We received an inquiry yesterday asking "What Pompano Beach restaurant has been in business for the longest period of time? Not part of a chain, but it doesn't have to have been continuously under the same ownership."

Any suggestions?

Both the Pompano Beach Historical Society and the Sample-McDougald House Preservation Society will have entries in the 2005 Yuletide Parade this coming Thursday, December 1st.

The parade will begin at 6:30 PM and travel west on Atlantic Boulevard from Riverside Drive to McNab Park.

For further information see the City of Pompano Beach website.

City of Pompano Beach historian Bud Garner responds to this morning's post on Florida's open range:

The "open range" made for very interesting traveling through Florida, especially during the night. The cattle seemed to favor the black macadam roads with their "stored up heat" to lie on and "chew their cuds."

I had many, many encounters with them, some of they physical.

I had one real bad one during the war in 1943 while stationed in Jacksonville, Florida. I was hitching home on a weekend pass one night and two sailors from North Carolina going to Miami driving a Model "A" ford roadster picked me up. The headlights kept going out and one of the Sailors would climb out on the fender, bang his fist on the lights and they would come back on.

On one of these "blackouts," he crawled out on the fender and banged on the light which came on and right in the middle of the two lane road (US 1) was a huge hog that must have weighed 300 pounds. The driver tried to swerve and miss it, but the hog ran in the same direction we were turning and we had a big collision.

We swerved off the road where there was a ditch with about a foot of water in it. We ran into the ditch, through the water, up on the slope and hit a big pine stump that smashed the front of the Model "A" and came to a stop.

We pushed the car off the stump, got it running and back up on the highway and as they were attempting to straighten out the damage, I decided I did not want to continue the rest of my trip in their company. I turned and hitched hiked back to Jacksonville.

I don't know if they made it to Miami or not. They didn't seem to mind the turn of events and I am sure with their outlook, they gave it a good try.

This was just one of several incidents I had with "the herd."

We're happy that you survived the encounter, Bud, but what about the hog?

Update: Bud believes that the hog escaped, "We never saw anything more of the hog; it was dark and cold and he wasn't lying in the road as we could see."

And that was just as well. Under Florida law, "The motorest was liable if he killed or injured any of these "free ranging" animals on the roadways. It was for our protection that we didn't follow-up on the hog."

With all of Florida's urban development, it's easy to forget the state's agricultural past is not that long-gone.

Florida's mid-section was productive cattle raising land, and the cattle were unhindered by fences:

The last large area of open-range ranching in the United States persisted into the twentieth century in peninsular Florida. The range, unowned by the cattlemen, most typically had an understory of wire grass and saw palmetto beneath an open stand of slash and longleaf pines. It was grazed by the Florida cow, a small bony long-horned descendant of mainly undifferentiated Spanish cattle. Such an animal was able to survive heat, drought, insects, poor forage, and most important of all, cattle tick fever. Cattle were driven overland mainly to Ft. Myers for sale and shipment from nearby Punta Rassa to Cuba.

Florida's open-range laws stayed on the books until 1949.

(quote from Atlas of Florida, edited by Edward Fernald and Elizabeth Purdum, 1992)

The First Presbyterian Church of Pompano Beach, also known as the "Pink Church," was founded as a nondenominational community church in 1954.

Its founding members were Robert Bateman, Ken Daehler and John Weir. All three were well-known local realtors and developers. They had responded to an advertisement placed by Rev. Ed Downey in the Pompano Beach Town News seeking individuals interested in starting a new church.

In the 1920s, a number of real estate developers began planning launch new projects, many in southwest Pompano. In part, this was in reaction to the building of the Pompano Race Track and the hopes that it would be a major economic force in the community.

Among the developments were Avondale, Pen-Mar, Pompano Villa, Pompano Terrace, West Avondale, Sunyland, Lafayette and the Highlands.

Most didn't survive the collapse of the Florida Land Boom.

The other day we wrote about Storyland, an amusement park and tourist attraction in Pompano Beach.

Over the years there have been other attractions in Pompano Beach, including Roger Brown's Miniature Horse Farm located just south of the Hammondville Road entrance to the Turnpike, Jones Brothers Reptile Farm located northwest of Pompano and Creature Land, supposedly located north of town on Federal Highway.

The Historical Society is interested in any information on these, or any other, former local entertainment enterprises.

Opening Day (November 19th) ceremonies at the Pompano Beach Green Market: (l. to r.) Shirley Farris, Comm. Kay McGinn, Vice Mayor Susan Foster, Mayor John Rayson, Comm. Lamar Fisher, Dan Hobby and Margaret White.

The Pompano Beach Green Market's opening day will be tomorrow -- Saturday, November 19th.

Once again its located in Pompano Beach's historic downtown -- Flagler Avenue and NE First Street -- and will run from 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM.

Entertainment by the Pompano Beach High School marching band and local country-western favorite, Rattlesnake.

Dozens of vendors with an amazing variety of fresh produce, seafood, baked goods, teas and coffees, plants and lots of other good stuff.

Drop on by -- we'll be looking for you.

Hurricane Wilma hit us on October 24th, which is pretty late in hurricane season.

However, November hurricanes, while not common, have happened. A recent article in USA Today listed November storms that have hit Florida:

Hurricane Kate in 1985 was the last November hurricane to hit the USA, and also one of November's six major hurricanes. Kate was a Category 3 hurricane on Nov. 20 and 21 in the Gulf of Mexico, but weakened to a Category 1 storm before hitting the Florida Panhandle where it was blamed for five deaths.

The "Yankee hurricane" of 1935 formed over the Atlantic Ocean and moved to the southwest to hit the Miami area with 75 mph winds on Nov. 4. It moved along the Keys and then north into the Gulf of Mexico where it looped back around toward the east, but died before hitting Florida again. To many people in Florida any visitor from the north is a "Yankee," thus the "Yankee hurricane."

Storm number 2 of 1925. Only two tropical storms formed in 1925 with the first coming ashore near Brownsville, Texas, as a tropical storm in September. On Nov. 30, 1925 the year's second tropical storm strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane shortly before coming ashore south of Tampa Bay, Fla. After weakening back into a tropical storm, it crossed Florida to strengthen into a hurricane, but weakened into a tropical storm before hitting the North Carolina Outer Banks on Dec. 2. It was blamed for about 50 deaths, mostly on ships at sea.

Storm number 14 of 1916. Unlike 1925, 1916 was a busy year with 14 tropical storms on the record and all but three of them becoming hurricanes. Storm 14 formed in the western Caribbean on Nov. 11, but remained a tropical storm until Nov. 15 when it was off the western tip of Cuba where it became a category 1 hurricane that moved to the northeast along the Florida Keys with 75 mph winds and then into the Bahamas where it died.

The odds are in our favor, but perhaps it would be best to be prepared for the worst.

Many long-time Pompano Beach residents remember Storyland, an amusement park located at 1101 South Federal Highway, just south of the Cypress Creek canal.

The park was opened in 1955 by Sidney Caswell and Al Hennessy. It portrayed various children's stories and rhymes. Storyland was closed and demolished in 1964.

The 2005 limited edition of the Sample-McDougald House Christmas ornament can be ordered for delivery in early December.

The hand-painted ornament features the historic house decorated for the holidays, Santa arriving in Pompano's original 1926 fire truck and the All-American City logo.

The ornaments are $20.00 each and an order form can be downloaded from the Sample-McDougald House website.

In 1910, two years after Pompano was incorporated, the town's population stood at 269 persons. By 1925 the population has grown to 650.

MemoryWiki is a website that collects memories.

Have you been part of a historical event? Have you met a famous person? Tell us about it! Enter the title of your memoir, when it happened and your name. Then click the button to begin writing.

Currently there are over 115 memoirs on the site, covering subjects from JFK's assasination to Hurricane Andrew, to Chia Pets. Useful for documenting first-hand knowledge of events big and small, and plenty of interesting readings.

On November 10,1824, the Florida Territorial Legislature held its first session in the new capital, Tallahassee.

Local historian Susan Gillis will be the speaker at the Historical Society's public program on Wednesday, November 16th. She will present an illustrated talk on her recently-published book, Broward County: The Photography of Gene Hyde.

Mr. Hyde came to this area in 1933 and for about half-a-century documented life in Broward County. Ms. Gillis' book collects his best works, using them to show how the region grew and developed into a major urban area. The book includes many photos of Pompano Beach.

The program begins at 7:00 PM and will be held at the Historical Society's Dick & Miriam Hood Center at Founders Park, 217 NE 4th Avenue, Pompano Beach.

Copans Road -- for who (or what) is it named?

In Pompano's early years, it was not uncommon to see Seminole Indians in town. They came from the Everglades to trade animal pelts and hides for cloth, beads and food at a small general store located at what is today Flagler Avenue and NE First Street.

The Seminoles, wearing their distinctive patchwork clothing, often came to town by canoe on the Pompano Canal.

The power came back on at the Historical Society's Hood Center yesterday. We were fortunate that there was no real damage to the property.

Remember - the Pompano Beach Green Market has been rescheduled to open on November 19th.

The Swain home, residence of one of Pompano Beach's pioneer African-American families, sustained heavy damage from Hurricane Wilma. According to at least one construction expert, it is questionable whether the house could be restored at this point.

Hibbard Casselberry (Hillsboro Lighthouse Preservation Society) reports that while there was no structural damage at the Hillsboro Lighthouse, the blowing sand blasted the paint off the surfaces of the keeper cottages and the Barefoot Mailman statue.

Still no power at the Historical Society's buildings in Founders Park.

Due to the effects of Hurricane Wilma, the scheduled November 2nd Historical Society Board of Trustees meeting has been cancelled.