Bay Mabel Harbor, now Port Everglades, opens with a mishap

 

Lake Mabel/early Port Everglades, 1928
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

By Jane Feehan


Port Everglades opened as Bay Mabel Harbor in 1928. Joseph W. Young visualized a “world class seaport” as part of his Hollywood-by-the-Sea development of the 1920s.

The body of water was known many years as Lake Mabel but some pointed out that the “lake,” which sat in both Hollywood and Fort Lauderdale, was actually a bay with ocean access. The really curious may ask about the Mabel part of the name.

It was reported in a 1926 Miami News story that a Jacksonville resident made a survey of the area in 1870 and named what’s now Port Everglades as “Bay Mabel” for either the mother or wife of Arthur T. Williams. Who is Arthur T. Williams? He is the first to have platted a parcel of land for sale in Fort Lauderdale in 1887; it was to be called “Palm City.” The surveyor of Bay Mabel was his father.

When Bay Mabel Harbor opened in February, 1928, President Calvin Coolidge was supposed to hit a remote button to set off an explosive to clear final access to the ocean but for some reason he didn’t. Local engineers, to the disappointment of the crowd on hand for the occasion, set off the explosive instead.

Soon after, the Fort Lauderdale Woman’s Club held a contest to re-name the port. Port Everglades took the prize. And what happened to Joseph Young? He continued to develop Hollywood but because of the land bust and expense to dredge Bay Mabel, personally dropped out of the harbor project. Funding was left to the cities of Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood (acting as the Broward County Port Authority) and the federal government.

Harbor Inlet with condos 1989
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

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Sources:
Gillis, Susan. Fort Lauderdale, The Venice of America. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2004.
Weidling, Philip, and Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1966.
Palm Beach Post, Sept. 21, 1925
Miami News, Apr. 18, 1926


Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Port Everglades history, waterway history, Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood history, Lake Mabel, Florida in the early 1900s

Franklin D Roosevelt conducts presidential duties from Port Everglades and ...

 

March 24, 1936 at Port Everglades

By Jane Feehan


Presidents’ vacations have garnered notice throughout U.S. history; Franklin D. Roosevelt’s annual spring fishing trip was no exception.

Roosevelt came to Fort Lauderdale by train March 23, 1936 where he boarded the USS Monaghan at Port Everglades. The party rendezvoused at sea with the president's yacht, the Potomac, a converted Coast Guard cutter. FDR boarded the vessel for an inaugural ride. During the expedition, Roosevelt hooked a large sailfish, which escaped, and then landed a bonita. The excursion ended by early afternoon.

Roosevelt also conducted business that day while docked at Fort Lauderdale.

Major General Johnson Hagood met with the president en route to Fort Lauderdale after making some controversial remarks before a congressional committee about federal work relief expenditures. The day after the meeting, the decorated general was ordered by Roosevelt, still in Port Everglades, to take three months leave of absence.

Hagood’s leave lasted less than two months when he received a new command. He accepted the command for one day and then retired. His memories of Fort Lauderdale, no doubt, were not as fond as those held by Roosevelt.
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Sources:
Palm Beach Daily News, March 24, 1936

Weidling, Philip J., Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press (1966).

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, President Franklin D Roosevelt, Florida fishing history, Major General Johnson Hagood, film research

First U.S. high-speed hydrofoil sails from Port Everglades

US Navy hydrofoil PHM-1Pegasus 1970 (not HS Denison)
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

The nation’s first oceangoing hydrofoil, the H.S. Denison, sailed out of Port Everglades February 2, 1964 for a sea trial. The vessel, first of its kind designed for high speeds over rough waters, was scheduled for passenger service between Fort Lauderdale and Nassau.

Capt. P.O. Clarke ran the vessel through an impressive test. At 23 knots, the 104.6 foot Denison began to rise from the water. At 30 knots it was free from the seas and at 50 knots it was “flying” on its foils with the hull five feet above the ocean.

Though its sea trial was impressive, the Denison remained an experimental vessel, a disappointment to many. The project, initially developed by the Marine Administration (MARAD) of the U.S. Department of Commerce, Aircraft Engine Corporation and General Electric, was coordinated by enthusiastic supporter Charles R. Denison in 1958. The group’s objective was to research possibilities for express cargo shipping and passenger travel at 200 knots. Dension died early in the ship’s design, which diminished impetus for and focus on the project in the years that followed.  

It was reported that 73 companies collectively invested more than $8 million to develop the hydrofoil named posthumously for its most ardent supporter. General Electric built a 14,000 horsepower gas turbine engine for the experimental 94-ton ship. The vessel was completed and launched June 5, 1962 by Grumman Corp. in Oyster Bay, Long Island. Sea trials commenced a few days later and were conducted along the eastern seaboard from Maine to Florida in ocean waters as high as nine feet.

The U.S. Navy withdrew its support of the project to pursue development of its own hydrofoil, which affected commercial plans for the H.S. Dension. Today, a ferry service from Port Everglades to Bimini operates at about 32 knots for passenger and cargo transport—considerably slower than Charles R. Denison envisioned during the 1950s. Maybe speed is why a solid business model for ferry service in this market seems elusive. 

Copyright © 2015. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

Miami News, Feb. 2, 1964

www.foils.org/denison.htm

https://foils.org/

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale historian, Port Everglades history, film researcher, hydrofoils, maritime history

Port Everglades welcomes Bay of Pigs prisoners, families

New arrivals aboard Shirley Lykes
Courtesy of Robert Del Pozo,
then child in center

By Jane Feehan

Most think of Miami as the debarkation city for Cuban exiles aboard ships after Fidel Castro came to power but Fort Lauderdale’s Port Everglades welcomed more than 2,000 Cuban citizens in 1962 and 63.

After the disastrous exile-led Bay of Pigs Invasion of April 1961, more than 1,000 men of Brigade 2506 were captured and convicted by the government of the island country. Some were executed, others sentenced to prison for life. Castro decided to ransom the remaining prisoners - and their families.  Successful negotiations for prisoner release and release of more than 1,000 relatives included ransom (“indemnification set by the revolutionary tribunal”)  of polio vaccine, tractors, food and other supplies.

Supplies and equipment totaling $53 million was gathered and sent to Fort Lauderdale. Ships affiliated with the Committee of American Ship Lines donated services to the Red Cross to expedite the exchange. Part of the ransom was loaded aboard the SS African Pilot in Fort Lauderdale Dec. 21, 1962. On December 27, 923 prisoners and family members aboard the returning ship entered Port Everglades to a warm welcome. Two days later, President John Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline met the ransomed prisoners in a Cuban freedom rally at the Orange Bowl. 

Other family members remaining in Cuba sought freedom.

Castro told the U.S. he would allow a second group of relatives free for another ransom. On Jan. 25, 1963, the SS Shirley Lykes entered Port Everglades with 1,170 Cuban passengers. They received a more subdued greeting than the one offered the African Pilot with its freed prisoners. Fourteen buses were on hand to take the exiles to Miami and six ambulances took some to hospitals.

The manifest included 390 men, 527 women and 253 children - 14 people on stretchers and the Del Pozo family pictured above. Adults told stories of having to leave keys to their homes and cars to Castro. Some felt they were too old to start again in the U.S. Others looked forward to new opportunities, new lives.

Each was given a bag at Port Everglades from the Red Cross with food and toiletries. Children received toys. The SS Shirley Lykes also came laden with 250,000 vials of polio vaccine; Castro said he didn’t need it. Some said it was because there wasn’t enough refrigeration on the island; others said he might have received it from another source.

For many of those exiles that winter, including the Del Pozo family pictured above, Fort Lauderdale provided their first glimpse of the U.S., their new country. 

Copyright © 2013. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources

Miami News, Dec 20, 1962

Palm Beach Post, Dec. 29, 1962

Miami News, Jan. 25, 1963

Tags: Cuban exiles in Port Everglades, Port Everglades history, Bay of Pigs, Fort Lauderdale history, film research