Known as the planner and builder of Coral Gables, George Edgar Merrick was a real estate developer, who in the 1920s was behind one of the first planned communities in the 
United States, Coral Gables.His family moved to Miami from Massachusets in 1898 when George was 12 and he attended Rollins College in Winter Park. In 1915, George was appointed by the Florida governor as the county commissioner in District 1.
George Merrick and Edward DeVere Burr are behind the vast majority of the road construction projects in Dade County, including US-1 (South Dixie Hwy), Tamiami Trail across the Everglades, Ingraham Hwy ( Old Cutler Road) and many other roads.
In 1922, Geoge Merrick began carving out a town on 3,000 acres of citrus groves and land covered in pine trees which his father left him, along the lines of the City Beautiful movement. The new town was designed in great detail, featuring urban golf courses, delicate brigdes and wide tree lined roads.
In 1925, Mr. Merrick is credited with the establishment of the University of Miami with a donation of 600 acres of land abd a $5 million pledge. The Solomon G. Merrick building at UM was built in honor of his father.
