Pompano pioneer Bud Lyons had a vast farm west of town, encompassing much of what is today Margate and Coral Springs. At the FEC railroad in Pompano, Lyons had a building where the harvested beans were prepared for shipping:

Scarecly less impressive than Bud Lyons' mammoth farm is his packing plant in Pompano where his beans are cleaned, graded, packed and loaded into refrigerator cars the same day they are picked. Here, electric conveyor belts first carry the beans under a powerful blower which removes any dust or soil from them, then on between rows of quick-fingered women, who throw out any broken, bruised or blighted beans, and sort them into two qualities. At the end of each belt, the graded beans are dumped into bushel hampers. Men nail on lids, paste on labels, and place the hampers on an electric conveyor which takes them to waiting refrigerator cars or trucks. This season Bud Lyons expects to ship between 500 and 600 carloads of beans northward, each containing 600 bushels. In addition he will ship thousands of bushels by truck, and others by boat from Port Everglades.

(excerpted from "Titan of the Bean Patch," by Clarence Woodbury, The Country Home Magazine, January 1939, as reprinted in Broward Legacy, Summer/Fall 1985)