Historic downtown Miami will be jumping this Labor Day weekend as the town celebrates the 111th Miami Fiesta with live music, dances, a food court and beer gardens, and the crowd-favorite chihuahua races – but this year there’s more. After a five-year absence, Miami’s Mile High Car Show is coming back to Sullivan Street as part of the festivities.
Miami Genesis President Susan Hanson said locals visiting last year’s Fiesta asked for the car show to be brought back, and Miami Genesis promised to make it happen.
“We’re hoping everyone is as excited about this as we are. We really want to get car enthusiasts from around Gila County.”
Susan Hanson, Miami Genesis President
Winners of the car show’s eight divisions will receive a plaque and a cash prize, and a Best of Show trophy will also be awarded. For Miami Genesis, the car show is a fundraiser in support of year-round events in Miami.
Originally held in downtown Miami, the Fiesta returned to its downtown roots in 2025 after many years at Bullion Plaza Park. It is now based in Miami Memorial Park, on Sullivan Street.
The Fiesta was originally organized to celebrate Hispanic culture and influence in the community. It was managed by Town of Miami staff until 2009, when the last Town employee handling the event left. Miami Genesis, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, then stepped in and has kept it going since.
“We’re trying to get all our shopkeepers involved. We want it to be a full downtown event for everybody,” Hanson said. “We’re getting excellent response from vendors; we’ve got a lot who want to participate.”
A Fiesta Rooted in Copper and Community
Miami grew up almost overnight in the early 1900s, one of several copper camps – alongside neighboring Globe – built on the rich Old Dominion mineral belt in Arizona’s Copper Corridor. As the mines expanded, waves of Mexican and Mexican American families arrived in the 1910s and 1920s seeking work underground, and their labor helped build the town street by street. Sullivan Street itself, now the heart of Fiesta weekend, takes its name from that same boom era.
That prosperity did not come with equality; for decades, Hispanic families in Miami and Globe faced segregated schools even as they powered the local economy. The Fiesta grew out of that history as a way for the community to claim public space for its own culture – music, dance, and food tracing directly back to those mining-era families and their descendants.
Town staff ran the celebration for years until 2009, when Miami Genesis took over. Count back 111 years, and the first Fiesta lands right in the 1910s – the very years those founding families were arriving to work the mines that put Miami on the map.
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