Fort Lauderdale’s Sailboat Bend, once known as the “West Side,” was designated a historic district in 1992. It is the first neighborhood in the city so deemed.
The historic area sits within an area bounded by the F.E.C. Railway tracks on its east, Broward Boulevard on its north, and by the New River on the south and west. It’s accessible just a block or two beyond the Broward Center for the Performing Arts at 201 SW Fifth Avenue or via Sunrise Boulevard near the historic 11th Avenue Bridge. A sign indicates its boundary.
Sailboats give rise to thoughts about travel and adventure or simplicity and leisurely living. Those notions were probably held in varying degrees by sailing enthusiasts (“many young married couples”) who found their way to Fort Lauderdale during the early 1940s and moored their boats along the most extreme bend in the New River. It was during those years that the area was first referred to as Sailboat Bend. The city Commission confirmed it as a subdivision in 1945.
Sailboat Bend’s history reaches back centuries before its subdivision days.
It is thought Tequesta Indians lived there centuries ago—long before the Seminoles arrived in South Florida during the late 1700s. Artifacts of Indian inhabitants reportedly have been found there.
Some say the area was the site of the first fort built during the Second Seminole War (1835-42) by Major William Lauderdale, for whom the city is named. It is also written that the neighborhood is where the Cooley (or Colee) family was massacred in 1835—not at the now-named Colee Hammock Park at 1500 Brickell Drive (south fork of the New River). Their massacre may have been cause for Lauderdale's deployment to the New River area.
It is thought Tequesta Indians lived there centuries ago—long before the Seminoles arrived in South Florida during the late 1700s. Artifacts of Indian inhabitants reportedly have been found there.
Some say the area was the site of the first fort built during the Second Seminole War (1835-42) by Major William Lauderdale, for whom the city is named. It is also written that the neighborhood is where the Cooley (or Colee) family was massacred in 1835—not at the now-named Colee Hammock Park at 1500 Brickell Drive (south fork of the New River). Their massacre may have been cause for Lauderdale's deployment to the New River area.
During the 20th century, the project to drain the Everglades, promoted by Governor Napoleon Bonaparte Broward (1905-1909), began in Sailboat Bend with the staging of dredging equipment for construction of two canals. Fort Lauderdale is often referred to as “Gateway to the Everglades,” thus a reasonable point of entry for the drainage project.
Society pages in the newspapers during the 1940s referred to parties on some of the boats and the comings and goings of notables who docked at the bend during the winter. This non-historic area currently lies in the center of the toniest part of downtown Fort Lauderdale.
Proximity to downtown and the beauty of the river was not lost on those who sought profits selling lots along the bend in 1945. A group of owner-realtors, including resident Wen Mulligan, advertised "28 lots along the bend at Southwest 5th Avenue and Southwest 5th Street for $42,000 for sale ... easy terms." Given the crazy high prices of the 1920s in Fort Lauderdale, that price rings cheap if it was for all the lots.
In 1963 a prescient if not lucky developer wanted 600 feet to be vacated at the bend to make way for six high-rise buildings with 1,500 apartments. The proposal was nixed then, but today the same area, just outside the historic neighborhood, is the site of several spectacular buildings with hundreds of rental and condo units.
Sailboat Bend residents have objected, to no avail, to the number of social agencies built on the nearby Broward Boulevard perimeter of their neighborhood: a Salvation Army homeless shelter, an alcohol rehab facility, the Broward School Board and other agencies. A drive through Sailboat Bend streets seems worlds away.
About 2,200-2,800 residents reside in historic Sailboat Bend. The ordinance designating its historic status is reviewed every 10 years.
It’s not only worth a look, Sailboat Bend also deserves preservation of the city's largest collection of historic homes.
Below: Aerial view- New River 1929
Florida State Archives/Hoit
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Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.
Sources:
City of Fort Lauderdale
Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Sept. 30, 1942
Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Oct. 19, 1942
Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Aug. 19, 1943
Fort Lauderdale Daily News, July 14, 1945
Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Oct. 17, 1945
Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Nov. 1, 1945
Fort Lauderdale News, Sept. 4, 1963
Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 25, 1963
Fort Lauderdale News, Aug. 16, 1987
South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Jan. 8, 1988
South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Jan. 29, 1989
South Florida Sun-Sentinel, June 25, 1990
Tags: Historic Neighborhoods in Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale in the 1940s, Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale neighborhoods