Fort Lauderdale: from plow and trowel to beach towel

Fort Lauderdale Beach

 

By Jane Feehan

Settlers first came to Fort Lauderdale with farming in mind. It was the Everglades they set their hopes on; its rich dark muck was a farmer’s dream—if the Everglades could be drained.

To promote interest in developing farmlands in 1911-1912, city pioneers and Board of Trade delegates traveled to nearby cities by train with a large banner advertising Fort Lauderdale as Gateway to the Everglades. The message: “Our little town is the gateway that leads not only to the Everglades but to success.”

A variety of promotions were used to entice settlers into farm life. In 1911, The Everglades Land Sales Company advertised a "celebration" or exhibition to show off a swamp plow, the Buckeye Traction Pulverizer. A successful tool in Louisiana, it was sure to be in Florida. It could plow 10 acres a day at $3 per acre unlike the “old way” at $6 per acre. Prospective land–and plow—buyers were directed to Fort Lauderdale where they could take a boat to the South Canal and to the company’s experimental farm. It was expected to “attract a large number of people.” (No follow up on this claim.)

In 1922, even though hopes waned about draining the Everglades, the Carmichael Development Company touted Fort Lauderdale as the “Key City to the East Coast of Tomorrow.” The community it was promoting, Placidena, did not sit in the Everglades but in town (today a city subdivision).

Everglades postcard 1935
Florida State Archives

Advertisements shifted away from Everglades by the mid-1920s. Draining exploits failed; Mother Nature prevailed. Messaging was different.

Seaboard Holding Company ads elevated new reasons for moving to Fort Lauderdale while lowering prominence of the Everglades:

• It is on the ocean
• It is on Dixie Highway
• It is below the frostline
• It is at the Everglades
• It is 26 miles north of Miami
• It is 41 miles south of Palm Beach
• The FEC (Florida East Coast Railway)
• The Seaboard Air Line Railway is coming through (airline here refers to shortest rail route)
• The New River is 90 feet deep, right in the city
• It has churches, schools, banks, hotels, golf courses, fishing, bathing, boating and a wonderful climate all year round.

Today, most are moving here for many of the reasons above but even more important, to get away from other states. Many will be unhappy residents during summers when weather is not wonderful but might feel at home with the congested roads and ubiquitous high rise condos.

Fort Lauderdale 2021

For more on draining the Everglades see index or use search box.

Copyright © 2022 All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

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Sources:

Miami Daily Metropolis, Jan. 23, 1911

Miami Daily Metropolis, July 19, 1911

Miami Herald, Dec. 30, 1922

Miami Herald, April 7, 1926

Tags: Gateway to the Everglades, Fort Lauderdale development, Everglades farming, Fort Lauderdale land sales, Fort Lauderdale history

Everglades birds slaughtered for fashion, spur Audubon societies and the conservation movement

Black-crowned night heron 

on Santa Fe Lake Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

By Jane Feehan

In the late 19^th century, the plume trade in the U.S. and Europe grew at the expense of hundreds of thousands of Florida birds. Their feathers, used to adorn women’s hats, were worth about 75 cents apiece in New York. The American egret and the snowy egret were targeted, along with other wading birds, in rookeries (breeding places) just south of Okeechobee in the Everglades. 

Wood Stork

Hunters came into the swampy area and clubbed and scalped birds by night. The young offspring of Everglades birds were orphaned and starved to death or fell prey to other animals. The Florida legislature passed a law prohibiting the slaughter in 1877, but it was ignored. In just four years all rookeries south of Okeechobee were destroyed.

In protest, people against the decimation of birds for their feathers established Audubon societies across the nation in the 1890s, launching what was probably the first modern American conservation movement.

For more on the founding of the Audubon Society see: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-two-women-ended-the-deadly-feather-trade-23187277/


Copyright © 2010, 2021. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:
www.audubonmagazine.org/features0412/hats.html

     Douglas, Marjory Stoneman, The Everglades, River of Grass. Banyan Books,1978.

Wood Storks

Tags: Florida birds, Florida bird slaughter, Florida history, Everglades

Napoleon Bonaparte Broward and Everglades drainage disappointment

Former Gov. Jennings w Gov. Broward (r)
on Everglades tour 1906, Florida State Archive

By Jane Feehan


Few governors of Florida can claim the notoriety and impact of its 19th governor, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward (1857-1910).

Born in the Jacksonville area, Broward drew national attention for smuggling weapons aboard his steamship, The Three Friends, to aid Cubans in their war for independence from Spain. He ran arms for three years until President McKinley declared war against Spain in 1898.

Broward’s political career included a stint as Duval County Sheriff and one term in the Florida House of Representatives (Democrat) before he became governor.

He ran for governor with a platform that included a plan to drain the Everglades. Thus evolved the notion “Empire of the Everglades,” an idea that reverberated throughout the country, and especially in South Florida. He said canals used for draining could also be used for transportation. “Look at Egypt and the Nile,” he said, or “Look at Holland.” It wasn’t a new idea, but appealed to many with dreams of farming - or land speculation. Broward took office in January, 1905 and served until 1909.

1916 cartoon: disappointment 
Everglades not drained ,
Florida State Archives

Under his administration, the Florida legislature established a Board of Drainage Commissioners to take charge of the Everglades project. To move forward on the plan, they created drainage districts, issued millions of dollars in bonds and levied taxes. Broward also managed to secure federal funds. By the time he left office, many claimed that Broward had drained the Everglades, when in fact, he had just begun.

The drainage project spawned a Fort Lauderdale land boom in 1910, but by the 1920s, its feasibility was in doubt. During the 1928 hurricane, a muck dyke at Lake Okeechobee, part of the drainage plan, broke; more than 2,000 died.

Everglades champion Marjorie Stoneman Douglas denounced the drainage project in her book, The Everglades: River of Grass. She claimed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, while building the muck dyke, failed to note rivers that used to flow naturally from Lake Okeechobee, some “100 feet wide and 10 or more feet deep” that drained the lake for a mile or two. Broward’s project, she wrote, left a legacy of damage, destroying wild life, natural habitats, and covering Indian burial mounds.

Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, nevertheless, captured the imagination of those who helped transform Florida into today’s reality. Broward County was established in 1915; the use of his name was an affirmation of his vision for the area. Copyright © 2011. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

For the first attempt to drain the Everglades in 1881, see: https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/09/hamilton-disston-and-early-attempt-to.html
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Sources:
Douglas, Marjorie Stoneman. The Everglades: River of Grass. Miami: Banyan Books, 1978.
Weidling, Philip, and Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1966
www.broward.org
www.Wikipedia.org

Courtesy Broward County Commission

Tags: Florida history, Everglades drainage, Broward County history, Everglades history, Fort Lauderdale history, Florida Everglades, Florida in the early 1900s

Hamilton Disston and an early attempt to drain the Everglades

Disston dredge Saint Cloud Canal circa 1890
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory 

By Jane Feehan

Draining the Everglades, a project often associated with Broward County’s namesake and former Governor Napoleon Broward, was launched by Philadelphia millionaire Hamilton Disston in 1881. Disston, overshadowed by railroad barons Henry Flagler and Henry Plant in Florida history, played a significant role in the development of the state.

The son of the nation’s largest saw manufacturer, Disston first visited Florida in 1877. Florida, as other states in the South, struggled financially after the Civil War.  The Internal Improvement Fund of the State of Florida, holder of 14,000,000 acres, was in receivership. In 1881, 37-year-old Disston bought 4,000,000 acres for 25 cents per acre, making him the nation’s largest individual landowner. He saved the state from insolvency. With the purchase, Disston entered into a contract to drain and reclaim acreage in the Everglades at his own expense. Compensation was to be half the lands he managed to drain.

  

Disston set up headquarters for his work at a small trading post named Allendale. Later named Kissimmee, the site was also used by the new land tycoon to build steamboats for canal travel. The first canals, from three to nine miles long, were dredged off Lake Okeechobee, one to Lake Hicpochee.

The success of the drainage work depended on lowering Lake Okeechobee water levels; ultimately Disston was unable to accomplish this. His drainage operations ended in 1889.  Disston is also credited with establishing the state’s first sugar plantation near Kissimmee, leading to the founding of St. Cloud. 

Disston died suddenly in 1896 at 51. Some say he committed suicide because of financial difficulties; an obituary in The New York Times claimed he died of heart disease. The same obituary also said his $1 million dollar life insurance policy was the second largest on an individual in the nation at the time.

Unsuccessful in draining the Everglades, Disston ignited dreams of those who saw agricultural promise in its mucky earth. Perhaps his attempts to tame Florida encouraged Henry Plant and Henry Flagler to build their Florida railroad empires. 

Sources:

Palm Beach Post, Nov. 30, 1919, pg. 4

Miami News, March 10, 1923, pg. 6

Miami News, Oct. 20, 1962, pg. 17

New York Times, May 1, 1896

Tags: Florida history, Everglades drainage, Napoleon Broward, Florida canals, Florida steamboats