Aerial view of Government Cut, Miami Beach Florida, circa 1916

Government Cut is a manmade

shipping channel In physical geography, a channel is a type of landform consisting of the outline of a path of relatively shallow and narrow body of water or of other fluids (e.g., lava), most commonly the confine of a river, river delta or strait. The word is ...

between

Miami Beach Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. It was incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on natural and man-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the latter of which ...

and

Fisher Island Fisher is an archaic term for a fisherman, revived as gender-neutral. Fisher, Fishers or The Fisher may also refer to: Places Australia * Division of Fisher, an electoral district in the Australian House of Representatives, in Queensland * Ele ...

, which allows better access to the Port of Miami in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and ...

. Before the cut was established, a single peninsula of dry land stretched from what is now Miami Beach to what is now Fisher Island, and boats destined for the port at the mouth of the Miami River had to pass around Cape Florida, to the south of

Key Biscayne Key Biscayne ( es, Cayo Vizcaíno, link=no) is an island located in Miami-Dade County, Florida, located between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay. It is the southernmost of the barrier islands along the Atlantic coast of Florida, and lies sou ...

. Opened in 1905, the cut across the peninsula that is now

was authorized by the U.S. government (hence the name), in order to provide a direct route from the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

on the east to the

seaport A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as ...

Biscayne Bay Biscayne Bay () is a lagoon with characteristics of an estuary located on the Atlantic coast of South Florida. The northern end of the lagoon is surrounded by the densely developed heart of the Miami metropolitan area while the southern end is la ...

to the west, without having to detour southward. The cut across the

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in severa ...

s and beach at the southern end of the peninsula created Fisher Island, which except for the extreme northeast corner, is part of unincorporated

Miami-Dade County Miami-Dade County is a county located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Florida. The county had a population of 2,701,767 as of the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Florida and the seventh-most populous county in ...

, Florida. The now-famous

South Beach South Beach, also nicknamed colloquially as SoBe, is a neighborhood in Miami Beach, Florida. It is located east of Miami between Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The area encompasses Miami Beach south of Dade Boulevard. This area was the ...

is to the north of the cut.

Establishment

Government Cut was authorized by the U.S. Congress in 1902, after the

United States House Committee on Rivers and Harbors The House Committee on Rivers and Harbors was a United States House of Representatives, U.S. House committee from 1883 until 1946. It was authorized early in the 48th United States Congress, 48th Congress in December 1883, when the committee was giv ...

approved it on June 13 of that year.

Dredging Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing d ...

began in 1903, and finished in the summer of 1905. Fill from the dredging was used to add to the privately

own Ownership is the state or fact of legal possession and control over property, which may be any asset, tangible or intangible. Ownership can involve multiple rights, collectively referred to as title, which may be separated and held by different ...

ed Fisher Island. Later dredging to widen and deepen the cut also added land area to the Port of Miami, and created the

foundation Foundation may refer to: * Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization ** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S. ** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cause ...

for the MacArthur Causeway (east of Interstate 395).

Operation

Operation of the cut falls upon three

government agencies A government or state agency, sometimes an appointed commission, is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government that is responsible for the oversight and administration of specific functions, such as an administratio ...

. The Port of Miami is responsible for

navigation Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation ...

, while the

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, m ...

is responsible for

safety Safety is the state of being "safe", the condition of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk. Meanings There are two slightly di ...

and

security" \n\n\nsecurity.txt is a proposed standard for websites' security information that is meant to allow security researchers to easily report security vulnerabilities. The standard prescribes a text file called \"security.txt\" in the well known locat ...

, and the

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers , colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = ...

for the channel itself, including dredging.

Notoriety

Local

ocean The ocean (also the sea or the world ocean) is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth's water. An ocean can also refer to any of the large bodies of water into which the wor ...

tide Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide tables ...

s for Miami are reported for the entrance to Government Cut. The next-closest point on the

mainland Mainland is defined as "relating to or forming the main part of a country or continent, not including the islands around it egardless of status under territorial jurisdiction by an entity" The term is often politically, economically and/or dem ...

for tide information is Jupiter Inlet, to the north. On December 19, 2005, the vintage Grumann G-73T Turbine Mallard

seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their technological characteri ...

providing Chalk's Ocean Airways Flight 101 crashed immediately offshore Government Cut, temporarily closing the channel to all traffic and trapping freighters and

cruise ship Cruise ships are large passenger ships used mainly for vacationing. Unlike ocean liners, which are used for transport, cruise ships typically embark on round-trip voyages to various ports-of-call, where passengers may go on tours known as ...

s on both sides. On September 25, 2016,

Miami Marlins The Miami Marlins are an American professional baseball team based in Miami. The Marlins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East division. The club's home ballpark is LoanDepot Park. The fra ...

pitcher José Fernández died in a boating accident at Government Cut. The boat hit the jetty and capsized, killing Fernández and two other men on board, 25-year-old Eduardo Rivero, and 27-year-old Emilio Macias, the son of a Miami-Dade police detective.

External links and references

Miami-Dade County: Government Cut centennial

References

{{Reflist Landforms of Miami-Dade County, Florida 1905 establishments in Florida Transportation in Miami-Dade County, Florida Port of Miami Channels of the United States