Bay Mabel Harbor, now Port Everglades, opens with a mishap

 

Lake Mabel/early Port Everglades, 1928
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

By Jane Feehan


Port Everglades opened as Bay Mabel Harbor in 1928. Joseph W. Young visualized a “world class seaport” as part of his Hollywood-by-the-Sea development of the 1920s.

The body of water was known many years as Lake Mabel but some pointed out that the “lake,” which sat in both Hollywood and Fort Lauderdale, was actually a bay with ocean access. The really curious may ask about the Mabel part of the name.

It was reported in a 1926 Miami News story that a Jacksonville resident made a survey of the area in 1870 and named what’s now Port Everglades as “Bay Mabel” for either the mother or wife of Arthur T. Williams. Who is Arthur T. Williams? He is the first to have platted a parcel of land for sale in Fort Lauderdale in 1887; it was to be called “Palm City.” The surveyor of Bay Mabel was his father.

When Bay Mabel Harbor opened in February, 1928, President Calvin Coolidge was supposed to hit a remote button to set off an explosive to clear final access to the ocean but for some reason he didn’t. Local engineers, to the disappointment of the crowd on hand for the occasion, set off the explosive instead.

Soon after, the Fort Lauderdale Woman’s Club held a contest to re-name the port. Port Everglades took the prize. And what happened to Joseph Young? He continued to develop Hollywood but because of the land bust and expense to dredge Bay Mabel, personally dropped out of the harbor project. Funding was left to the cities of Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood (acting as the Broward County Port Authority) and the federal government.

Harbor Inlet with condos 1989
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

______________

Sources:
Gillis, Susan. Fort Lauderdale, The Venice of America. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2004.
Weidling, Philip, and Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1966.
Palm Beach Post, Sept. 21, 1925
Miami News, Apr. 18, 1926


Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Port Everglades history, waterway history, Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood history, Lake Mabel, Florida in the early 1900s

Frank Croissant: "World's greatest salesman"

Once touted the “World’s Greatest Salesman,” Brooklyn-born Frank Croissant bought nearly 1,200 acres for $1.25 million in 1924 south of New River to develop his Croissant Park. The following year, Croissant spent $215,000, an enormous amount of money for the time, for advertising. A few ads were for salesmen.

In a 1924 advertisement,  Croissant asserts he was “sixteen years ago a teller in a small bank in Brooklyn, today one of the world’s largest real estate operators with a sales record of $20,000,000!”

Text-heavy, the ad describes working conditions at the Croissant Park sales office:

Here you will find supreme satisfaction … an atmosphere that breeds success in any man unless he’s downright worthless. There is no bickering here, no jealousy, no discord – nothing but happiness and success.

In the same advertisement, Croissant said a lesson he learned from Henry Ford was to make salesmen "co-workers of the employer."

Croissant Park remains one of Fort Lauderdale's oldest subdivisions*. Frank Croissant bought property throughout South Florida, including an area in Palm Beach County that was to be called “North Palm Beach Heights,” at the western end of what became Donald Ross Road. His widow began the project in the mid 1950s but later abandoned it. 

* For more on Croissant, see: 

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2023/09/fort-lauderdales-croissant-park-and-its.html

Sources:

Gillis, Susan. Fort Lauderdale, Venice of America. Great Britain: Arcadia Publishing, 2004

Miami News Feb. 19, 1924

Miami News Feb. 24, 1925

Miami News, Jan. 19, 1926

Palm Beach Post, Oct 1, 1972

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Florida developer, Florida history, Fort Lauderdale in the 1920s, film research

Countess Lauderdale and the Floranada Club: "a Biarritz nearer to home"

By Jane Feehan

Boom times in early Fort Lauderdale attracted the interest of a few well-heeled Palm Beach winter visitors, including the Countess of Lauderdale. Married to the head of Scottish Clan Maitland, she discovered Fort Lauderdale while boating down the waterways in 1923.

Lauderdale, no relation to the city’s namesake, Major William Lauderdale, helped found the American British Improvement Society and then bought 8,000 acres south of Cypress Creek (some of it oceanfront property) to develop.

She involved Palm Beach notables Mrs. E.T. Stotesbury (owner of the first Mizner-designed home on the island), Mrs. Horace Dodge, John S. Pillsbury, and others in a venture to create another exclusive winter resort, Floranada (a combination of names Florida and Canada) Club . It was incorporated in 1925 and included the Oakland Park community.

A 1926 advertisement for the development reminds one of today’s sales hype:

     A golden beach in a sapphire sea – boating, tennis, golf, youth and life

     and laughter –that’s Biarritz. Let’s build a Biarritz nearer to home,” said

     some of the foremost financiers of America.

    

And so it began. Ads claimed the King of Greece was to make the Floranada Club his winter home. A golf course was planned, fancy boats were bought, and building started on the Floranada Inn, near today’s 45^th Street and Federal Highway. In a year or two, the dream of these “foremost financiers” turned into a nightmare. In 1928, the principals of the collapsed American British Improvement Association were sued for $250,000 for falsely claiming to be well financed when they weren’t.

When you pass 45^th Street, also known as Floranada Road, remember the Biarritz (France) that wasn’t.  

__________

Sources:

Gillis, Susan. Fort Lauderdale, The Venice of America. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2004

Miami News, Jan. 22, 1926 
Palm Beach Post, Jul. 20, 1928

Tags: Florida history, Fort Lauderdale history,early Fort Lauderdale developers, Florida in the early 1900s, Floranada Club

Merle Fogg: Fort Lauderdale's first aviator a man of several firsts

Merle Fogg
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

 

By Jane Feehan  

Fort Lauderdale’s first airport, Merle Fogg Field, opened on an abandoned golf course May 1, 1929 – a year after its namesake died in an air crash in West Palm Beach.

Several firsts are credited to Merle Fogg (1898-1928), Fort Lauderdale’s first aviator. He was the first licensed pilot in Maine, the first to fly a plane from Maine to Florida, the first to land a plane on Andros Island and on New Providence Island (Nassau).

With his airplane, Fogg helped create a snapshot of Broward County during good and bad times.  His flights over the county provided a picture of possibilities during the land boom days of the early 1920s. After the hurricane of 1926, Fogg flew reporters over its aftermath, giving them an opportunity to capture the extent of  the storm’s destruction.

On the day of the fatal crash, Fogg had invited 22-year-old Thomas Lochrie, son of Fort Lauderdale pioneer and president of Broward Bank and Trust Co.,  John Lochrie, on a ride to Miami to photograph the Shrine convention. When he returned to the hangar, student pilot C.S. Nelson invited them for a ride. Nelson was at the controls when the plane went into a tailspin and crashed. He survived with minor injuries; Fogg and Lochrie were killed.

A year later, the city of Fort Lauderdale converted Southside Golf Course into Merle Fogg Field. Fogg had long hoped the city would open an air field. The Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Station opened at the site during World War II and today, Merle Fogg Field is the site of the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. 

Merle Fogg is buried in Bangor, Maine.

Sources:

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

Fort Lauderdale News, May 7, 1978

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale's first aviator, Merle Fogg, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, film researcher, History of Fort Lauderdale

Fort Lauderdale's early golf courses and the one still operating today

 

Broward County golf course in construction 1973
State of Florida Archives

By Jane Feehan

Fort Lauderdale embraced golf as a way to promote the city and draw tourists as early as 1921.  The city’s first course, a nine-hole affair, was built off Dixie Highway (today the site of the Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport) to attract visitors on their way to Miami. President-elect Warren Harding played a round there shortly after the fairway opened.

Golf expanded in December 1926 with construction of the Westside Golf Course. A tournament between Miami and Palm Beach pros opened the two-course  attraction (one was 18 holes, the other, nine). Reporters of the time described Westside as providing 6,410 yards to play with a par 71. There was one long hole of 830 yards, several of 500 yards, and others of 200. Greens fees were $1.50 per day or $30 per month. Memberships were offered at $50.

The clubhouse opened January 1927. Fort Lauderdale architect Francis L. Abreu* designed most of it. The Miami News listed the golf course architect as Capt. H.C.C. Tippett.

Today, Westside is the beautiful 36-hole Fort Lauderdale Golf and Country Club, four miles from 

downtown. Its clubhouse underwent a $4.8 million renovation in 2007. It stands as the oldest private country club in South Florida.  Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

*Abreu left Fort Lauderdale after the 1926 hurricane a few months prior. See a list of his designs at: 

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/08/fort-lauderdales-first-architect.html

For more on Fort Lauderdale golf, see:

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2013/02/golf-deemed-game-for-fat-old-feeble.html
---------- 

Sources:

Gillis, Susan. Fort Lauderdale: The Venice of America. Charleston: Arcadia (2004).

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

Miami News, Nov. 29, 1926, p. 11

Fort Lauderdale Golf and Country Club

http://www.fortlauderdalecc.com/Club/Scripts/Home/home.asp

For golf in South Florida, the Fort Lauderdale area, visit:  http://www.sunny.org/sports/golf/

Tags: Fort Lauderdale golf history, West Side Golf course, Fort Lauderdale in the 1920s, first golf course in Fort Lauderdale, South Florida golf, golfing in Fort Lauderdale, South Florida golfing, film researcher, Fort Lauderdale history, history of fort Lauderdale

Fort Lauderdale's first architect, Francis Abreu, leaves some familiar landmarks

 

A 1920s-era Abreu-designed home, now Casablanca Cafe
on A1A, near Las Olas

By Jane Feehan

While Palm Beach and Boca Raton bear the imprint of Addison Mizner’s distinctive style, Fort Lauderdale can also claim the influence of one architect during the 1920s land boom.

Francis Luis Abreu (1896-1969), son of Cuban sugar plantation owners Diego and Marie Abreu, moved to Fort Lauderdale (where they resided) after graduating from Cornell University. 

Early in his career, Abreu designed a winter home for his grandfather, Juan Jacinto Jova (today the Casablanca Cafe), and moved on to other buildings. His work featured barrel tile roofs, twisted columns, arched walk-ways, antique lanterns, iron gates and heavy dark wooden doors.

His Fort Lauderdale architecture includes (all projects not listed):

The Moroccan-style Casablanca Café at 3049 Alhambra St., Fort Lauderdale beach, a 1920s era home converted to a restaurant

Casino Swimming Pool, 1928

Las Olas Sailboat Bend Fire Station

Dania Beach Hotel, 1925

Needham House, 1925

The Saint Anthony School at 820 NE. 3rd St.,Ft. Lauderdale, 1926, which is on the National Register of Historic Places

The Fort Lauderdale County Club, 1926

Old Post Office at 330 SW 2nd Street, 1927

Riverside Hotel, 720 E. Las Olas Blvd., 1936 (today, the city's oldest hotel, it opened as the Champ Carr Hotel )

Towers Apartments, 824 SE 2nd St. (once largest apartment building, now a retirement home and awarded Broward County historic designation in 2015)

Abreu moved to Georgia where he formed a partnership with James Robeson (Abreu and Robeson) and gained recognition for designing the Cloister Hotel on Sea Island, a home for playwright Eugene O’Neal, also on Sea Island, and a number of public buildings.

Note: Architect John Peterman of Miami also designed a number of public buildings before or concurrently with Abreu. He also lived in Fort Lauderdale. 

Copyright © 2020 All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

________

Sources:
  McIver, Stuart. Glimpses of South Florida History. Miami: Florida Flair Books, 1988. 

  Abreu Foundation

Ancestry

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale architecture, Florida history, Francis L Abreu

Oldest operating swing bridge in Florida: Fort Lauderdale's Snow-Reed Bridge

By Jane Feehan

A Broward Cultural Heritage Landmark, the Snow-Reed Bridge (11th Avenue bridge) over the north fork of New River in Fort Lauderdale is the oldest operating metal truss swing bridge in the state of Florida.

The bridge, built in 1924-1925 by Ohio-based Champion Bridge Co., replaced the single lane, hand-cranked version constructed in 1916 and in use until 1924. The span connected what was then considered the “western” Fort Lauderdale neighborhoods of Sailboat Bend and Riverside Park and was named for Mayors R.G. Snow (1924) and Will J. Reed (1925).  Both presided over some of the city’s growth of the booming 1920s.

The Snow-Reed Bridge, with a span of nearly 150 feet, was rehabbed in 1980. Frank White, a south Florida resident with deep roots in the area, served as project engineer. 

White said the superstructure of the bridge was disconnected, set afloat on barges and secured one block east. The center pier was totally replaced as was machinery and electrical components. There wasn’t enough money in the budget to replace the ring and pinion gears - part of the main drive mechanisms.

“These components were in very poor condition,” recalled White.  “To have them manufactured would have cost $65,000 plus labor to install.” 

He discussed the issue with his father, O.E. White, Jr., a retired Florida Department Of Transportation project engineer and Ft. Lauderdale native who had an idea. He suggested his son speak to Chief Langford who worked for Powell Brothers, a local bridge contractor that had replaced many of the old swing bridges in Ft. Lauderdale.  

“The old chief took me out into his bone yard,” said White. “He located an old ring and pinion gear in perfect condition and gave it to Ft. Lauderdale.  For some reason and to my knowledge the city did not use those parts at that time.”

White has fond memories of the Snow-Reed bridge rehab project.  

“I had some wonderful conversations with the old bridge tender and heard some great stories. My favorite was the time a sail boat got hung up on a sand bar west of the bridge. The old tender and the captain secured a line to the end of the bridge and the tender hand cranked the bridge and pulled the boat to deeper water.”

Snow-Reed is a piece of Fort Lauderdale history that revives memories of early Florida living and presents a majestic sight as it gently swings open and closes for boat traffic. This picturesque bridge lies three or four blocks south of Broward Boulevard off Palm or 11th Avenue. 

Another swing bridge operates in South Florida - the Point Chosen Turnstile Bridge in Belle Glade. 

Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Tags: South Florida swing bridges, South Florida bridges, swing bridge in Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale history, Sailboat Bend, Riverside Park, Broward Cultural Heritage landmark,film industry researcher 

Fort Lauderdale's second judge, Fred Shippey: "new fangled" gambling, a house preserved, and Johnny Weissmuller

Shippey House restored

      

220 SW 3rd Ave

Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301

By Jane Feehan

A piece of old Fort Lauderdale, the Shippey House, was moved from its original location at 215 SW 7th Ave. to "Old Fort Lauderdale," near the Fort Lauderdale Historical Society in 2011. There, it underwent restoration and was completed in 2016.  

The house, more than 100 years old, is of interest to historical preservationists because it was constructed of tough - and now extinct - Dade County pine and was one of a very few two-story cottages built about 1914. It was also home to Fred B. Shippey (1877-1934), Broward County’s second judge.

Not a lot is known about Judge Shippey. Records indicate he was born in Illinois, that his father was a judge and that they declared themselves farmers on a census.  Father, son and family moved to Fort Lauderdale  in 1912. Fred Shippey succeeded the first county judge, JF Bunn, who held the post from 1915 until his death in 1920. Shippey probably did not hold a law degree (not unusual at the time and in some states, like Texas, not unheard of today).

It was thought Judge Shippey served well and honestly (1920-1933). He also assisted disabled children throughout the state and belonged to an organization that built a hospital for them. In looking through  old newspaper archives, I did find something interesting about his legal career.

In 1927 the judge rendered a decision that a “new fangled wagering system” at Pompano race track (not today’s Pompano Park but a predecessor) was not gambling. The system operated on the premise that wagers were really donations to horse owners (don’t laugh). This infuriated Gov. John W. Martin who sided with the Florida Supreme Court in its decision to close the race track to end all semblance of gambling.

The governor sent a letter to Broward Sheriff Paul C. Bryan demanding that he shut down the track that afternoon and if he didn’t he would be replaced. So would Judge Shippey, if he did not cooperate. Miami attorney James M. Carson, long an active agent to close the track, remarked that it was the first time in history a case was appealed from the supreme court of Florida to a county judge. “I like Judge Fred Shippey,” said Carson. “ ‘Brutus is an honorable man.’ May it be remembered that Brutus had distinguished company.”  

Gambling had a wide circle of protectors in Broward County until nearly 1950.

Judge Shippey presided over criminal and other cases and conducted many marriages. Among the marriages he performed was that of swimming athlete and film star (Tarzan), Johnny Weissmuller to Broadway actress Bobby Arnst in March, 1931. The couple met weeks before on Valentine's Day. They divorced in 1933.

CP Tours (Cycle Party) a sightseeing tour agency, occupies the house: https://fortlauderdale.cycleparty.com/about/

 During the moving process in 2011

 Tags: History of Fort Lauderdale, Gambling in Broward in the 1920s, Judge Shippey, Pompano race track in the 1920s, Fort Lauderdale history, old Fort Lauderdale architecture, old Fort Lauderdale homes, film researcher

Sources:

Miami News, March 12, 1927.

Sacramento Bee, March 5, 1931

Shippyhouse.org

Sun-Sentinel, May 31, 2012.

Fort Lauderdale Tarpons - Minor League Baseball, city pastime, Westside Park and ...

Before Westside Park, Stranahan Field, Fort Lauderdale High School
 State Archives of Florida

By Jane Feehan

Fort Lauderdale was fully engaged in baseball, the National Pastime*, by 1913. That’s when pioneer Frank Stranahan donated and cleared land for the sport. The Tarpons, later acknowledged as the “representative team” of the city, played its first game July 4 that year against Stuart at the new Stranahan Field.

The city upped its endorsement of baseball as a community pastime in 1925 by designating $15,000 for construction of Municipal Field, later known as Westside Park. Located off Northwest 4^th Street, the four-acre park included a concrete grandstand for 600 spectators with concession stands to sell sandwiches and soft drinks. Lauded as perhaps the finest in the state, the park included dressing rooms and showers below the grandstand to serve home and away teams. Baseball stories and stats filled sports pages of the day, so a press box in the grandstand hosted assigned reporters and photographers. Bleachers were added after opening day, July 19, 1925.

As master of ceremonies at 3:30 that afternoon, Fort Lauderdale Mayor Will Reed proudly led the Tarpons from the dugout onto the field under rain-threatened skies. About 600 eager fans filled the grandstand. It was time for the team, managed by “Pop” Lewis, to “cross bats” with the Coconut Grove team, nicknamed the Schulzmen and managed by “Rabbit” Schulz.

Skies opened up after a few innings, soaking the field and equipment; the game was called but soon resumed. In the bottom of the ninth inning, the Tarpons lost to Coconut Grove 6-3, the first of a four-game loosing streak. According to the Fort Lauderdale News sports reporter Howard Babb, the “team lost after many innings of disturbed playing.”

The Tarpons, a Minor League Baseball team played in the Florida State League in 1928 when its teams included the Fort Meyers Palms, Clearwater Pelicans, West Palm Beach Sheriffs, the Sanford Celeryfeds, the Tampa Smokers and a list of others with just as interesting names. The Tarpons, affiliated with the Pittsburg Pirates, also played for the Florida East Coast League from 1940 to 1942. They won a championship in 1940. The roster of teams in the FECL included the Miami Beach Flamingos, the Miami Wahoos and the Fort Pierce Bombers.

The Fort Lauderdale Tarpons folded in 1942 due to financial difficulties and World War II concerns, but its demise did not spell the end of the city’s affiliation with baseball. Fort Lauderdale hosted spring training for the Boston Braves in 1946 (see https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/07/boston-braves-first-mlb-team-in-fort.html) and the New York Yankees for a few years beginning in 1962 (see https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/06/yankees-come-to-fort-lauderdale-in-1962.html)

Westside Park closed in 1957. Today, it is the site of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department Headquarters.

* The term  "National Pastime" was linked to baseball as early as 1856 in news stories.

Sources:

Miami Herald, July 18, 1921

Lineup for park's opening day, Jul. 19, 1925

Fort Lauderdale News, July 20,1925

Fort Lauderdale News, July 20, 1928

Fort Lauderdale News, April 26, 1942

Wikipedia

 Tags: Minor League Baseball, Fort Lauderdale baseball, National pastime, Fort Lauderdale history

Fort Lauderdale boom brings first bank heist, second in Broward County

By Jane Feehan

John Ashley, far right,
entering prison 

Fort Lauderdale’s boom era of the 1950s brought development, population growth, tourism—and the city’s first bank robbery.

Police records of the day report a robbery of the People’s Industrial Bank at 7 East Broward Boulevard, Oct. 10, 1952. Two robbers tied up several bank employees and made away with $9,028. A third participant drove the stolen getaway car, which was later found abandoned in the “Gateway section.”    

The trio continued their crime spree, which included a murder and other bank heists, one in Alabama for more than $30,000. Eventually, they were picked up by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But Lurton Lewis Heflin, Jr., Albert Sidney Denton and Samuel Jay Hornbeck were not brought to trial for the Fort Lauderdale robbery. Instead, they served lengthy sentences for a murder committed before the South Florida caper, their first bank robbery, and another murder after.

The first bank robbery in Broward County occurred decades earlier, a crime committed by the notorious Ashley gang in 1923 or 1924. Leaving their base camp in the Everglades near Fort Lauderdale, they summoned a cab for the job. They robbed the Bank of Pompano of a reported $23,000. The driver of the cab was then tied to a tree and given a bullet and message for Sheriff R.B. Baker to find them. Some accounts say the sheriff found them in the Everglades, shot and killed four. With activities of the gang cloaked in myth and hyperbole, accounts differ.

What is certain: John Ashley escaped the sheriff that day. But he and several gang members were killed in a shootout Nov. 1, 1924 at the Sebastian Bridge, about 25 miles north of Fort Pierce. Law enforcement had had enough of their South Florida antics.

Sources:

Douglas, Marjory Stoneman. Everglades: River of Grass. Miami: Banyan Books (1978)

Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 11, 1959

Fort Lauderdale News, Aug. 27, 1978

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 22, 1984



Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale crime, Fort Lauderdale in the 1920s, Fort Lauderdale in the 1950s, 

Fort Lauderdale's Victoria Park - then and now

January 1925

This advertisement came out less than two years before the devastating hurricane of 1926. It was the storm that ushered in the Great Depression in Florida before it cast its shadow across most other states.

And today? Recent sales include homes from $490,000 to well over $1 million. Others on the water fetch the highest prices. The area, which sits behind the Gateway Theater and along the Middle River, includes 30 percent of Fort Lauderdale's historically significant properties. About 7,000 residents call this beautiful neigborhood home.




Tags: Fort Lauderdale neighborhoods, Fort Lauderdale history, Victoria Park

Prohibition arrests leave Broward, Fort Lauderdale high and dry without local law enforcement

Man raising his glass in a toast. 19--.
 State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory.

By Jane Feehan

Liquor flowed to and from South Florida during Prohibition (1920-1933) and according to Jacksonville-based Federal Prohibition Administrator P.F. Hambsch, many across the nation knew about it.

In 1926 Hambsch decided to clean up that reputation.

In April that year, he wrote to Broward Sheriff Paul C. Bryan outlining the problem and asked for monthly reports on arrests of bootleggers and seizures to refute the widely-held notion that little was being done to enforce the law. According to Broward County Sheriff historian, William P. Cahill, Bryan said he “was ready to cooperate.”

Cooperation included Bryan’s invitation to send agents so he could get to know them. Unbeknown to Bryan, two agents were sent to work undercover as bootleggers for three months, gathering evidence for arrests. They paid $750 to the sheriff and his men in weekly installments of $5-$15.  

With protection payments, bootleggers enjoyed full police protection to make and then distribute booze to Miami, Palm Beach and other east coast resorts. There was evidence a few bootlegging rings were financed by some wealthy and respected citizens of Broward County and Fort Lauderdale. (And so evolved the moniker, Fort Liquordale).

In January 1927, raids were conducted by 18 agents, and a few Coast Guardsmen and customs inspectors, resulting in 41 (some say 32) arrests, including Sheriff Bryan, Broward County’s second sheriff, all six of his deputies, Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Bert Croft and eight patrolmen. The raiders seized eight large stills, 10,000 gallons of mash, 300 gallons of moonshine and a quantity of bottled beer.

The arrested lawmen were brought to the Coast Guard Station (near today’s Bahia Mar). They were heavily armed but their weapons were confiscated. Bail was set at $5,000 for Bryan and Croft; for the others, $2,000. The arrests left Broward County and Fort Lauderdale without local law enforcement, but according to Cahill, Bryan served out his term until 1929.The Broward Sheriff’s website states he served until 1927.

Paul Bryan, son of Louis H. and Elizabeth Bryan, was born in Volusia County in 1891 and came with his family to Fort Lauderdale in 1900. His father helped lay out the town of Fort Lauderdale. After Paul left the Sheriff’s Office, he helped run the Dania café owned by his wife, Maude Henson Bryan. Bryan died in 1942; his wife died in 1988 at age 90. Local history is framed (and here, peppered) by Bryan family civic contributions.

Sources:

The New York Times, Jan. 28, 1927

William P. Cahill, Broward Legacy, Vol. 24, No. 2 (2004)

www.sheriff.org

Roots Web



Tags: Prohibition, Broward County, Florida, Jane Feehan, Fort Lauderdale history

Hiaasen: name among novelists, journalists and Fort Lauderdale pioneers

Fort Lauderdale

By Jane Feehan

Fans of award-winning writer Carl Hiaasen usually associate his name with one of his many novels set in Miami or with the Miami Herald, where he contributes a column. But few know that his grandfather Carl Andreas Hiaasen was a Fort Lauderdale pioneer.

The elder Hiaasen was born in North Dakota in 1894. After earning a law degree at the University of North Dakota in 1922, he was enticed to come to booming Fort Lauderdale by World War I buddy Charles McCune. Hiaasen gladly went south to seek adventure but his plan was to return home.

The native North Dakotan’s early adventures in Florida included teaching and preaching. Then McCune asked him to join a law firm—Fort Lauderdale’s first—that he established with attorney C.P. Weidling; Hiaasen took up his friend’s offer and never returned to North Dakota.

He didn’t have much time to think about home. There was enough work at the law office to keep two dozen lawyers busy 24 hours a day. Hopeful developers were flocking to the fledgling Fort Lauderdale (established in 1915) and needed legal expertise for their land deals.

The firm became known as McCune Hiaasen and later McCune, Hiaasen, Kelley (and Fleming was added). Carl Hiaasen served as Port Everglades attorney, as counsel to Hollywood founder Joseph Young, to the City of Fort Lauderdale and to a number of other high-profile clients.

Hiaasen married and had one son Kermit Odell, who also practiced law and is father of today’s novelist, Carl Hiaasen.  The senior Carl Hiaasen worked until his firm disbanded in 1990. During his career, the Fort Lauderdale pioneer was lauded in at least eight Who’s Who books and was a member of the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1926. He died at his Coral Ridge home in June, 1994, a few weeks after his 100^th birthday. Copyright © 2015.

All rights reserved. Jane Feehan. 

Sources:

Palm Beach Post, Feb. 14, 1935

Miami News, April 12, 1950

Boca Raton News, June 16, 1994
Weidling, Philip J. , Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press (1966).


Tags:Fort Lauderdale in the 1920s, Fort Lauderdale pioneers, film researcher, Carl Hiaasen

Bookies, wiretappers and organized crime in Fort Lauderdale 1922

By Jane Feehan

Boom times beckoned many to Fort Lauderdale in the 1920s, including organized criminal types.

In 1922, a well-dressed group of men rented the Oliver home downtown with more than sand and surf in their plans.The visitors, who drove fancy cars, displayed expensive golf bags and threw big tips around, didn’t extend social invitations to locals to their rented quarters, raising suspicions. But would-be gamblers had little need for invitations. They beat a path to the rented Oliver home, hoping to leave with winnings from off-track betting. The well-heeled gang promised sure wins; they had wiretapped telephones at horse tracks.   

Their elaborate scheme didn’t really include wiretapping; it was a ruse that eventually sent the unsuspecting to New Orleans by train with a gang member to pick up big winnings at their “headquarters.” The gang member would disappear en-route, leaving the gambler with nothing but a train ride.  Victims, engaged in illegal gambling, didn’t bother reporting their misfortune to the police.

Nevertheless, word got around about bookies and wiretapping and a government raid on February 19, 1922, netted 13.  Bail was posted and the men (all had given fictitious names), were set free. That was the end of the first organized crime foray into Fort Lauderdale.

The following month, Gov. Carey Hardee appointed Paul C. Bryan as Broward’s new sheriff.  Bryan delivered a warning to criminals: those who came to Broward County would come to grief. “No wiretappers shall operate here.”

Hello Miami.

Copyright © 2014. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

____________

Sources:

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

2. Fort Lauderdale Herald, Feb. 20, Feb. 22, 1922

3. Miami News, March 3, 1922.

Tags: Florida in the 1920s, Fort Lauderdale in the 1920s,  organized crime in South Florida, Fort Lauderdale history, Sheriff Paul Ryan, film research, Fort Lauderdale historian, Miami historian

Prohibition and the only legal hanging in Fort Lauderdale

Building circled  Coast Guard site of
Alderman
hanging 1929
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

Rum running from the Bahamas to southeast Florida seemed an adventurous profession during Prohibition (1920-1933). That perception changed for South Floridians in 1927 when a federal agent and two U.S. Coast Guarders were murdered at sea after chasing down a boat carrying rum.

Aug. 7, 1927, Secret Service Agent Robert K. Webster was on his way to Bimini aboard Cutter 249 from U.S. Coast Guard Base Six in Fort Lauderdale to investigate a counterfeiting ring. Along the way, he and the crew stopped a suspicious-looking boat skippered by James Horace Alderman. 

Alderman and his mate, Robert Weech, denied they had liquor, but 160 cases--a small load--were found. After they were arrested and brought on board the cutter, Alderman found a gun and shot Webster and Boatswain Sidney Sanderlin in the back, severely wounded Machinist Victor Lamby (who died later that day) and shot cook Jodie Hollingsworth (who survived).  Alderman told the remaining Coast Guard crew he was going to take them out to the Gulfstream and make them jump into the sea. Weech broke a fuel line and threw a match into the patrol boat but it failed to ignite.

The Coast Guard crew managed to subdue the rumrunners when their boat wouldn’t start. With assistance from Base Six, the surviving Coast Guarders brought the two back to Fort Lauderdale where they were charged with piracy and murder.

It took two years to convict the rumrunners; Weech testified against Alderman and received a sentence of a year and a day. Alderman was sentenced to death by hanging. A new federal piracy law of the time required that the death sentence be carried out in the port city the “pirate” was brought. Broward County did not want to perform the execution, so the Coast Guard agreed to carry out the sentence.

While incarcerated, Alderman found religion and wrote a book about his life. His wife appealed to the White House for executive clemency three times but was denied (or ignored). As the hanging day approached, the media were blocked from covering the event.

A few civilians and Dr. Elliot M. Hendricks, a Fort Lauderdale physician and Public Health Service and Quarantine Officer for Coast Guard Base Six, witnessed the execution at the base’s seaplane hangar Aug. 17, 1929. It stands as the only legal hanging ever held in Broward County.

Copyright © 2014. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

_______

Sources:

Miami News, Aug. 16, 1929, p.1, 2

Miami News, Aug. 17, 1929, p. 4.

Miami News, Aug. 9, 1929.

Gillis, Susan. Fort Lauderdale: The Venice of America. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2005.

Weiding, Philip and Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1966.

Willoughby, Malcom, Commander USCGR. Rum War at Sea. U.S Government Printing Office, 1964.

Tags: Florida Prohibition history, Fort Lauderdale Prohibition history, Fort Lauderdale history, Florida history Fort Lauderdale, rum runners, bootleggers, film researcher

Fort Lauderdale's first skyscraper - nine stories

Sweet Building 1948
Florida State Archives

Fort Lauderdale’s first skyscraper was built in 1925-1926. First National Bank paid $24,000 for the site and $487,000 for construction of the building that opened June, 1926. An original plan to build 20 stories was re-configured to nine.  

Located at 305 South Andrews (now a 25-story condo complex) and retail  it was the most prestigious address in the burgeoning city. Doctors and dentists rented space there as did developer Frank Croissant, the Miami Daily News, Attorney and Fort Lauderdale notable George English, and Boca Raton’s Mizner Development Corporation.

A devastating hurricane slammed into South Florida in 1926*, hurling the area prematurely into the Great Depression. To stay financially afloat, the bank merged with Fort Lauderdale Bank and Trust Co. soon after. The building, which emerged from the storm with minimal damage, was bought and sold a number of times throughout the years. In 1930, John Lochrie, Charles N. McCune and William Sweet, Jr. took ownership. Sweet assumed sole control in 1931. The building was known for years as the Sweet Building but Sweet resisted, according to a subsequent owner, because he did not want it to be associated with the sale of sweets. The name prevailed and the building remained Fort Lauderdale's tallest for 46 years.

Sweet Building circa 2000

Air-conditioning was installed in 1948. The façade was changed as were some of its structural elements. This could be why it is not listed with the National Register of Historic Places. In 1967 it was renamed the Las Olas Building until it was razed in 2016 to make way for the condominium project. 

For a view of the condo there today, see: 

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/305-S-Andrews-Ave-2008-Fort-Lauderdale-FL-33301/2080785786_zpid/

Sources:

One River Plaza

Sun-Sentinel Nov. 23, 2016

.

Tags:  historical researcher, Fort Lauderdale history, One River Plaza, Florida film researcher

Las Olas Boulevard opens to Fort Lauderdale beach, its future

Las Olas Boulevard, circa 1930
Florida State Archives/Romer

By Jane Feehan

Thanks to the foresight of Fort Lauderdale founders Frank Stranahan, Tom Bryan and others who formed the Las Olas Bridge Company in 1915, the thick mangrove swamp to the east of downtown was paved and bridged to the beach by January 1917. 

The project expanded  the town’s boundaries and recreational opportunities while broadening its economic base.

Newspapers during the following decades reflect the hopes and dreams for the Las Olas area, today part of Fort Lauderdale’s central business district and, on its east end, site of the famous residential finger islands and canals that earned the city’s designation, “Venice of America.” Real  estate investor Charlie Rodes started dredging the canals according to a method first used, he claimed, in Venice, Italy.

Another early project to create “made” land in the area described in one news story was probably that of M.A Hortt and Robert Dye who, after seeing the success of developer Carl Fisher in Miami Beach with land fill, created Idlewyld, a beautiful residential neighborhood off Las Olas Boulevard:

Captain Seth Perkins of Miami is engaged in pumping 2,500 cubic yards of sand and silt on a tract of 111 acres of tide lands along the New River, between Fort Lauderdale town and Las Olas beach. This made land fill will be converted into suburban home sites. (“Glimpses of Florida,” Miami News, July 15, 1920)

In 1934, during the tough Depression years, Civil Works Administration (CWA) projects helped make Las Olas a picturesque boulevard:

Due to the dredging … and to CWA activities in the city, the Las Olas causeway, leading to Fort Lauderdale beach, has undergone a complete transformation. … tied in with city-wide CWA projects, was the planting of 180 coconut palms … on the causeway. These have been placed 10 feet apart and in a few years will transform this causeway park into a coconut grove. (“Las Olas Span is Transformed,” Miami News, March 10, 1934)

Other sources:

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

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Florida history, Las Olas Boulevard history, early Fort Lauderdale days, Fort Lauderdale tourism, film researcher,  historical research

Whence the name Fort Liquordale?

By Jane Feehan

Some link the rollicking Spring Break days on Fort Lauderdale beach in the 1960s and 70s with the city’s nickname, “Fort Liquordale.” Others associate it with the city’s partying reputation among some tourists today.

In fact, the name came about during Prohibition (1920 -1933) when bootlegging – carrying liquor by boat from the Bahamas, Cuba and other places to Florida – was a way to earn a living during the mean days of the Depression.

Rum raids were conducted periodically in Broward County to enforce the 18^th Amendment (in effect January 16, 1920, repealed by the 21^st Amendment December 5, 1933). One such raid netted Broward Sheriff Paul Bryan, his deputies, the assistant chief of police Bert Croft, and his men - 32 in all. The arrests grabbed headlines throughout South Florida. One article article above declares: Every Dry Enforcement Agency in the U.S. Takes Part in Huge Mopping Up Drive in Fort Lauderdale District.

The officers, including Bryan, were cleared in a 1929 trial. News accounts of the era describe “fruitful rum raids” and “rum sleuths” ... and thus we have the name, Fort Liquordale. Rum Runners, anyone? 

Copyright © 201, 2022 All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

For more on Prohibition, see:

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/11/prohibition-daring-women-of-rum-running.html

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2015/12/prohibition-arrests-leave-broward-fort.html

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2014/03/prohibition-and-only-legal-hanging-in.html

Sources:

Gillis, Susan. Fort Lauderdale: The Venice of America. Charleston: Arcadia (2004).

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

Miami News, Jan. 27, 1927

University of Houston - digital collection

_____________________




Tags: Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale beach, Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale restaurants, Fort Liquordale, Prohibition

Golf deemed game for the old, feeble - Fort Lauderdale

Early Florida golf course
State of Florida Archives

By Jane Feehan

Fort Lauderdale embraced golf as a way to promote the city and draw tourists as early as 1921.  The city’s first course, a nine-hole affair, was built to attract visitors on their way to Miami. It was built off Dixie Highway, today the site of the Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport. 

President-elect Warren Harding played a round of golf in Fort Lauderdale shortly after the city fairway opened. Also there at the beginning was a writer for the Miami Metropolis.  Describing the first game at the Fort Lauderdale course for the newspaper (Jan. 4, 1921) the writer claimed it “did not make a hit with the common peepul.”

He (or she?) wrote:

Did you ever play golf? It’s a lady-like game; no shouting, no cheering, no violent talk and no violent exercise. In the contest game last Saturday hardly anyone spoke above a whisper.

It’s a game especially suited for fat men, over-wrought nerves and for the old and feeble. And it’s a rich man’s game – no one is expected to play who cannot afford Scotch plaid breeches, heavy knee length stockings, the kind grandmother used to knit, a caddy, a leather sack full of golf sticks and a little checkered cap loud enough to disturb the peace of an entire neighborhood.

Muscle, alertness, quick thought, energy and enthusiasm are not needed, they have no place in the game.

The unknown writer described the game between Fort Lauderdale and Miami players.  After the first round, he writes: "...  the crowds had enough and did not follow. Cars were starting back for town. Who won the tournament? I don’t know and couldn’t find anybody who did."

Today there are more golf courses in Florida than in any other state. People from all economic strata now play. Some “peepul” obviously saw more in the game than the above-mentioned writer did.  What do reporters know?

For more on Fort Lauderdale golf, see index


For more on Warren G. Harding in Fort Lauderdale, see: 

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2021/07/fort-laudedale-from-outpost-to.html

Tags: Golf history, golfing in Florida, golf in Fort Lauderdale, early golf game in Florida, Fort Lauderdale history, Jane Feehan film researcher, Warren G. Harding in Fort Lauderdale, history Fort Lauderdale