A Century of Leadership: Dunedin Marks 100 Years as a City
This year, Dunedin turns 100. Not the town itself—that story goes back much further, to Scottish settlers in the late 1800s and the citrus groves that followed. But on June 1, 1926, something changed. The Town of Dunedin officially became the City of Dunedin, adopting the Commission-Manager form of government that still guides us today. It is a centennial worth marking. 1926: The Year Everything Shifted Before 1926, Dunedin was a town. Small. Growing. But by the mid-1920s, the community had reached a point where the old ways of governing no longer fit. The solution was the Commission-Manager system—a structure that separates policymaking (the elected commission) from day-to-day administration (a professional city manager). It was a modern approach for a town ready to become a city. On June 1, 1926, that vision became official. Dunedin was incorporated as a city, and the new government took shape. What Happened That Year While Dunedin was finding its footing as a city, the world around it was shifting too. A few notes from 1926: And here, on the …
