HISTORY OF BROWARD COUNTY

by Frances H. Miner

With an introduction by Stuart McIver

Compiled and edited by James A. Findlay

Broward County Libraries Division

Broward County Main Library

BIENES CENTER FOR THE LITERARY ARTS

The Dianne and Michael Bienes Special Collections and Rare Book Library

(Broward County Libraries Division’s: Florida history and people series; # 1)

This publication was made possible by the generous financial support of the Broward Public Library Foundation, Inc.

Copyright © 2006

Broward County Libraries Division

Broward County Main Library

Bienes Center for the Literary Arts

The Dianne and Michael Bienes Special Collections and Rare Book Library

(A service of the Broward County Board of County Commissioners)

ISBN: 0-9762267-2-3

www.broward.org/library

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

by James A. Findlay

Introduction

by Stuart McIver

History of Broward County

by Frances H. Miner

WPA Bas-Relief Murals of Children at Play

by Joan van Breemen

Automobile Tour Guide of Broward County

from Florida: A guide to the southernmost state

Other WPA Federal Writers’ Project Titles

in the Collection of Broward County Main Library’s Bienes Center for the Literary Arts

About the Authors

Colophon

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Broward County Libraries Division and its director, Bob Cannon, are pleased and honored to have this opportunity to bring to the public the 1936 “History of Broward County,” written by Frances H. Miner, an employee of the WPA Florida Writers’ Project.

In 1986, Jean Fitzgerald, a former officer of the U.S. Navy, a bibliophile, a former Broward County Library Advisory Board member, and a founder of the Broward Public Library Foundation, donated his personal collection of Works Progress Administration (WPA), Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) publications to the then recently-opened Broward County Main Library.

His magnanimous gift helped prompt the Libraries Division to create a rare book and special collection department. The 8,000 sq. ft. Bienes Center for the Literary Arts, The Dianne and Michael Bienes Special Collections and Rare Book Library, opened on the 6th floor of the Main Library on December 5, 1996.

Fitzgerald’s initial gift of approximately six hundred WPA FWP titles joined a small group of other WPA publications already owned by the library that focused on Florida, its history, and its people. An important component of the Bienes Center’s WPA FWP collection reprinted here, Frances H. Miner’s “History of Broward County,” originally belonged to the old Fort Lauderdale Public Library. Still located on Sunrise Boulevard in Ft. Lauderdale, it is currently one of 37 branches that make up the Broward County Libraries Division.

The Division is dedicated to preserving the early research and writings that deal with Broward County and its citizens. This volume is the first of what is expected to be an annual publication that will highlight the County’s history and the extraordinary accomplishments and experiences of its citizens.

Special thanks are extended to Stuart B. McIver, Florida author and historian, for his insightful introduction to Miner’s essay; to Mary Becht, director of Broward County Cultural Division for helping to locate the former Ft. Lauderdale East Side Elementary School WPA bas-relief murals; to the Broward County Public Schools department for saving and preserving the murals; and to Dorothy Klein, director of the Broward Public Library Foundation, Inc., whose mission is to enhance collections, programs, and services of Broward County Library beyond the means of public funding, for generously underwriting the costs of this publication.

James A. Findlay

Bienes Center Librarian

INTRODUCTION: BROWARD COUNTY

AS IT LOOKED IN 1936

In the 1930s, America battled against a terrible economic depression. One of the programs of President Roosevelt’s New Deal was the Works Progress Administration. Around the country the WPA, as it was known, built roads, public buildings and parks. It also offered livelihoods to struggling writers in return for researching and writing about the past of even the smallest counties.

Broward in the 1930s ranked as a small, very small, county with just seven incorporated towns. Still it rated a detailed account of its history. Frances H. Miner, a Miami-based editor for the Federal Writers’ Project, was assigned the task in 1936. Unlike such memorable WPA writers as Zora Neale Hurston and Stetson Kennedy, she has left behind a limited paper trail. In fact, the WPA never published her 5,000-word “History of Broward County.”

“There are seven incorporated towns in Broward County, (Fort Lauderdale, Dania, Pompano, Deerfield, Oakland Park, Hollywood and Hallandale)” writes Miner. “All of these have electric services and most of them water works and sewage.”

Fortunately, her story survived and was published many years later by the Broward County Library. It is a delightful account, flawed somewhat by a few historical errors, but nonetheless an interesting portrait of Broward County at a faraway time. She was unhampered by today’s “political correctness,” referring on occasion to the area’s Seminoles and Miccosukees as “the red man.”

“There are seven incorporated towns in Broward County,” writes Miner. “All of these have electric services and most of them water works and sewage.”

The big seven that had moved past the days of the out house were Fort Lauderdale, Dania, Pompano, Deerfield, Oakland Park, Hollywood and Hallandale. All but one of them fronted on the ocean but in those days towns made no effort to lure tourists by adding the word “Beach” to their names.

In explaining how Pompano got its name, Miner tells the story in the more formal language of the 30s. Engineer Franklin Sheehan surveyed the area for the Henry Flagler interests. “When he returned to West Palm Beach,” she wrote, “and was wondering while eating dinner what to name the new town plat, he bethought himself of the toothsome fish on his plate and that this fish was very plentiful at the Hillsborough Inlet, near the new townsite. Hence the name of Pompano was put on his maps.”

The origin of Fort Lauderdale’s name gave the writer trouble. She wrote that a “Major Maitland” arrived here in 1837 during the Second Seminole War and built a stockade named Fort Lauderdale. A letter to the US War Department confused the issue further for the writer. The Department replied it simply didn’t know for whom the fort was named. However, they sent her a copy of a 1920 letter to a Mrs. F.E. Brown of Fort Lauderdale from the Scottish Viscountess Maitland, who wintered in Palm Beach. Also known as the Countess of Lauderdale, she had written Mrs. Brown that a Colonel Maitland named the military base after the Scottish Earl of Lauderdale and then named a town near Orlando Maitland “after the family name.”

In 1936 the War Department didn’t know the name of the officer honored by the words Fort Lauderdale. But by 1939 the WPA writers had figured it out. “The WPA Guide to Florida” declared that the military hero honored in the naming of the fort, and later the town, was Major William Lauderdale, from Tennessee.

Four years after her letter to Mrs. Brown, Countess Gwendolyn Maitland showed up in Fort Lauderdale and formed the British Improvement Association to invest in South Florida’s wild, 1920s real estate boom. The Countess became a much fawned-over society leader in Fort Lauderdale. But when the boom went bust, her development, Floranada, went with it, leaving behind a subdivision that showed considerable staying power. In 1936, it had survived as one of the Big Seven. Its name: Oakland Park.

The real estate collapse of 1925-26 is reflected in Miner’s listing of building permits from 1921 through 1935. In 1925, the peak of the boom, 2102 permits were issued with a total cost of $10,925,444.00. By 1931, they had dropped to just 264 permits and a total cost of $64,859.50.

Frances Miner’s 1936 history tells a fascinating story of the ups-and-downs of our Broward County world in days past. It still makes good reading today.

— Stuart McIver

HISTORY OF BROWARD COUNTY

FEDERAL WRITERS’ PROJECT: AMERICAN GUIDE — MIAMI, FLORIDA

Frances H. Miner - History

Complete - July 15, 1936

5,000 words - Frances H. Miner, Editor

The Everglades, stretching inland from the sea; vast, mysterious, impenetrable, hammock and glade matted with tough trailing vines and tropical undergrowth; swamp and forest; mangroves on their slow, implacable march to the ocean; the home of wild turkey, of families of chattering parakeets; panther, bear, the predatory wolf; the Indian.

This was Broward county in embryo. It was a country that long blocked the efforts of exploration; the coming of the white man was delayed. The regions around St. Augustine to the north and Biscayne Bay to the south apparently were more hospitable; their welcome warmer. The middle country offered greater resistance to the hardy adventurers who passed along the coast.

There was however, a definite culture long before the white man came. Shell mounds found in the vicinity of New River indicate that some eight or ten thousand years ago this region was inhabited by a primitive race of people who lived upon shell fish procured from the waters of the nearby bay, and upon the flesh of small animals that were killed with crudely fashioned weapons. Archeologists say that these mounds, some of which were eight feet high and thirty feet across, are as old as the Neolithic age, and were probably built by people earlier than the American Indians, probably of Aztec origin.

The Seminoles, the “runaway” tribes of the Creek nation of Georgia, migrated to Florida in 1750 and in 1809. But it was the Calusa and the Ais tribes that Governor Pedro Mene[n]dez de Aviles found when he set out from St. Augustine in his vessels, in 1565, with carpenters, soldiers and priests, for a voyage of exploration down the east coast of Florida. These Indians seem to have disintegrated as a nation and vanished before the coming of the Seminoles. The aboriginal inhabitants of Florida, declares Nevin Winter in his Florida, The Land of Enchantment, were the Missosukee and Timuqua Indians of Mayan stock. Alex Hrdlicka states that of the native Indians not one living trace remains. Other authorities say that certain Indians in Florida at the present time speak a Miccosukee dialect.

During the explorations of the early Spanish adventurers in Florida, it is quite possible that what is now Broward county was visited by them on some of the overland marches or on some of the sea voyages. Certainly Gomez in 1525 and Ponce de Leon in 1513 passed along this coast, but definite records are lacking.

Johnathan Dickinson, who with his party was shipwrecked on the lower Florida coast in 1699, was, after a variety of adventures, finally passed along the coast from one tribe to another to safety in Virginia. Escalanta de Fontenada, the first white man to traverse south Florida, was the sole survivor of a Spanish Galleon wrecked on the Florida Keys about 1545. He was held in virtual slavery by the Indians for 17 years until his rescue, although he was permitted to roam at will throughout the territory controlled by the Calusa Federation. Whether these early Florida visitors found their way to or through what is now Broward County is a matter of conjecture.

The early maps of this region show no settlements between Canaveral and San Jose (New Smyrna) south to Tegesta (Miami) except for the mission at Santa Lucia, which was north of what is now Palm Beach. Hollingsworth is his History of Dade County shows a map giving the routes of early Spanish explorers and location of Spanish Missions and Spanish settlements, according to “La Dueda de Los Estados de America del Norte para con Espana por la Exploracion, la Colonizacion y la Cultura Espanola de 1492 a 1800.”

Father Michael Kenny in his Romance of the Floridas in a map showing the location of early Jesuit Missions in Florida, indicates the location of Tegesta Mission (Miami) in 1567 and San Ignacio (Coconut Grove) in 1743. Neither of these maps shows settlement between Tegesta and Santa Lucia.

The history of Broward County centers particularly around the city of Fort Lauderdale, which was a military fort and trading post 100 years ago. Broward was Dade County then. It was not until 1915 that the new county was carved out from the lower half of Palm Beach County and the upper half of Dade County. This operation gave Broward 990,227 acres of which 33,632 acres are farm lands. There are approximately 17,444 acres under actual cultivation.

It was in 1909 that Governor Broward, for whom the county is named, started the first work of Everglades drainage. New River was selected as a natural channel to connect two of the largest drainage canals from Lake Okeechobee with the Atlantic Coast at Fort Lauderdale. This point is now the center of a great drainage district of more than 500,000 acres. The drainage of the Everglades has brought large acres to productiveness.

The intracoastal canal which is a navigable waterway that links New York to Miami is considered a safe inside route for vessels with a 7-foot draft from Jacksonville south through Broward County. It is ten feet deep and plainly marked all the way.

Port Everglades, Florida’s deepest harbor, is developing rapidly and is already recognized as one of Florida’s major harbors. Since 1926 over four million dollars has been spent on this harbor. The channel, 35 feet deep, gives Broward County the deepest harbor on the Atlantic Coast south of Norfolk, Virginia. The tonnage has increased every year. The Port is used extensively by the United States Navy and Coast Guard vessels and major commercial steamship lines, both American and foreign. A regular weekly coastwise service is operated by the Baltimore and Carolina Line, Inc. The Standard Oil Company of Kentucky and the Belcher Oil Company have storage plants at Port Everglades.

There are seven incorporated towns in Broward County. All of these have electric service and most of them waterworks and sewage. The largest of these is Fort Lauderdale.

FORT LAUDERDALE

Fort Lauderdale, the county seat and the largest city in Broward County was in 1896 a sleepy town, struggling along the banks of the New River. Before 1800 the only resident was the red man.

Concerning the New River itself, which flows through the center of the town, there is an old Indian legend. Sara Matthews Crim of Fort Lauderdale gives an interesting account of it:

“In the long, long ago, there was a mysterious river that danced its way down to the big water. Where the river now traces its course there was once a wild tropical jungle and dense pine forests, filled with frightful beasts of the wilderness.”

“Tribes of Seminoles* then living in peaceful solitude in palm-thatched huts, who had gone to rest after a days hunt in the dark jungles, were rudely awakened one night by thundering noises, and the ground beneath them trembling like the leaves of the graceful palm when the angry winds from the southeast blew in upon them.”

“Even the most courageous of the tribes feared to venture forth until the Great Spirit again smiled upon them, and the southern skies were bathed in the sparkling sunlight of a new day.”

“Next morning a mighty, magnificent river flowed serenely through the forests before their small huts. The Seminoles*, awed into reverential silence by the miracle, bowed their heads in prayer to the Great Spirit, and called the river Himmarshee which the white man has since changed to New River.”

* Editor’s note: Probably misnamed. The Seminoles came at a much more recent date.

Geologists who have studied the peculiar formation of the rocks of the coral ridge, and those who have investigated the old legends as well as the later history of New River, believe the story is probably true in every particular. The rock ridges show that there was once an underground river through the coral ridge, the subterranean outlet for the waters of the Everglades, and at the time of some ancient earthquake, the surface rock collapsed and the river came into being.

It is probable that the first white inhabitation of the county was at Fort Lauderdale. Hollingsworth makes mention of one Gregor McGregor who entered what is now Fort Lauderdale in 1808 during the Cartagenian Rebellion, seeking fresh water, and who found settlers there. A later date for the first white settlement is indicated by a monument recently erected in the park at Tarpon Bend in New River by the City of Fort Lauderdale and the Daughters of the American Revolution, which bears this inscription: “This marks the spot of the historical Colee massacre which effectually destroyed the earliest know white settlement on New River in a surprise attach by Indians following Seminole Indian War, - 1842.”

The Colee family, braving the dangers of the wilderness, settled in Colee Hammock, now a residential section of Fort Lauderdale, sometime after 1836. The Seminoles resented the fact they were deprived of some of their fertile fields, and though they moved farther back in the Everglades, they planned to murder the white people who had robbed them of their territory. They chose a night when the older Colee and his son had gone down to Key West for supplies leaving Mrs. Colee and other members of the family unprotected at Colee Hammock. Although the family were warned of the pending attack by a member of the tribe with whom they were on friendly terms, the warning came too late. The band gathered in the woods surrounding the settlement, and murdered every person in it. The Indian who gave the warning and who lost his ears in consequence, died in 1922 at the age of 100.

“Fort Lauderdale, the county seat and the largest city in Broward County was in 1896 a sleepy town, struggling along the banks of the New River.”

It was in 1837, during the Seminole War, that Major Maitland brought a garrison south from Fort Pierce to fortify New River, and to prevent the landing of supplies for the Indians from the Bahamas and the West Indies. A two-story log building was constructed opposite the mouth of New River, and was surrounded by a stockade of palmetto logs set in the ground. This was the scene of the Battle of Fort Lauderdale, which began on the night of August 27th, 1837, when a party of Seminole warriors collected at Colahatchee floated silently in their war canoes down the stream into Middle River and made their way to the Sound to within a short distance from the fort. Leaving their canoes, they crept stealthily toward the stockade, their intent being to kill the solitary sentry and massacre the garrison. One Indian, missing his footing, was heard by the sentry, who immediately fired, awakening the sleeping soldiers. The Indians were quickly routed with no casualties to the defenders. For three days the red man made repeated attacks on the garrison, but were successfully repulsed.

This was the last battle of the Seminole war. Peace overtures were begun then which have never been violated.

It is said that Major Maitland named the tiny settlement “Fort Lauderdale” to perpetuate the memory of his ancestral home in Scotland. In an effort to verify this belief, the War Department at Washington replied to an inquiry thus:

“Nothing has been found of record to show for whom it is named. However, it is thought possible that it was named for William Lauderdale, captain of Maitland’s company of spies in the second Tennessee of Mounted Militia, who commanded that company from June 14, 1836 to January 19, 1837 and who was subsequently, from October 26, 1827 to May 10, 1838, major of Maitland’s Battalion of Tennessee Infantry in the Cherokee War. Captain Lauderdale was enrolled June 11, 1836, at Hartville, Tennessee.

“A letter received in February 1920 by Mrs. F.F. Brown in Fort Lauderdale from Viscountess Maitland, sealed under the Maitland Coat of Arms, Thirlestone Castle-Lauder-N.B. Scotland, reads: ‘Fort Lauderdale was named by an ancestor of my husband after his death Earl of Lauderdale. Colonel Maitland built a fort there and did much for that part of America, also naming another town in Florida “Maitland” after the family name. Our home “Thirlestone Castle was called “Fort Lauderdale” until 1590.” – (Signed) Gwendoline Maitland, (Viscountess Maitland).

When military operations ceased, the locality lapsed into a settlement of 25 whites and 100 Indians and the little outpost slumbered along until the advent of Henry Flagler’s East Coast Railroad in 1896.

The first white settler after the Colee massacre is still remembered by the older inhabitants. He died only a few years ago. This was Captain Dennis O’Neill, a courageous soul, who braved the hazards of tropical jungle when he was sent by the government to take charge of the House of Refuge at Las Olas Beach in 1888. For several years he was the only white man in the vicinity, his neighbors the Seminoles, his only communication with the outside world the mail man who carried the mail from Palm Beach to Miami. It is said that this mail carrier charged $5.00 to anyone who wished to accompany him from Palm Beach to Miami. In O’Neill’s memoirs we read: “Once a week the mailman would drop in on his way to Miami. Occasionally there would be people with him. Once I remembered Rube Burroughs, noted train robber of those days, passed my house on his way to New Orleans. Later I found out who he was and that he had been shot by officers in New Orleans”.

Frank Stranahan, who died in 1929, was Fort Lauderdale’s first permanent white settler. In 1893 he came to New River and pitched a tent at Colee Hammock. Later he built a small store and one-room huts with wood floors and canvas tops for the few transients passing through, on the site of the present Stranahan home on the bank of New River where Mrs. Stranahan is still living.

Broward County was a wilderness even as late as 1893. Panthers and wolves prowled near the site of Las Olas Inn on the beach, deer and wild turkey were plentiful, and trapping was an Indian industry. For years Mr. Stranahan had the only store between Lemon City and Palm Beach, and his trade was mostly with the Indians, - alligator and otter skins for groceries. When the Indians brought in the skins, they came with their families, pigs, chickens, dogs and camped for a week or more on the Stranahan grounds. The friendly relations established with the Indians by Mr. Stranahan persisted until his death.

Mr. Stranahan was also a Postmaster, the local banker and ferryman. He had a bell nailed on a post across the river and when some one wanted to cross, the bell was tapped, and the sound brought Mr. Stranahan with a row boat. If there was a wagon to be ferried over, a barge was pulled by cable.

When the first school was built in 1899, its life was short as Mr. Stranahan promptly married the teacher, Miss Ivy J. Cromartie. Miss Cromartie lived in the home of Mr. and Mrs. E.R. King, some distance away and wooing was not an easy task. To get to the King house, one must go by boat down New River and up through King’s Creek, now Tarpon River, and then walk through the dense hammock for half a mile. The wedding took place in Lemon City in 1900. The first couple to be married in Fort Lauderdale was Miss Eva Bryan and Frank Oliver, who married in 1902 and who are still among Fort Lauderdale’s first families.

In the early days Fort Lauderdale and Miami were connected by a sand trail. Some of the journeys to and from Miami were made by water, but boats were not numerous and no fixed schedule was maintained. A covered wagon, called a stage coach, made the 25-mile trip at semi-regular intervals in a day and a night. A tramp barber walked from Jupiter to Fulford, and a traveling blacksmith made a fairly regular call.

It was in February 1896 that Henry M. Flagler brought his first train into Fort Lauderdale, and that occasion was marked by a big reception by the small groups of residents. A few passengers alighted from the train to transact business in Fort Lauderdale and were later transported to Miami by Stage. In April of that year Fort Lauderdale and Miami joined forces in a celebration when the railway was completed to Miami.

The first so-called rock road, to replace the sand trail, was build in 1903. Mr. Stranahan was paymaster of the highway, and made weekly trips to Miami on a bicycle during the building of the road in order to arrange for paying the workmen. The first rock road followed part of the route which is now the Federal Highway.

Fort Lauderdale is justly proud of her coast guard service. An outgrowth of the early House of Refuge of 1888, it has grown to be an important asset of the city. The coast guard has played a laudable part in the protection and saving of lives along the lower east coast in times of hurricanes and other disasters.

Continually it gives assistance on land and sea. Outstanding among its achievements was the work done after the 1926 hurricane, the Okeechobee flood of 1928 and the September 29th hurricane of 1935.

With a payroll of $250,000 a year, the local base houses 150 men and 15 officers. The plant includes administrative offices, barracks, kitchen, machine shop, a marine railway, carpenter shop, battery and electrical shop, armory, hospital, airplane hanger, radio station, recreational hall, canteen, and store room. The patrol boat of the coast guard is in daily service.

Fort Lauderdale has been called the Venice of the Tropics. One hundred miles of connecting waterways extend in every section of the city. By boat one may travel from Fort Lauderdale to practically any part of the state. It is a fisherman’s paradise. The best fishing ponds are within a half hour trip from the business section. The Atlantic Beaches front the whole county on the east.

The city was incorporated and given a charter in 1911. In 191- its population was 143. Today it is a modern, incorporated city managed municipally. The Fort Lauderdale Free Press of June 12, 1936, says: “Fort Lauderdale is one of the fastest growing towns in the United States. From 8,000 population in 1928 to 15,000 in 1936…” It is estimated that the winter visitors double this number.

The rapid growth of the city is best illustrated by the following table, compiled by Florence G. Hardy. The peak reached by the boom years of 1924-26 offers an interesting comparison:

DANIA

Dania, five miles south of Fort Lauderdale on Dixie Highway, is the center of the Broward County tomato district. It was founded by the Florida East Coast Railroad, which called in Modello, a name intended to convey Model Land Company which was the real estate arm of the Flagler interests. However, among the early colonists was A.C. Frost, a Dane who introduced the Danish brotherhood, a wide spread Wisconsin organization and the place came to be known as Dania. It was incorporated into its present mayor and council form of government in 1927. Summer population, 2,016; winter 3,500.

“Pompano, midway between Palm Beach and Miami thirty-five miles either way,

is on the Dixie Highway and was originally laid out and developed by the

Model Land Company, the real estate division of the Flagler interests.”

POMPANO

Pompano, midway between Palm Beach and Miami thirty-five miles either way, is on the Dixie Highway and was originally laid out and developed by the Model Land Company, the real estate division of the Flagler interests. It was surveyed by an engineer named Franklin Sheehan. When he returned to West Palm Beach and was wondering while eating dinner what to name the new town plat, he bethought himself of the toothsome fish Pompano on his plate and that this fish was very plentiful at Hillsborough Inlet, near the new townsite. Hence the name of Pompano was put on his maps. The town was incorporated in 1913 with a mayor and council. It is the Post Office for the Hillsborough Lighthouse. One of its boasts is that its water supply need not be treated. Summer population 3,200; winter population 6,000.

DEERFIELD

Deerfield, the northernmost town in Broward County, is 28 miles south of Palm Beach and 40 miles north of Miami on the intersection of State Road 149 and the Federal Highway. It was originally a tank station on the Florida East Coast Railway, which formed a nucleus of the early settlement, later expanding into an agricultural center. First it was called Hillsborough after the inlet nearby but because of confusion with the same name on the west coast of the state, the name was changed to Deerfield. Deer were plentiful in the early days, especially in one field. Summer population 1,480; winter population 2,000.

OAKLAND PARK

Oakland Park, 30 miles north of Miami on the Dixie Highway, was originally developed as a subdivision, later included in the Floronado development, and when that collapsed became Oakland Park again. Prior to its real estate promotion days it was a settlement of farmers. In 1927 it was incorporated with a mayor and council form of government. Summer population 600; winter population 1,000.

HOLLYWOOD

Hollywood, 17 miles north of Miami on Florida No. 4 Highway with the ocean for eastern boundary, was founded as a subdivision in 1921 by the California promoter, Joseph W. Young, who implied his geographical affiliations by the adoption of the movie colony name. It was practically wiped out in the 1926 hurricane and then more substantially rebuilt. It is governed by a mayor and city council. Its back country is agricultural with diversified truck, tomato and potato crops and dairies, but no factories; salt water and game fishing; 1½ miles of city owned beach.

The Hollywood Beach Hotel and casino, the Hollywood Country Club, featuring a glass floor and a movable ceiling; the Broward Kennel Club track and the Riverside Military Academy are to be found in Hollywood. Summer population, 3,500; probably 7,000 in winter.

HALLANDALE

Hallandale, 15 miles north or Miami on the old Dixie Highway, is a tomato growing center and has eight packing houses and two canneries. Its name apparently is a corruption of Hollandale, a preponderance of Hollanders.

It was incorporated into a mayor form of government in 1928. Summer population is 1,000; winter population 1,500.

REFERENCES

Scrapbook of newspaper clippings compiled by Mrs. Frank Oliver, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Scrapbook of newspaper clippings compiled by Mrs. Sara Crim, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Interview with Mrs. Frank Stranahan, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Newspaper clippings and typewriter records compiled by Mrs. Florence C. Hardy, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Kim’s Guide to Florida, by Ethel Byrum Kimball, 1934-35 edition. The Record Company, St. Augustine, Florida.

Greene’s Pocket Guide to Greater Miami, compiled, written, and published by Clarissa Greene, Miami, Fla.

Florida, The March of Progress. Bureau of Immigration, compilation, published by H. & W.B. Drew Company. (Jacksonville) 1936.

Florida, Empire of the Sun, by Carita Doggett Corse & Berthal E. Clarke. Published by Florida Hotel Commission, 1930.

South Florida (Booklet) issued by Department of Agriculture, Tallahassee.

AUTOMOBILE TOUR GUIDE OF BROWARD COUNTY

FROM FLORIDA: A GUIDE TOTHE SOUTHERNMOST STATE

Florida: A guide to the southernmost state / Compiled and Written by the Federal Writers’ Project of the Work Projects Administration for the State of Florida; sponsored by State of Florida Department of Public Instruction. – New York: Oxford University Press, 1939. – 600 p. – pp. 317-321.

DEERFIELD, 82 m. (15 alt., 1,483 pop.), center of a farming community producing green beans and peppers as its chief winter crops, was originally called Hillsborough, but adopted its present name about 1907 when deer were plentiful in the hammocks west of the town. Negroes brought here to work the once large pineapple plantations comprise about two-thirds of the population; many have prospered as land owners.

At 88.2 m. is the junction with a paved road.

1. Right on this road is POMPANO, 1.2 m. (15 alt., 2,614 pop.), originally a fishing village on the ocean but moved inland to its present site after suffering damage in the 1928 hurricane. An engineer surveying the area for the railroad in early days was so delighted with the flavor of a fish served him at dinner that, on learning it was called pompano and abounded in near-by waters, he wrote ‘Pompano” on the map as the community’s name. The pompano, also known as butterfish for its fine-textured flesh and delicious flavor, is Florida’s rarest and choicest food fish, and brings the highest market prices. It can be caught with hook and line, but nets are usually employed. Pompano papilotte, baked in a sealed paper bag with an aromatic dressing of herbs, is a dish to please the most fastidious epicure. Somewhat belying the town’s name, truck gardening is of first importance. When winter crops of beans and peppers are harvested, northern buyers arrive, and the town’s loading platforms and warehouses, deserted for months, become centers of great activity.

2. Left on this road to HILLSBOROUGH LIGHTHOUSE, 3.7 m., on Hillsborough Inlet, named for the Earl of Hillsborough, who was given large land grants here during the English occupation. The lighthouse, completed in 1907, and rising 136 feet above the water, contains 5,500,000 candlepower light, marking the northern limit of the Florida reef, an underwater coral formation paralleling the lower east coast.

At 95 m. is the entrance to the CLYDE BEATTY JUNGLE ZOO, where wild animals are bred and trained for circuses. The animals roam at large in rock grottos, beside reflecting pools and in a Veldt area surrounded by a waterfilled moat, across which the animals never venture.

FORT LAUDERDALE, 97.2 m. (10 alt., 8,666 pop.), seat of Broward County, popular winter headquarters of yachtsmen and anglers, occupies the approximate site of a Seminole War fort constructed in 1838, and named for its commander, Major William Lauderdale. NEW RIVER, lined with many piers, flows through the city; its deep slow-moving waters mirror the white hulls, mahogany trim, and gleaming brass of numerous pleasure boats. Tarpon are occasionally caught within the city limits. New River Inlet did not exist until shortly before the American Revolution. William de Brahm, surveyor for the king of England, described its creation, reporting that ‘the great Rains . . . filled this River to its marshes with so much water that its weight within and the sea without, by force of the N.E. gales, demolished the N.E. bank and made this inlet between the 25th and 30th of May, 1765.’

More that 100 miles of natural and artificial waterways wind through Fort Lauderdale. Some canals were dug to stimulate commerce and agriculture; others were designed to enhance the charms of boom-time subdivisions containing artificial islands reached by Venetian bridges.

“More that 100 miles of natural and artificial waterways wind through Fort Lauderdale. Some canals were dug to stimulate commerce and agriculture; others were designed to enhance the charms of boom-time subdivisions containing artificial islands reached by Venetian bridges.”

When the roads are dry in the winter, Seminole come into Fort Lauderdale to sell hides and game, see the sights, and shop for food and such bright wares as the dime stores display. Along the streets the men, aloof and stolid, stride ahead of the women. The skirts of the women are fashioned of narrow strips of bright-colored cotton cloth, called fock-see-kees, and reach to their ankles. High-necked blouses of the same material and pattern fall in folds below the waist. Every woman coils her shining black hair, and wears strands of red, yellow and blue beads around her neck; rhinestone brooches and jingling silver coins decorate her blouse. The men have adopted the white man’s trousers and slouch hats, but cling to their own bright blouses. Shoes are seldom worn, and only by men. The dress of the children resembles that of their elders.

COLEE MONUMENT stands in a little wooded park on the shore of Tarpon Bend in the New River. Here, in the heart of Colee Hammock, now a residential section of Fort Lauderdale, occurred a massacre (1842) by Seminole Indians under the leadership of Arpeika, known also as Sam-Jones-be-Damned, a powerful medicine man of the Mikasuki. A member of the tribe had been friendly with the whites and was caught while trying to warn them of the attack; bound to a tree, he was forced to witness the slaying of his friends and then had his ears cropped, upper right and lower left. Deprived of his Indian name, Crop-ear Charlie, as he came to be called, was driven into the Everglades, with only a hunting knife and a few rags, and told that after seven years he might approach the camp and ask for another trial. Seven years later, in June, at the time of the Green Corn Dance, when the council met to pass on violations of tribal laws, Crop-ear Charlie appeared and was given permission to live near the tribe, although forbidden to eat, sleep, hunt, or marry with his people, and was denied his Indian name. To all questions about him the required answer was, ‘I don’t know anything.’ Crop-ear Charlie lived beyond the century mark, drying in a shack near the present town of Dania.

Near Las Olas Boulevard is the HOTEL AMPHITRITE, built of the remodelled superstructure of the Amphitrite, one of three monitors constructed by the Federal Government about 1893 for coastal defense. When monitors were found difficult to manage, the Amphitrite was sold and converted into a sea-going night club; as such, it plied up and down the Florida coast. In 1935, while anchored near the local Coast Guard Base, a hurricane tore it loose from its moorings, hurled it across the Intracoastal Waterway, and beached it high on the sand. In 1936 it was removed a few hundred feet east to its present site and transformed into a hostelry.

U.S. COAST GUARD BASE NO.6, at Las Olas Beach, succeeded one of the houses of refuge constructed by the Federal Government in 1888 at 25-mile intervals along the lower Florida east coast, which was then poorly charted. The houses sheltered not only shipwrecked sailors, but travelers and local residents during hurricanes.

Left from Fort Lauderdale on the old Dixie Highway, which approximately follows the Capron Trail, built during the Seminole War. Cut bit by bit through dense jungle, the trail connected Fort Dallas with Fort Capron, erected by Captain Erastus Capron 5 miles north of Fort Pierce. Having served its purpose in cutting the Seminole off from their source of supply in Cuba, the trail was abandoned at the end of the war and, in many places, became obliterated. Travel between Palm Beach and Miami continued to be very difficult until the building of the railroad in 1896. The traveler had either to go by boat or to walk 66 miles along a lonely beach. Those who walked usually accompanied the postman who carried the mail from Palm Beach to Miami on foot, for he was the only one who knew the trail, having boats hidden at the numerous inlets, across which he ferried his passengers. The postman received $5 from each traveler who made the trip.

At 99.1 m. is the junction with a rock paved road.

Left on this road to PORT EVERGLADES, 3 m., a port of call for vessels in the European, Cuban and South American trade. A swampy wasteland in 1926, Port Everglades has been transformed into one of Florida’s more prosperous ports. Local contributions financed the $4,500,000 dredging and reclamation operations that have created here a 35-foot harbor, a large turning basin, and a channel 200 feet wide. Warehouses, gasoline tanks, and storage sheds line the waterfront; docks and piers, the largest 1,200 feet long, project into the harbor.

Unlike most Florida ports, Port Everglades is not engaged primarily in coastwise commerce. With the exception of petroleum products, the bulk of its traffic is with foreign ports, its freight moving usually in tramp steamers and ships under special charters, but it is a regular port of call for ships of the French Line plying to Antwerp and Marseilles, of the Pan American Steamship Company operating to Cuba, of the Refrigerated Steamship Line, and numerous tanker lines transporting oil for the Standard Oil Company, American Oil Company, Belcher Oil Company, and Shell Petroleum Corporation. Since 1935, when a hurricane washed away the railroad to Key West, Port Everglades has been the terminus of the Florida East Coast Railway car ferries to Havana, Cuba.

South of Fort Lauderdale appear outcroppings of Miami oölite, a limestone used as road material and railroad ballast. Limestone rarely supports much vegetation, but on higher and drier parts of this sandy, cross-bedded deposit grow forests of Caribbean pine and saw palmetto.

A BANYAN TREE (L), 99.7 m., is known as the ‘two-million-dollar tree.’ This native of East India has a large smooth trunk, and from its limbs sends down slender, vinelike branches that take root and develop into secondary trunks, in time forming a whole grove. A boom-time yarn relates that a tourist offered $2,000,000 for the huge tree, provided that it could be transplanted to his estate in the north, and provided also that it survived the cold.

DANIA, 101.9 m. (12 alt., 1,674 pop.), a tomato-growing center, occupies part of an area known during the Seminole Wars as Five Mile Hammock. Of the many Danish families who migrated here in 1896 and subsequently named the town, little trace remains.

Right from Dania on Davie Road to the SEMINOLE INDIAN RESERVATION, 4 m., where Indian affairs of the entire State are managed. THE DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR BUILDING, a large gray frame house with a high gabled roof, contains the office of the Indian agent. Its austere architecture contrasts sharply with the predominating styles in southern Florida. The dozen or more small, white, one-room-and-porch houses occupied by the Seminole here are totally unlike their palmetto-thatched huts in the Everglades. The reservation has a businesslike air; here the Seminole are not on display, along with alligators and rattlesnakes, as in amusement parks in Miami. Jobs are provided for the Indians, who live here permanently or for as long as they desire.

THE FIRST SEMINOLE BAPTIST CHURCH was built by the Indians at the reservation with contributed materials, and dedicated in the summer of 1936. In charge of the ceremonies was Holy Canard, an Indian from Oklahoma, who distributed printed business cards declaring that he held a formal commission from the President as ‘principal chief of the Creek nation.’

HOLLYWOOD, 104.8 m., (7 alt., 2,869 pop.), founded in 1921 by Joseph W. Young and associates from California, is another ‘tailor-made’ city; the business and residential districts were platted before the mangrove swamps and salt marshes on which they rest were filled in. A city of hotels, apartment houses, attractive shops, pleasant houses, and beach cottages, Hollywood is a popular winter resort. The prevailing style of its houses and buildings in white, buff, and pink stucco, with gray and red roofs, is the conventional Florida-Mediterranean.

Hollywood’s history is typical of that of many towns founded during the real-estate boom of the 1920’s. Some have become ghost towns in the flatwoods; some of the more fortunate, like Hollywood, withstood the violent strain of deflation and have survived.

“Hollywood’s history is typical of that of many towns founded during the real-estate boom of the 1920’s.”

During early days of development here, 1,500 trucks and tractors were engaged in clearing land and grading streets; two blocks of pavement were laid each day. Hollywood Boulevard, the first to be cleared, was in its time the widest paved thoroughfare in Florida. A cement broadwalk two miles long was built along the waterfront; two yacht basins, designed by General George Washington Goethals, chief engineer in the construction of the Panama Canal, were dredged and connected with the Intracoastal Waterway. A large power plant was installed, and when the city lights went on for the first time, ships at sea reported that Miami was on fire, and their radio alarms and the red glow in the sky brought people to the rescue from miles around.

Hollywood had a fleet of 21 busses constantly on the road, traveling 1,000 miles and more to bring in prospective purchasers of lots, who were given free hotel accommodations, refreshments, and entertainment, ‘with no obligation to buy.’ They were driven about the city-to-be on trails blazed through palmetto thickets; so desolate and forlorn were some stretches that many women became hysterical, it is said, and a few fainted. A large tent served both as office and auditorium, in which guests received lectures twice a day. Society leaders and titled personages of Europe were given choice sites to induce other to purchase lots near by. Golf, swimming, and tennis champions were brought in to demonstrate their prowess and act as instructors at new courses, pools, and courts. Men prominent in business, politics, and the arts were hired to stimulate sales, either by pep talks or personal contacts. Some became so enthusiastic, perhaps influenced by their own oratory, that they organized ‘cities’ of their own. Every salesman had his ‘bird dogs,’ who met trains and busses, talked to passing motorists at filling stations, restaurants, and hot-dog stands, or roamed at large, rounding up prospects.

Auctions were popular, both for the Grand Opening, and whenever sales lagged. Patrons were attracted by blaring bands, free banquets, vaudeville shows, and the drawing of lottery tickets. Doctors, dentists, merchants, barbers, and motormen abandoned professions, trades, and prosperous businesses to become real-estate salesmen. Anyone could obtain a license, either to set up on his own or to join a large sales organization. Today, as a result of past experience, applicants for a license must have been a resident of the State for 6 months, must furnish character references and credentials detailing their activities for the preceding 10 years, and must pass a rigid examination on real-estate law and finance.

At the beginning raw land could be bought at $100 to $1,000 an acre; the cost of grubbing ranged from $30 to $100; the surfacing of streets and the laying of sidewalks added $500 to $1,000 to the cost of an acre, which was usually divided into five 50-foot lots. Landscaping costs ran as high as a promoter’s imagination and purse allowed him to go. Whole developments were planted with 2-foot Australian pines at 10¢ each; others, with 20-foot royal palms at $100 to $200 each. Spectacular publicity campaigns were launched locally and on a national scale. One promoter with a lavish development in south Florida spent $3,000,000 on advertising in less than a year.

On the ocean is the municipal BATHING CASINO, with three bathing pools, two for children, and one for adults. The MUNICIPAL GOLF COURSE (green fees $1) lies west of 36th Ave.

RIVERSIDE MILITARY ACADEMY, Hollywood Blvd., occupies a boom-time hotel; it holds winter terms here, and fall and spring terms in Gainesville, Ga.

At the MUNICIPAL BAND SHELL, in Center Park, concerts are given throughout the season by the Riverside Military Band and others. FIREMAN PARK, Polk and 19th Ave., is interesting for its rose gardens, rock garden, and pool containing rare lilies and tropical fish. Facilities for shuffleboard and horseshoe pitching are provided in TOURIST CLUB PARK, Taylor St. and 18th Ave.

On Hollywood Blvd. between 19th and 20th Aves., is a GROVE OF CAJEPUT TREES. This tree, also known as a punk tree, provides the green cajeput oil used in salves, ointments, and oils for treatment of coriza and other respiratory troubles; its think, creamy, parchmentlike bark is sometimes used for polishing furniture and floors, and for mops. In late autumn the cajeput bears aromatic white flowers, shaped like a bottle brush. A quick-growing ornamental tree, it is in demand for landscaping purposes.

WPA BAS-RELIEF MURALS

OF CHILDREN AT PLAY

by Joan van Breemen

ORIGINAL LOCATION OR MURALS:

Murals date from 1939 when the original school was built by the WPA.

East Side School

1005 E. Broward Blvd.

Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301

NEW LOCATION OF MURALS:

Broward County Public Schools

K.C. Wright Building

600 S.E. 3rd Avenue

Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301

The East Side School was built by the WPA in 1939 and was closed in 1977. It was later used to house school board offices until 1985. It was torn down in the early 1990s to make way for the new Virginia Shuman Young Elementary School, 101 N.E. 11th Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301.

Betty Lou Sheridan, a former Broward County Public Schools employee, is credited with having saved the five bas-relief murals depicted here. The murals were subsequently re-installed in a first floor lobby meeting room of the new Broward County Public Schools’ K.C. Wright Building. Each mural is surrounded by a metal frame and measures 35 inches (height) x 48 inches (width).

The following information was discovered by Jim Clupper, former head of the Islamorada Branch of the Monroe County Public Library, from “Record Group 69: Records of the Works Progress Administration, Federal Art Project” at the National Archives, Washington, D.C.

District #4

Miami, Florida

Narrative Report

Florida Federal Art Project

December 30, 1935.

Following is a brief report, with personnel attached, of the activities being carried out under Projects Nos. as listed:

. . . S 2903 – S-E-81 – Sculpture . . .

. . . The sculpture Project is creating sketches for approval of bas relief plaques, size 24” x 36”, depicting recreation in figures of school children at play — the object being to relieve the tension of study while passing through the school corridors from one class room to another. These are to be cast and duplicated for any schools that want them. . . .

Name & Address

Joan Von Breeman (Mrs)

[i.e. Joan van Breemen]

140 N.E. First Ave.

Miami, FL

Class: P

Case No.: 21209

Listed as of: Nov. 18, 1935

“Joan van Breeman’s [i.e., Joan van Breemen] bas relief sculptures were placed in 127 public schools, libraries and public buildings according to one WPA document. Seven each were placed in the two Hurricane-Refuge schools constructed by the WPA in the Upper [Florida] Keys. Of the 14, nine remain in the Upper Keys. None are named.” – By Jerry Wilkinson (www.keyshistory.org)

OTHER WPA FLORIDA WRITERS’ PROJECT TITLES

in the Collection of Broward County Main Library’s

Bienes Center for the Literary Arts

Florida: A guide to the southernmost state / Compiled and Written by the Federal Writers’ Project of the Work Projects Administration for the State of Florida. – New York: Oxford University Press, 1939. – xxvi, 600 p.: ill.; maps b&w photos; 21 cm.

[Chronology: p. 541-551. – Bibliography: p. 553-565. – List of Consultants: p. 566-568. – Index: p. 569-600. – First published in November 1939. – Sponsored by State of Florida Department of Public Instruction. – on title page. – Maps: Front endpapers: Map, Key to Florida Highway Tours. – Folded colored map in back pocket: Florida, 1939. – Text maps of : Jacksonville, Key West, Miami, Palm Beach, Pensacola, St. Augustine, St. Petersburg, Tallahassee, Tampa. – Photos: 101 b&w photographs. Chapter tailpiece art: unidentified. – Endpapers: Front: map, Key to Florida Highway Tours. Binding: Green cloth with dark blue lettering and dark blue alligator. – Dust jacket: Front and spine: photograph of a palm tree, body of water, and sailboat printed in green with black lettering. – Back: small ink drawing of a shack shaded by a tree dripping with moss. – Call number: WPA R 917.590462 FE]

Agricultural conservation / Compiled by Federal Writers’ Project of Florida. – Tallahassee: Florida Department of Agriculture, 1939. – 35 p.; 23 cm. – (Bulletin, Florida Department of Agriculture, No. 91, New Series, February 1939)

[Call number: WPA R 631.49759 AG]

Better pastures for Florida / Compiled by Workers of the Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Florida. – Tallahassee: State of Florida, Department of Agriculture, 1941. – 87 p.; ill.; 23 cm. – (Bulletin / Florida Department of Agriculture; No. 108, New Series, September 1941).

[Cover design by the Florida Art Project. – Sponsored by the University of Florida, Gainesville. – Call number: WPA R 633.20209759 BE]

Birds in Florida / Compiled by Workers of the Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Florida. – Tallahassee: State of Florida, Department of Agriculture (Printed by Florida Grower Press, Tampa), [c. 1941] – 6 p., 1, 213 p.; col. front., illus. (part col.; incl. map) col. plates; 23 cm.

[Bibliography: p. 201. – Check list of birds in Florida: pp. 202-213. – Call number: WPA R 598.29759 WR]

Blueberries, with special reference to Florida culture / Compiled by Workers of the Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Florida: [. . . Herndon Cochran who prepared this

booklet]. – Tallahassee: State of Florida, Department of Agriculture, 1941. – 53 p.: ill.; 23 cm. – (Bulletin / Florida Department of Agriculture, No. 33, New Series, August 1941).

[Call number: WPA R 634.73709759 BL]

Broomcorn growing / Compiled by Workers of the Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Florida. – Tallahassee: State Department of Agriculture, 1941. – 28 [1] p. incl. tables; 23 cm.

[Sponsored by the University of Florida, Gainesville. – Call number: WPA R 633.17409759 WR]

The Conchs of Riviera, Florida / by Veronica Huss and Evelyn Werner. – IN: Southern Folklore Quarterly, (v. iv, #3, Sept., 1940), pp.141-151.

[“The material for this article was collected and compiled by workers of the Florida Writers’ Project, Work Projects Administration.” – footnote, p. 141. – Call number: WPA R 975.932 HU]

Cooperative agriculture / Compiled by Federal Writers’ Project of Florida. – Tallahassee: Florida Department of Agriculture, 1939. – 58 p.; 23 cm. – (Bulletin / Florida Department of Agriculture, No. 92, New Series, February 1, 1939)

[Call number: WPA R 334.68309759 CO]

Florida citizenship course, part 1: geography of Florida / by Louis

A Guessaz, Jr., Director of Curriculum. – Jacksonville: Florida Works Progress Administration, Division of Education, April 1937. – 21 numbered leaves: maps; 28 cm.

[Call number: WPhA R 323.60715 GU]

Florida: [facts, events, places, tours] / [Compiled by Workers of the WPA Writers’ Project in the State of Florida: Florida State Planning Board] – North-port, L.I., N.Y: Bacon and Wieck, Inc., c1941. – 28 p.: map on lining paper; 22 cm.

[Call number: WPA R 917.590462 WR]

Florida seafood cookery: tasty and economical recipes for the preparation of fish, crabs, oysters, shrimp, clams, crawfish, scallops, and sea turtles / Compiled by Editors, Federal Writers’ Project,

Florida, June, 1943. – Tallahassee: State of Florida, Department of Agriculture, 1945. – 96 p.: ill.; 23 cm. – (Bulletin / Florida Department of Agriculture, No. 119, October 1945)

[Call number: WPA R 641.69 FL]

Florida’s sugar bowl / Compiled by W.T. Martin; Federal Writers’ Project of Florida, Works Progress Administration. – Tallahassee: Florida Department of Agriculture, 1939. – 56 p.; ill.; 23 cm. – (Bulletin / Florida Department of Agriculture, No. 94, New Series, June, 1939)

[Call number: WPA R 664.109759 FL]

A graphic review of Florida agriculture / [Federal Writers’ Project of Florida: digest, graphs and charts prepared by Chas. E. Harris, Jacksonville] – Tallahassee: Florida Department of Agriculture, 1939. – 175 p.: ill., maps (some col.); 23 cm. – (Bulletin / Florida Department of Agriculture, No. 99, New Series, July, 1939).

[Colored cover drawing signed: Caldwell. – Call number: WPA R 630.9759021 GR]

Grow your own vegetables / Compiled by Workers of the Writers’ Program of the Works Projects Administration in the State of Florida. – Tallahassee: Florida State Department of Agriculture, 1941. – 55 p.; ill.; 23 cm. – (Bulletin / Florida Department of Agriculture, No. 532, New Series, October, 1941)

[Call number: WPA R 635.09759 GR]

A guide to Key West / Compiled by Workers of the Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Florida. – New York: Hastings House, 1941. – 122 p.; ill.; 21 cm. (American Guide Series)

[In dust jacket. – Maps on endpapers. – Cover design and many illustrations by F. Townsend Morgan and the Florida Art Project. – Sponsored by the Florida State Planning Board. – Call number: WPA R 917.59410462 WR]

History of Jefferson County, Florida / Historians: Mary Oakley McRory [and] Edith Clarke Barrows; [Federal Emergency Relief Administration, Civil Works Administration] – Monticello, FL: Ocala Star-Banner, 1958. – 144 p.; 23 cm.

[Compiled in 1934-35. –This history was made possible through a project of the FERA.” – p. 1. – Published under the auspices of the Kiwanis Club, 1935 [i.e., 1958. Call number: WPA R 975.987 WR]

Iceberg lettuce: the story of Florida’s decline and recovery as a winter lettuce producing state / Compiled by Workers of the Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Florida. – Tallahassee: State of Florida, Board of Agriculture, 1941. – 59 p.; 23 cm. – (Florida Board of Agriculture; Bulletin 110, New Series, October 1941)

[Sponsored by the University of Florida, Gainesville. – Call number: WPA R 338.1755209759 IC]

An industrial survey of Orange County, Florida / Orange County Chamber of Commerce. – [Orlando: Orange County Chamber of Commerce, 1942] – 46 leaves; maps; 28.5 cm.

[“We are indebted to the W.P.A. Writers’ Project of Florida for the use of information from its files.” – Verso of cover. – Call number: WPA FLA R 975.92462 OR]

The intracoastal waterway: Norfolk to Key West / Compiled by Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration. – Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1937. – ix, 143 p.: ill., folded map; 23.5 cm. – (American Guide Series)

[Fold-out colored map on p. [3] of cover. – Call number: WPA R 917.5044 FE]

Lauderdale / Williamson. – [S.l.: Florida Writers’ Project, c1939]. – 3 typescript leaves; 28 cm.

[June 22, 1939. Three-page article on how Ft. Lauderdale, FL acquired its name]

Florida’s lime and lemon industry / Compiled by Workers of the Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Florida; […W.T. Martin who prepared this booklet]. – Tallahassee: Florida Department of Agriculture, 1940. – 56 p.: ill. (some col..); 23 cm. – (Bulletin / Florida Department of Agriculture; No. 102, New Series, July 1940).

[Limes and lemons in Florida. – Variant title. – Call number: WPA R 338.1743309759 FL]

The Negro sings / Compiled and arranged by Constance Ice Braman, under the direction of Dorothea Thomas Lynch, drama consultant. – Jacksonville: Work Projects Administration of Florida, Professional and Service Division, Statewide Recreation Project, April, 1940. – 56 leaves; 28.5 cm.

[Cover designed by Laurentia. – “. . . brief Biographical Sketches and Excerpts from the works of the best known Negro Authors.” – Foreword. – Call number: WPA R 782.008996 ST]

The Ocean Highway: New Brunswick, New Jersey to Jacksonville, Florida / Compiled and written by the Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration. – New York: Modern Age Books, 1938. – xxix, 244 p.: ill.; 20.5 cm. – (American Guide Series)

[In dustjacket. – Sponsored by Charles L. Terry Jr., Secretary of State of Delaware. – Call number: WPA R 917.5 FE]

Pensacola recreation handbook / [Compiled by Workers of the Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration of the State of Florida, in cooperation with the WPA Recreation Program; University of Florida, Statewide sponsor of the Writers’ Project]. – Pensacola: Escambia County Commission, October 1941. – 19 p.; 14 cm.

[Call number: WPA FLA R 917.59990462 PE]

Pineapple growing in Florida / Compiled by Workers of the Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Florida. – Tallahassee, FL: Florida State Department of Agriculture, 1941. – [vi], 23 p.: ill.; 22 cm. – (Bulletin / Florida State Department of Agriculture; No. 107)

[Call number: WPA FLA R 634.77409759 WR]

Planning your vacation in Florida: Miami and Dade County, including Miami Beach and Coral Gables / Compiled by Workers of the Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Florida; sponsored by the Florida State Planning Board. – Northport, NY: Bacon, Percy and Daggett, 1941. – 202 p.; ill.; 22.5 cm. – (American Guide Series)

[In dustjacket designed by Politzer. – Foreword by Marjory Stoneman Douglas. – Call number: WPA R 917.59 WR]

Port Everglades / [S.l.: Florida Writers’ Project, 1939]. – 3 typescript leaves; 28 cm.

[Port Everglades, Everglades News, Canal Point, April 2, 1939 – At head of title]

Seeing Fernandina: a guide to the city and its industries / Co-sponsored by the City Commission, Fernandina; [Compiled by the Workers of the Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Florida; sponsored by the Florida State Planning Board] – Fernandina, FL: Fernandina News Publishing Co., 1940. – 84 p.; ill.; 23 cm. – (American Guide Series)

[Call number: WPA FLA R 917.5910462 WR]

Seeing St. Augustine / Compiled and written by the Federal Writers’ Project, Works Progress Administration; sponsored by City Commission of St. Augustine. – St. Augustine, FL: The Record Company, 1937. – 73, v, p.: ill., maps; 23.5 cm. – (American Guide Series).

[Call number: WPA FLA R 917.5910462 FE]

Seminole Indians in Florida / [Compiled by Workers of the Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Florida; University of Florida, Statewide sponsor of the Florida Writers’ Project]. Tallahassee, FL: Florida State Department of Agriculture, [c1941] – viii, 87 p.: ill.; 23 cm.

[Fold-out colored map in p. [3] of cover. – Photographs by the Florida Art Project. – Call number: WPA FLA R 975.900497 WR]

The Spanish Missions of Florida / [Compiled by Workers of the Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Florida; sponsored by the Florida State Planning Board] – [St. Augustine, FL, 1940?] – 51 p.; 23 cm.

[This account of the early Florida Missions was compiled by Zeila Sweett and Mary H. Sheppy. – Call number: WPA FLA R 282.759 WR]

Stories of Florida prepared for use in public schools / Compiled by Workers of the Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Florida. – [Jacksonville, FL: Florida Writers’ Project, 1937-42]. – v; 28 cm.

[Library has: Old St. Augustine: a military outpost; Early drama in St. Augustine; The old plaza of St. Augustine; St. Augustine shrimp fleet; The history of citrus in Florida; The Spanish Harquebus; Timucauan warfare; Timucuan athletes; Food of the Florida Indians; The Florida Everglades; Okefenokee Swamp; The Florida flamingo; Products of the Sea-Pearls; The Spanish in South Florida; St. Joseph: ghost city; Story of Osceola; Marine fauna: corals; Paper making; Building of the Tamiami Trail; South Florida butterflies; Undersea wonders; Yellow Jack [Yellow fever]; Port Jeffferson; Black Caesar; Tropical hurricanes; When the world watched Florida: an intimate picture of the Spanish-American War period in Tampa; Florida in war and peace; Florida’s government; The story of Florida; The Roseate Spoonbill; The Cardinal; Audubon’s Caracara; The Great White Heron; The Shrike; The wood ibis; The Everglade Kite; The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker; Seminole Indian legends; Native palms of Florida. – Call number: WPA R 370.9759 WR]

The story of Sea-Island cotton / Compiled by Workers of the Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Florida. – Tallahassee, FL: State of Florida, Department of Agriculture, 1941. – [vi, 59] p.; 23 cm. – (Bulletin / Florida State Department of Agriculture, Number 113, New Series, 1941)

[Call number: WPA FLA R 338.1735109759 ST]

Termites and other household pests / Compiled by Federal Writers’ Project of Florida. – Rev. ed. – Tallahassee, FL: Florida Department of Agriculture (Star Print, Ocala, FL), 1940. – 56 p.; 23.5 cm. – (Bulletin / Florida State Department of Agriculture, No. 89, New Series, August 1940)

[Revised August 1940 from October, 1938. – Running title: Termites and other pests in Florida. – Cover title: Termites and other insect pests. – Call number: WPA R 595.7 TE]

Tropical fruits in Florida with commercial possibilities / [Compiled by Workers of the Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Florida] – Tallahassee, FL: State of Florida, Department of Agriculture, 1941. – 43 p.: ill.; 23 cm.

[Call number: WPA FLA R 634.09759 WR]

Tung oil industry in Florida / Compiled by W.T. Martin; Federal Writers’ Project of Florida, Works Progress Administration. – Rev. ed. – Tallahassee, FL: State of Florida, Department of Agriculture, 1939. – 41 p.; 21 cm. – (Bulletin / Florida State Department of Agriculture; No. 11; New Series, February, 1939)

[Call number: WPA FLA R 665.33309759 TU]

U.S. One: Maine to Florida / Compiled and written by the Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration. – New York: Modern Age Books, 1938. – xxvii, 344 p.: ill., photos; 20.5 cm. – (American Guide Series)

[Sponsored by the U.S. No 1 Highway Association. – Call number: WPA R 917.40442 FE]

ABOUT THE AUTHORS/ARTISTS

FRANCES B. MINER

Employed by the WPA Florida Writers’ Project, 1936. No other information available.

STUART B. McIVER

He has been described as “South Florida’s tribal story teller,” and is the author of fourteen books, thirteen of them on Florida. A resident of Broward County for more than 40 years, he has written extensively about the area. He is a member of the Broward County Historical Commission and a former two-term member of the board of directors of the Florida Historical Society. For twenty-two years he served as editor of the South Florida History Magazine. He is a former president of the Florida Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America and the Book Group of South Florida. He lives in Lighthouse Point with his wife Joan.

JOAN VAN BREEMEN

Employed by the WPA Federal Art Project. No other information available.

COLOPHON

Three hundred copies of this catalog have been printed from Stemple Garamond and Gill Sans type on Strathmore Pastel 80lb. Natural White Text and Classic Linen 80lb. Red Pepper Cover in four-color process throughout at Atlantic Litho, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Design by Mary Ann Stavros-Lanning, MASWEL Group, Boynton Beach, Florida.

August 2006

Table of Contents

Cover

Prelude

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

History of Broward County

Automoblie Tour Guide

WPA Bas-Relief Murals

Other WPA Florida Writer's Project Titles

About the Artists, Authors

Colophon