In the mid 1920s, the Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce produced a brochure that extolled the progress and development of Broward County. The most significant features of each municipality within the county was briefly described. As would be expected, agriculture was main emphasis with regard to Pompano:

The raising of beans has been the distinctive feature of Pompano for a number of years, and the prosperity of the community has centered around the bean crops to a large extent. The last two years has seen considerable change in this section and the resources are gradually becoming more diversified.

West of the town, on the rich marl and muck prairies, a thousand acres of beans will be planted this fall and winter, and there will be considerable acreage of peppers, peas, cucumbers, tomatoes and other vegetables.

East of the town the ocean beach section is being developed into beautiful resorts and winter residence sections, with hundreds of thousands of dollars being expended in public and private improvements and buildings.

The complete brochure is available online within the Florida Heritage Collection.

The Pompano Beach Historical Society will resume its seasonal monthly programs on September 21st with a covered dish supper. As is traditional, members and friends of the Society are asked to bring a dish to share as we catch up on what has gone on this summer and learn about the Historical Society's plans for the future.

The covered dish supper will be held at 6:30 PM at the Dick & Miriam Hood Center (217 NE 4th Avenue, Pompano Beach).

Florida Government in the Sunhine law states that elected (and in many cases, appointed) officials may not discuss issues that may come before them outside of public scrutiny.

The origin of this law goes back to at least 1954 when LeRoy Collins ran for governor on a reform platform that included "government in the sunshine and not in the shade."

It took over a dozen years before the intial Government in the Sunshine law was passed by the Legislature, and it was not until 1969 that the Florida Supreme Court upheld the law, declaring

The right of the public to be present and to be heard during all phases of enactments by boards and commissions is a source of strength in our country. During past years tendencies toward secrecy in public affairs have been the subject of extensive criticism. Terms such as managed news, secret meetings, closed records, executive sessions, and study sessions have become synonymous with 'hanky panky' in the minds of publicspirited citizens. One purpose of the Sunshine Law was to maintain the faith of the public in governmental agencies. Regardless of their good intentions, these specified boards and commissions, through devious ways, should not be allowed to deprive the public of this inalienable right to be present and to be heard at all deliberations wherein decisions affecting the public are being made.

Although the spirit of the law has not always been faithfully followed, by and large Florida's various governments have, since this judicial decree, operated in public view.

A lot of us lost power, but from what I hear Pompano and northern Broward County did not sustain any major damage from Katrina. At 4:00 PM it appeared the storm would hit Pompano Beach dead-on, but it then took a turn to the south and several hours later it was coming ashore at the Broward/Miami-Dade county line.

We'll provide an update later on the status of the various historic buildings in Pompano Beach.

Update: Although Founders Park is full of tree branches, palm fronds and other storm debris, the Historical Society's Kester Cottages, Hood Center and Fire Station did not sustain any damage.

At the Sample-McDougald House, one of the wooden awnings was torn off during the storm and several other received minor damage.

As another storm approaches Florida, it is worthwhile remembering the damage that hurricanes have caused in the past.

As far as we know, Ponce de Leon was the first European to "discover" Florida. His voyage, in 1513, was important for other discoveries, as well.

On that voyage Ponce discovered the Bahama Channel, which would provide a shorter route between Cuba and Europe. His pilot, Anton de Alaminos, was the first to make note of the strong current off Florida's south coast and is generally acknowledged to be the discoverer of the Gulf Stream.

This year's Pompano Beach Saturday Green Market will begin on October 29, 2005, and run through May 6, 2006.

The Market will be open every Saturday during that period (with the exception of December 24th and 31st) from 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM.

As we develop more information on the upcoming season, it will be posted on this website.

1920s: Built by the Blount brothers

1940: Acquired by the City of Pompano

1953: Leased to the Pompano Beach Elks Club

1954: Gutted by fire that broke out on November 28th

When the Walton Hotel was opened in 1925, it included a glassed in front porch and a rooftop solar water heating system. Both features were destroyed in the 1926 hurricane and never replaced.

The Florida East Coast Railway arrived in Pompano in 1896, and for thirty years it provided the only rail transportation in South Florida.

In 1926, the Seaboard Airline Railroad completed a competing track west of the FEC. That track is today owned by the CSX Corporation and on it runs Amtrack and Tri-Rail.

In 1899 the Dade County government authorized two new schools -- one in Pompano and the other in Fort Lauderdale. Pompano's first school house, built near Lettuce Lake (Lake Santa Barbara), lasted only four years. It was destroyed by a storm in 1903.

The 1957 Pompano Beach City Directory lists 16 lawyers practicing within the city. That same directory lists 97 "produce commission merchants," almost all operating out of the State Farmers Market.

As has been stated elsewhere, before Pompano had been incorporated eight years, it had been a part of three counties (Dade, Palm Beach and Broward).

Those who led the effort to create Broward County originally proposed that the northern boundary follow the Hillsboro canal all the way to Lake Okeechobee. This was unacceptable to the leaders of Palm Beach County, and so it was agreed that the new county's northern boundary would run along the Hillsboro canal about ten miles (to a point west of today's State Road 7) and then run directly west to the boundary of what was then Lee County (Hendry County wasn't created until 1923).

Today's Miami Herald has two articles relating to Pompano Beach's history:

Pompano Beach's city historian (and Historical Society trustee) Bud Garner is profiled in an article in the Broward section of the paper, and the Sample-McDougald House is included in an article on historic preservation in the Home and Garden section.

(Free registration may be required to view articles)

When Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway extended its tracks from West Palm Beach to Miami in 1895-96, the company was awarded 3,000 acres for every mile of track constructed, for a total of nearly 210,000 acres, or about 325 square miles (by contrast, the present-day municipality of Pompano Beach covers approximately 25 square miles). These lands were not necessarily contiguous to the right-of-way.

Additional land was given the FEC for laying out towns along the new tracks, such as Fort Lauderdale. Typically, the railway would receive alternating sections of the new towns (which would often be swapped to consolidate holdings).

Pompano, however, was not platted by the FEC. Although the railroad was critical to the town's development, Pompano was not born as a "company" town.

The ship I served on during the War had been doing carrier plane guarding for a battle group in the Pacific. When the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan on August 6th, 1945, my ship was immediately ordered back to Pearl Harbor.

Arriving there on August 11th, we were treated to the fantastic, once in a lifetime, spectacle of one of the most impressionable fire power demonstrations one could imagine.

Every ship in the harbor lit the night sky with every kind of star shell, tracers, H/E and just plain small arms fire. This went on for hours. This was a scene I shall live with forever and will never forget.

I was sitting in the old Pompano High School auditorium where we listened to President Roosevelt's speech declaring war on Japan in 1941, and here I was in 1945 in the very place it started and ended.

I doesn't get any better than this.

Bud Garner

On August 10, 1846, the Smithsonian Institution was established in Washington through the bequest of James Smithson.

Actually, Smithson (who had never even visited the United States)had died in 1829 and in his will had instructions that if his nephew died without heirs, his estate would go to "the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge."

In 1836 Smithson's nephew passed on, leaving no children, and the United States accepted the bequest. It took another ten years for Congress to decide exactly how the funds would be used, finally settling on creating a "museum, a library, and a program of research, publication, and collection in the sciences, arts, and history."

The Ninety-Niners Club, founded in 1951, was open to everyone who had been a resident of Pompano Beach in 1899 (even through the municipality had not been formed at that time). Naturally this requirement made it one of the most exclusive clubs in the city.

The names of the founding members were familiar to most residents: Hardy, Johnson, McNab, Warren, Fox and Chapman.

Does anyone know who was the final surviving member?

Below is a mid-1950s postcard view of the Hillsboro Inlet:



But this certainly doesn't look like the Hillsboro Lighthouse:



Just a little case of pre-digital "Photoshopping," I guess.

Although we often associate the Hillsboro Lighthouse with Pompano Beach (consider how many Pompano Beach organizations and businesses use the lighthouse image in their logos), for the first decades of its existence, the lighthouse personnel were more closely linked to Deerfield.

The Hillsboro Inlet bridge was not constructed until the mid-1920s. Until that time the only land connection from the lighthouse was a small service road that ran north to the Deerfield area.

The Historical Society recently received a most valuable contribution -- a DVD with video clips of Pompano Beach in 1953. Taken by vacationers, and donated by a member of that New Hampshire family, the film includes scenes of the State Farmers Market, Hammondville Road, the historic downtown (including the old city hall and post office) and of course the beach.

This is a great addition to the Society's images collection.

If you are going through your old home movies and have good shots of Pompano, consider giving the Pompano Beach Historical Society a copy (same goes for photographs).

In 1763, Spain's more than 200 years control of Florida ended with the colony's transfer to Britain as part of the treaty ending the French and Indian War (Seven Years War). In return, Spain recovered the city of Havana, Cuba, which English troops had captured during the conflict.

The British period of Florida's history would last only about twenty years. In 1783 the Spanish returned as a result of the treaty ending the American Revolution.

(courtesy Florida Historical Society)

Yesterday's post focused on one common factor in the early development of Lighthouse Point and Coconut Creek.

The two cities have another part of their histories in common -- both were incorporated (Lighthouse Point in 1956 and Coconut Creek in 1967) primarily to prevent the developments from being annexed by Pompano Beach. In the case of Coconut Creek an additional annexation threat came from Margate.

Robert E. Bateman was responsible for the early development of two cities adjacent to Pompano Beach.

In the early 1950s he started the Lighthouse Point subdivision, and later that decade got going on a development west of Pompano Beach that he initially called Edgefield. He later changed that name to the more tropical sounding Coconut Creek.

In both cases, he staged waterski shows to bring potential customers out to his see his properties.