By Coral Gables Gazette staff

Coral Gables is turning the office of mayor into an exhibition.

Beginning Wednesday, the Coral Gables Museum will open “Local Leadership, National Legacy: Coral Gables Mayors Across a Century,” a portrait-based exhibition tracing the 24 men and one women who have served as mayor since the city’s founding in 1925.

The exhibition opens to the public at 7 p.m. July 1 at the museum, 285 Aragon Ave., following a private reception for invited guests, former mayors, elected officials and community leaders from 5 to 7 p.m. Developed by the museum in collaboration with the City of Coral Gables, the exhibition will remain on view in Gallery 109 through Aug. 16.

Portraits and biographies

At the center of the exhibition is a restoration and research project involving the city’s mayoral portrait collection. The installation pairs restored portraits with biographical profiles documenting each mayor’s service and role in Coral Gables’ first century.

The project also marks the first time the names and biographies of all Coral Gables mayors will be made available on the city’s website, creating a permanent digital record of their service and accomplishments.

The mayoral roster

The exhibition traces the office from Edward “Doc” Dammers, who served from 1925 to 1928, through current Mayor Vince Lago. The full roster includes Dammers, P.E. Montanus, C. Lee McGarr, Vincent D. Wyman, Roscoe E. Brunstetter, Paul McGarry, Joe Whitley, Thomas C. Mayes, W. Keith Phillips Sr., David H. Hendrick Jr., Fred B. Hartnett, John M. Montgomery, Robert L. Searle, Joseph H. Murphy, C.L. Dressel, W. Keith Phillips Jr., Robert Knight, James Dunn, William Chapman, Dorothy Thomson, George M. Corrigan, Raúl Valdés-Fauli, Don Slesnick, Jim Cason and Vince Lago.

Among that century-long line are several historical markers: Dammers, the city’s first mayor; Dorothy Thomson, the city’s first and only (so far) female mayor; Valdés-Fauli, who served two nonconsecutive terms nearly three decades apart; and Lago, the current mayor as Coral Gables enters its second century.

The exhibition does not treat the mayors only as a sequence of names. Its premise is that each administration left some imprint on the city’s public life — through periods of growth, challenge, preservation, development and civic change.

Merrick beside the mayoral line

The exhibition also includes a special dedication to George E. Merrick, the founder whose planning vision gave Coral Gables its identity before the city had a century of municipal leadership to look back on.

Merrick was not part of the mayoral line, but his presence is central to any telling of Coral Gables’ civic history. His Mediterranean Revival vision, emphasis on planning and embrace of City Beautiful ideals shaped the city that later mayors would inherit, defend, alter and govern.

Including Merrick alongside the mayoral portraits widens the exhibition’s frame. It acknowledges that Coral Gables’ public life was shaped both by elected office and by the founding vision that gave the city its form.

A local answer to America250

The exhibition is part of Coral Gables’ America250 initiative, timed to the nation’s Semiquincentennial. The national anniversary gives the show a broader frame: 100 years of Coral Gables mayors set against 250 years of American self-government.

That context gives the exhibition a larger civic meaning. The story of democracy is not only told through presidents, Congress or national institutions. It is also told in city halls, commission chambers and local offices where decisions about streets, parks, buildings, budgets and neighborhoods shape daily life.

For Coral Gables, the mayoral portraits offer a civic mirror. They show the continuity of an office, but also the changing city around it — a planned community that has spent a century balancing preservation, growth, public service and political change.

What to know

“Local Leadership, National Legacy: Coral Gables Mayors Across a Century” opens to the public at 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 1, at the Coral Gables Museum, 285 Aragon Ave. A private reception for invited guests runs from 5 to 7 p.m. The exhibition remains on view through Aug. 16, in Gallery 109.