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| Anglin's Pier, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea |
By Jane Feehan
Billed as a seaside sub-division, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea was originally platted by William F. Morang in 1924. He bought the property with $10 down, $250 in revenue stamps and a $50,000 mortgage from Henry S. Moody and John C. Gregory.
By 1925, zenith of Florida boom times, Morang’s advertisements for Lauderdale-by-the-Sea were promising increased lot prices. In 1927, the town elected its first mayor, Melvin Anglin. The boom soon went bust, Morang defaulted on mortgage payments, and the town’s charter was revoked by the state in 1933. It wasn’t until Nov. 30, 1947 that Lauderdale-by-the-Sea was again incorporated. Margaret Linardy was elected mayor of the new town, making her the first woman mayor in the state.
A few words about Morang: A better self promoter than developer, he announced the building of two hotels in Fort Lauderdale in 1925. Headlines claimed the hotels, one dubbed as “The Morang,” would cost about $1.5 million each. Construction was to start within 60 days; it didn’t. Morang also began developing Nurmi Isles off Las Olas; he didn’t complete that project either. He had more success developing the land for Fort Lauderdale's Rio Vista. Morang left South Florida at the end of the boom, but returned in 1936 to sell 200 Rio Vista lots in a less-than-enthusiastic market. He made a final Fort Lauderdale exit soon after.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.
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Sources:
Miami News, Nov. 28, 1924, p. 31
Miami News, Nov. 7, 1925, p. 38.
Miami News, March 2, 1926 p. 53
Weidling, Philip and Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainnesville: University of Florida Press: 1966
Richard. Candice. Seventy-Three Years By The Sea. Lauderdale-by-the-Sea: Community Church of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea: 2000.
Tags: Florida history, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea history, WF Morang and Son, Florida in the 1920s.
