November 2007
20 posts
1 tag
Three Places to Vote
In the 1947 municipal election, there were three polling places: the Pompano Casino on the beach, McNab’s Service Station at Federal Highway and Atlantic Boulevard, and Pompano City Hall. In that election 469 residents cast votes, which was about 80 percent of all registered voters in the city.
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Found Materials
After Isaac I. Hardy arrived in the Pompano settlement in 1899, he built his home near Lettuce Lake (today’s Lake Santa Barbara) using both commercial lumber and wood he salvaged along the shoreline.
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Labor Camp
In 1940 a migratory labor camp was built west of town on Hammondville Road. Financed by the Federal Government, it included 316 living units (in a duplex configuration), a nursery, wash houses and seven communal bathrooms. The rent depended on the size of the family, with rates starting at about $1.00 per week. If the family was large enough, it was allocated both sides of the duplex. Within a...
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Evolution in the Schools
Even though the famous Scopes Trial is usually viewed as the pivotal event in the issue of teaching evolution in the public schools, it did not occur until 1925, almost two years after Broward County had confronted the situation. In 1923, the Broward County Board of Public Instruction and trustees decided that although the Bible’s account of creation should not be formally taught in the...
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Animal Control
Up through the 1940s, it was not uncommon to find Pompano residents keeping what many would consider farm animals — horses, chickens, etc. — at home. The lack of density and many vacant lots, as well as the overwhelming agricultural nature of the community, prevented this from being a big problem. After the war, new housing developments took steps to prevent this practice. In the early...
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A Local Tom Sawyer
Mules were an essential part of agriculture in Pompano, even after the tractor became a mainstay of farming in other parts of the nation. A mule was cheaper than a tractor and the animals could access soggy land through which which a heavy tractor would have trouble traversing. Most mules were brought to Pompano on Florida East Coast Railway cattle-cars; about 20 mules to a car. They were...
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First Females
The first woman elected to serve in the Florida Legislature was Edna Giles Fuller of Orlando. She was elected to the House of Representatives in 1929. The first woman elected to the Florida Senate also was from Orlando — Beth Johnson was elected in 1962 to fill a vacant seat.
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Peddling Papers
A life-long Pompano resident, Sam Sworn earned money as a youth by delivering newspapers in Pompano Beach’s black community. In the early 1940s, he delivered, respectively, the Fort Lauderdale Times, the Fort Lauderdale News, the Miami News and the Miami Daily News in the area from NW 3rd Avenue to NW 16th Avenue. He remembers having about 320 customers toward the end of his...
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Pioneer Willie Wooten
When Willie Wooten died in 2000, he was 102 years old. He was born in the north Florida town of Monticello, and although it is not clear when he arrived in Pompano, it was in “the early years.” He was known locally as a farmer who had the ability to grow “six-foot tall collard green plants.” When not farming, he worked clearing mangroves for local developers. He often told...
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One Good Thing
The floods of 1947 that inundated all of South Florida had at least one beneficial effect: the massive amounts of water flushed out the Hillsboro Inlet, pushing much of the sand that had accumulated there out into the ocean and deepening the channel.
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Mark Your Calendar
Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, the Pompano Beach Historical Society’s monthly public program has been moved back a week to the fourth Wednesday of the month — November 28th, at 7:00PM. The program will feature local residents who were recently recognized as “Pioneers” by the Broward County Historical Commission. They will reminisce about growing up in Pompano. In order to...
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First Farmland
Some of the first farmland in the Pompano area was in the muckland along what is today the Intracoastal. The primary crop was tomatoes, and the harvested produce was moved to market by boat or barge. With the arrival of the FEC Railway, the center of agriculture in the area began to move westward.
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All the Way in One Day
In November 1934, Eastern Airlines inaugurated same-day passenger air service from Miami to New York. The flights were made possible by the introduction of the DC-2 airplane, which was a major advancement in the technology, safety and economy of air travel. In time, Eastern’s DC-2’s would be known as the Great Silver Fleet. Prior to Eastern’s acquisition of the DC-2, travel from...
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Buying the Beach
Fort Lauderdale pioneer M. A. Hortt remembered his first trip to Pompano, probably in the early 19-teens:There were just a few one-horse wagons in those days, and no paved streets and only a few dirt roads. So people didn’t go far from home, and it was several years before I got as far north as Pompano.When Pompano pioneer L. P. Smoak visited Hortt and prevailed upon him to visit Pompano and...
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Happy Birthday Esther
On this date, November 8th, in 1920, Esther Rolle was born in Pompano. She later would become an Emmy Award-winning actress (The Summer of My German Soldier) and star of her own television series (Good Times). She died on November 17, 1998, and is buried in Pompano Beach’s Westview Cemetery.
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No Paved Roads
In 1907 William H. Blount left the small town of Bruton, Georgia, to join his brothers in Pompano. Almost half-a-century later, he remembered those early days:Pompano had no paved streets when I arrived. The highway, which is now called Dixie Highway, was a white rock street eleven feet wide. There were no cars, therefore they needed no wider streets. There were a few tourist cars traveling...
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A Cool Idea
In the early 1950s, two brokers at the Pompano Beach State Farmers Market — Henry Andersen and John Contadino — came up with a partial solution to the problem of vegetables wilting on their journey from fields to market to consumer. For $7,000 they had a “precooler” built. This refrigeration machine, about the size of a trailer, could be brought to the fields and...
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Wilderness
In 1955 Emma Lou Showalter (later Olson)recalled life in early Pompano, living along what is today Lake Santa Barbara:I can remember … that [when] my step-father had to go into town to the one grocery store for supplies he would leave a loaded shotgun for my mother to use in case wild animals invaded the premises. Many times she had to use it to kill wildcats and poisonous snakes. The snakes...
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Long Commute
Ely High School graduated its first senior class in 1952. Prior to that, black students from Pompano Beach had to attend Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale in order to get a diploma. Some local black students stayed with relatives in Miami and attended high school there.
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Land Acquisition
When the U. S. government acquired the 1036 acres on which the Pompano Air Park is located, the 1943 condemnation proceedings affected the ownership claims of 94 Florida residents and corporations, as well as dozens of out-of-state property owners.
