The Historical Museum of Southern Florida tells the stories of people in south Florida and the Caribbean from 12,000 years ago through the present. The Tropical Dreams: First Arrivals exhibit features information and artifacts about southern Florida's first inhabitants and the Miami Circle.

The International Rivalry exhibit of HMSF's permanent exhibition, Tropical Dreams: A People's History of South Florida describes how the geographic location of South Florida, guardian of the trade routes and buffer zone between the English and French to the north and the Spanish to the south, determined its destiny for more than three centuries after Ponce de Leon's first landing in 1513.

Information provided by Florida Department of State.