Long before Miami glittered with neon, skyline glass, and palm-lined boulevards, it was a dream carved from mangrove thickets, wild frontier waters, and a thin, unwavering spark of belief.

Few remember Locke Tiffin Highleyman - a visionary who saw a city long before anyone else believed it possible. Businessman, strategist, and indefatigable promoter, Highleyman walked into the untamed settlement at the edge of America and imagined a thriving metropolis where most northerners saw only swamp and silence.

In Miami's Yester Years, Patricia Daly-Lipe resurrects the remarkable story of a man written out of the headlines but woven into the very bones of the Magic City. With the grace of a novelist and the rigor of a historian, she traces the intertwining fates of Highleyman, Henry Flagler, Julia Tuttle, Seminole tribes, pioneer families, and the wild territory itself-the rivers, storms, snakes, railways, and hurricanes that shaped Miami's improbable ascent.

Step into a forgotten era of barefoot mailmen, boomtown speculation, racing steamships, dirt-cut railbeds, and the unstoppable march of optimism. Witness fortunes made and washed away, bridges built across unknown waters, and the stubborn courage it took to transform a mosquito-ridden outpost into a gateway to the Americas.

More than a biography, Miami's Yester Years is a time capsule - a luminous remembrance of sweat, soil, and sacrifice, and a tribute to the family legacy that helped define one of America's most iconic cities. This is the true story behind the postcard. And at its heart stands the man time almost erased.