During the 1920s, the Miami-Pittsburgh Land Company bought land near Miami. They planned to build "Sweetwater Groves." In 1926, a category 4hurricane, (the Great Miami Hurricane), struck the area. Between the hurricane and problems with real estate value at the time, this construction never happened.
In 1938, Clyde Andrews bought most of the "Sweetwater Groves" land and began to sell it for homes. A group of Russianmidgets were some of the people who bought the land. They were looking for a place to retire after their career in the circus. They built several homes on the land. These homes were not built for people of normal height. The homes were built smaller than normal so that the group would be comfortable living in them. This caused Sweetwater to be called the "midget" community for many years. Sweetwater became incorporated in 1941. . The first mayor of the town was the manager of the group of midgets. The town grew to a population of about 500 people by 1959. In 1970, Sweetwater was still a small town. Its population was about 3000.
During the 1970s, Sweetwater began to grow quickly. In 1972, Florida International University began teachingstudents at its campus just south of the town. Two large highways were being built in the area. One north of the town and the other to the west of it. The area also got noticed by the Dade CountyHispanic community. All of this caused the population of Sweetwater to double. The town had the largest growth of all cities in Dade County during the 1970s.
The city's population is currently over 19,300 people. Ninety-three percent of the population is of Hispanic origin.
