In the 1930s gambling was against the law everywhere in Florida except for licensed parimutuel sites, one didn't have to go far to find a place to place a bet.

In Pompano some of the bars had back rooms where card games were held. Don Downie remembers the Pompano Mercantile Company as a place "where you could get all the 'odds' on basketball, football, dog and horse racing and even [Pompano High School] football and basketball games."

Outside town, Cap Knight presided over games of chance at his Club Unique, including slot machines, blackjack, dice games, chemin de fer tables and a roulette wheel.

None of these illegal activities were unknown to Broward County Sheriff Walter Clark. He chose to ignore those gambling sites that didn't cause trouble (and, some said, cut his office in on the action).

The first band director at Pompano Beach's Blanche Ely High School was David Lee Wright (b. 1926, d. 2004).

According to one account, Pompano's first movie house was located on Flagler Avenue, above the general merchandise store owned by W. H. McNab. His widow, Dora, mentioned in a 1974 interview that the theater was open two nights a week -- one for white residents and the other for blacks. This would probably have been in the nineteen-teens.

The original stained glass windows in the old chapel of Christ Church Pompano (the old First Methodist Church) were installed as memorials to, or gifts from, some of Pompano's pioneer families, including the McNabs, Whitworths, Colliers, Robertsons, Umsteads and Waltons.

However, the chapel's pipe organ was a gift not from a pioneer family nor even a resident of Pompano. In 1941 Albert A. Strauss, a winter visitor to the beach, donated the organ in memory of his mother.

Many of the older homes in Pompano, as well as throughout South Florida, were built with what is known as "Dade County pine."

Dade County pine was a subspecies of the longleaf Southern yellow pine (pinus palustris). When this area was first settled in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Dade County pine grew in abundance between the ocean and the Everglades, particularly on the higher ground.

The chief difference between Dade County Pine and longleaf Southern yellow pine is that the former tended to have a denser and more resinous center, or "heart." This made Dade County pine a superior building material in terms of strength as well as resistance to rot and insects.

Its density made it difficult to drive nails into it, however, and many builders found it practical to drill pilot holes before nailing into the wood. Also, the high resin content meant that if a Dade County pine building caught fire, the conflagration was extremely hot and hard to extinguish.

For the most part, Dade County pines were harvested out of existence, and the wood is available today only through reclamation from demolished structures.

For most of the twentieth century, if you wanted to find some sort of hardware, chances are it could be found at the Pompano Mercantile Company.

And if you were a customer, the odds were good that you would be dealing with a Tarbett. E. E. "Charlie" Tarbett began working at the Pompano Mercantile Company in 1926 and managed the store until his death in 1966. His son, Henry, began working at the store following his return from the Army in World War II. After his father's death Henry took over the management until he passed away in 1985.

Pompano Mercantile was located at 114 Flagler Avenue. The building still stands and is currently a medical office for the Holy Cross Medical Group.

Pompano's first horse racing track was closed almost as soon as it opening in 1926 due to the fact that parimutuel racing was illegal in Florida.

That impediment was overcome in 1931 when the Florida Legislature passed legislation allowing betting at the tracks. The first track to operate with legal betting on thoroughbreds was Miami's Tropical Park, on December 26, 1931.

In March, 1908, Jack Sample described one of his most recent home improvements:

We have a pump on the back porch. It took me just forty-five minutes from the time I started until I was pumping water. It was no trouble to get water. Just drive a pipe in the ground about twenty-five feet, put a pump on top and go to pumping water.

Quote from "The Sample Letters: A Journey into the Past," an unpublished manuscript edited by Barry Lait.

Back in the late 1930s, one could drive on Federal Highway for miles and not see another automobile or pass a building.

In Pompano there were a few businesses on Federal Highway near today's Atlantic Boulevard -- a couple gas stations, a restaurant and some tourist cabins -- owned by the McNab family.

Traveling north, the next building was the Chapman packing house, located about where the Pompano Beach golf course is today. Passing the packing house, the next buildings were not seen until Deerfield Beach.

On December 19, 1971, the strike between the Florida East Coast Railway and its unions ended with a settlement in Federal court.

The strike began on January 23, 1963, and resulted in the end of passenger service on the FEC.

Bud Garner remembers growing up in Pompano when shoes were optional:

My friend, Carl Mueller never wore a pair of shoes from first grade through high school until he joined the Army in WW II. The bottoms of his feet were as tough as "whet" leather.

One of the most eagerly awaited events in old Pompano was the annual visit from Santa Claus. In this case, Santa's mode of transportation was not a reindeer-pulled sleigh, but rather Pompano's 1926 fire truck.

Santa made two stops in Pompano -- one on the east side, and one on the west side of the tracks.

The routine was invariably the same: children and parents would gather at a designated vacant lot waiting to hear the sound of the siren that would tell them Santa was on his way. The firetruck would arrive and Santa would climb down from the fire truck to be greeted by the mayor. He would then sit on a large greet to greet the children, giving each a small stocking filled with candy, fruits and nuts.

During the 1930s and well into the 1940s, the City of Pompano's city hall was located in rented space in a building at 100 SW 1st Avenue. This building was owned by the Masonic Lodge, which met on the second floor, and also housed the Post Office.

The building was demolished recently to make way for a new library facility.