In 1896, Henry Flagler organized a 9-foot (2.7 m) deep channel dug from the Miami River mouth, creating two islands in the process.

[1] In 1943, Edward N. Claughton, Sr. bought the Brickell Key islands and other land to combine them into a 44-acre (180,000 m2) triangle-shaped tract.

[2] In the late 1970s, Swire Properties bought most of the island from Claughton.

[3] Since then the island has been built out with some of the tallest buildings in Miami, and the Mandarin Oriental, Miami hotel, mainly during the condo "Manhattanization" wave of the 2000s.

[4] As of 2000[update], people who speak English not well or not at all, made up 5.9% of the population.