-white city council and the first mayor requested the Florida Legislature to dissolve the city, and it did.[2]
Perrine was a Census-designated place (CDP) in the 1990 U.S. Census, with a counted population of 15,576. In the 2000 Census, Perrine was divided into two CDPs: East Perrine and West Perrine. East Perrine, which had a population of 7,079 in 2000, became part of the incorporated municipality of Palmetto Bay in 2002.[3][4] West Perrine had a population of 8,600 in 2000, and 9,460 in 2010.[5]
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami operates area Catholic schools. Our Lady of the Holy Rosary-St. Richard School is in Cutler Bay,[8][9] It was formerly known as Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, and previously it was in the Cutler Ridge CDP but had a Perrine postal address.[10][11]
^"Our Lady of the Holy Rosary". Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami. Archived from the original on 2003-12-30. Retrieved 2020-05-10. Our Lady of the Holy Rosary 18455 Franjo Road Perrine, Florida 33157 - The postal address if of "Perrine, Florida" but the location at the time was in the Cutler Ridge CDP: check map
