This podcast episode explores the origins of the HistoryMiami Museum. Established in 1940 by George Merrick and several of Miami's early pioneers as the Historical Association of Southern Florida, the institution initially operated without a permanent home and relied on conducting talks and events at different locations around the Greater Miami area. Conceived as a collection-based museum, some of its earliest acquisitions were the personal recollections of the city's founding residents. Many of these stories were published in Tequesta magazine, authored by Merrick, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and other notable Miami figures.

The museum reached an important milestone with the dedication of its first building, a Beaux-Arts–style structure located in the Edgewater neighborhood. Despite the building's shortcomings, it provided the museum with space to grow and to appoint its first full-time director. In the following years, the museum relocated to the Vizcaya complex alongside the Miami Science Museum, before settling in its current home at the Dade Cultural Center in 1984.