Antique Map of Coral Gables on Display

The Lago Family Donates a Rare Map of the City

Call it an opportunity that could not be missed. Vice Mayor Vince Lago received a phone call from a friend who noticed that an old map of Coral Gables was being sold by an antique map company in California. “Who knows how they got it, but I had to have it for the city,” says Lago. After the map company received several inquiries, they decided to auction it off, and Lago won the four-figure bid. He and his wife Olga then proceeded to donate it to the Coral Gables Museum.

Museum Director John Allen says the map, stamped by the cartographers in January 1924 for the Coral Gables Corporation, “is incredibly rare.” In multi colors, the map delineates the city block by block, “so it’s an accurate blueprint of Coral Gables,” says Allen. “The roads are all there, and the lots, and the Venetian Pool – and the site where the Biltmore is going to go up.”

“I would have loved to keep it in my engineering and construction office, but the higher calling was to give it to the city in the name of Arva Moore Parks,” says Lago. “This way future generations can understand how our city became the first planned community in Florida.”