Fort Lauderdale: Once hustling little village with

Fort Lauderdale  New River circa 1910
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

Not much more than an overnight stop for the mail coach that traveled between Lemon City* and West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale in the 1890s was home to businessman Frank Stranahan and a few Seminoles. Many of us in Fort Lauderdale who have been here awhile know something about our early history, but below are a few numbers to add to the tale.

Stranahan’s trading post or mail stop (now a museum), sat on the banks of the New River, estimated at the time to average 26 feet in depth; ferry service was provided for its crossing. Eight rooms, eight by six feet were available for visitors at the post. Houses in the area at that time, according to news accounts, were constructed with thick red paper nailed to framing. Primitive times, however, would yield to land buying and farming, development and deal making--especially after Henry M. Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway carried its first passengers into Fort Lauderdale Feb. 22, 1896.

Farmers were soon drawn to the area by the rich, dark soil of the nearby Everglades. By 1905, it was reported they were growing profitable tomato crops in the east Everglades. 

“The territory around Fort Lauderdale has the world beaten when it comes to growing fine tomatoes,” wrote one reporter for the Miami Metropolis. Farmers also grew potatoes, cabbage and beans. An acre could yield up to $300 in vegetables. About 100,000 crates of vegetables were shipped out of Fort Lauderdale in 1909.

By 1910, a year of land speculation here, the “hustling little village” (as it was described) of Fort Lauderdale had grown with:

• About 1,500 residents (some accounts say 750). By 1911, 5,000 called the village home, thanks to a soon-to-go-bust speculative land boom;
• Two bridges spanning the New River;
• Two concrete buildings at the trading post with about 30 rooms—the New River Hotel and the Keystone. In all, three hotels in the village;
• Two boatyards;
• 50 buildings, mostly residences under construction, estimated by a reporter to range in cost from $300 to $10,000 (an unrealistically high estimate?);
• A public school nearing completion;
• Methodist church about complete for $4,000; a Baptist church constructed for $3,500;
• A three-story Masonic temple for $8,000;
• Fort Lauderdale State Bank built for $2,500 (without fixtures);
• Three general stores.

More than 20,000 farmers, a reporter wrote, settled in the area; about 200,000 acres were sold with shaky (and shady) speculative plans to sell in 10-acre allotments. Fort Lauderdale Fruit Lands Company purchased 2,000 acres a mile north of New River and two of three canals constructed to drain the Everglades emptied into that river. The drainage project to extend farming and prevent crop flooding eventually failed. Farm prospects diminished—along with the land boom—but Fort Lauderdale was incorporated as a town (not enough qualified voters for a city) March 27, 1911.  The town limit was set at one and one-half miles square.

Today, this “hustling little village” sits on more than 36 square miles, is home to about 177,000 and is among the top ten largest cities in the state.

Fort Lauderdale, 2018

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*Lemon City never incorporated and held loose borders extending from NW 54 Street to approximately NW 79 Street in Miami, today’s “Little Haiti.”

Sources:

Miami Metropolis, June 1, 1905

Miami Metropolis, Sept. 3, 1910

Miami Daily Metropolis, March 28, 1911

City of Fort Lauderdale

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

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale farming, Everglades farming, Florida East Coast Railroad history