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| Osceola Hotel in Fort Lauderdale, circa 1910 Florida State Archives |
Some say the Osceola Hotel was Fort Lauderdale’s first, but Frank Stranahan’s trading post hosted visitors before 1900.
Visitors to Fort Lauderdale at this time were mostly in town for work or business, such as land sales or trade rather than sight seeing. There wasn't much to see, beaches were not easily accessed until 1917. Hopes were high for developing the Everglades into farms before attention turned east.
Early visitors stayed at the Osceola Hotel, also referred to as the Osceola Inn.
The large wooden structure started out in 1904 as a packing house for the Osceola Fruit and Vegetable Company at Wall Street and Brickell Avenue (later site of Brown’s Restaurant, a popular hangout of local politicians for decades).
The packing company failed and M.A. and William Marshall, Fort Lauderdale's first mayor, purchased the property in 1906. It’s not clear who converted it into a hotel but several claimed they did, including builder-developer Henry R. Brown of North Carolina or Tennessee (his home reference depends on news accounts). Don Farnsworth, a local resident and businessman, also claimed he did. The Fort Lauderdale Land and Development Company probably was in the ownership mix after the packing company closed.
What is certain is the Osceola was a place local families, including that of early Fort Lauderdale artist J. Melvin Ziegler, entertained themselves by watching visitors come and go. Also confirmed, the Osceola Hotel escaped Fort Lauderdale’s first major fire June 1, 1912. Most of the businesses burned to the ground in the city’s only downtown district before help could arrive. It was reported the hotel was saved by dynamiting intervening buildings.
The Osceola Hotel was not so lucky a year later. It was destroyed in fire “all by itself,” July 17, 1913.
For more on the 1912 fire, see:
Another early hotel:
https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2019/01/las-olas-inn-long-gone-and-mostly.html
Sources:
Fort
Lauderdale News, July 22, 1938
Fort Lauderdale News,
Feb. 19, 1938
Fort Lauderdale News,
April 22, 1940
Fort Lauderdale News,
Nov 27, 1951
Fort
Lauderdale News, July
17, 1953
Fort
Lauderdale News, Sept.
2, 1955
Weidling, Philip J., Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine.
Gainesville: University of Florida Press (1966)
Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale hotel history, History of Fort Lauderdale
