The late newspaper editor Lora Sinks Britt, who in 1918 moved at the age of four with her family to Miami, states in her book "My Gold Coast" that the term referred to "Palm Beach, Broward, Dade, Monroe, and St. Lucie Counties...Martin County had not yet been created." This would cover all of Southeast Florida from Key West to Fort Pierce. Since that time, Martin and St. Lucie County have gained their own regional identity as the Treasure Coast. The Florida Keys and Monroe County have developed a fiercely independent attitude all their own. Although Miamians still refer to their city as part of the Gold Coast, since the 1960s people from Fort Lauderdale north to West Palm Beach have tended to think of Miami as somehow separate. The emergence of Spanish as the principal spoken language in Miami-Dade County may have contibuted to this feeling of distance among those to the north. The modern perception of the Gold Coast, then, has shrunk considerably from its original meaning. For the purpose of this Directory the region is taken to include only the coastal communities of Broward and Palm Beach Counties, which, unlike the more recently established inland towns, retain a historical connection with the Florida settlers of the early 20th Century.
More information