Pan Am was one of the world's first scheduled airlines.  Service began all the way back on October 18, 1927, when a tiny borrowed airplane named La Niña flew the 90 miles between Key West, Florida and Havana, Cuba.  The building that was Pan Am's first headquarters is still there, it's now a restaurant.

By the next year, Pan Am was flying its own 8-seat trimoters between Havana and Miami.  The new Pan Am headquarters, was at Dinner Key, which is now Miami's city hall.

Miami Airport (once called Pan Am Field) would play a major role in Pan Am's life from start to finish.

By 1930, Pan Am had service throughout the Caribbean.  It had also helped start another airline that still exists, Mexicana.  Pan Am also partnered with W.R. Grace to form an airline called PANAGRA (Pan American Grace Airways) that established service down the western coast of  South America, and operated until 1968; and NYRBA (the New York, Rio and Buenos Aires Line) which flew down the eastern coast, and which Pan Am later acquired in 1930.