Pompano Beach Historical Society

During the Civil War, many parts of Florida were a haven for Confederate military deserters.  The Miami region was known to be populated by many deserters and settlers with Unionist sentiments.

The west coast of Florida was also a refuge for deserters.  In 1864, Florida Governor John Milton informed Confederate military authorities that deserters had organized into armed bands in the coastal areas south of Tallahassee, as well as in areas between Tampa and Fort Myers, to avoid capture by Southern troops.

Pompano Beach resident Jack Musselman was a member of the Florida Legislature from 1954 to 1958.  During that time, he championed the efforts of Frederick Van Lennep to open a pari-mutuel harness racing track in Pompano Beach.

In 1957, Musselman announced that he would not run for re-election as the time spent away from his law practice made serving in the Legislature unaffordable.

In response, Rep. Bill Maness of Duval County took up a collection to help Musselman out financially.  Maness announced that he had succeeded in collecting $4.75 from fellow House members, and a total of $1.00 from lobbyists.

He suggested that Musselman could use the money to hire a sulky to take him back to Pompano Beach.

The Florida Sheriffs Association traces its origins back to 1893, when Duval County Sheriff Napoleon Boneparte Broward was instrumental in forming the Florida Sheriffs’ Mutual Benefit Association.  In 1910 the organization changed its name to its current moniker.

From Howard Kleinberg’s column in the Miami News, January 9, 1963:

The Washington Senators want a roof over the grandstand in their Pompano Beach training camp.  Why they need one is beyond me.  They’ve been in the cellar so long, you’d think a little sunshine would be welcomed.

This Saturday (January 29th) the Green Market will offer a free historic walking tour of Pompano Beach’s old downtown. Local historians, Don Downie and Bud Garner, will lead participants on an entertaining 30 - 40 minute walk, commenting on the buildings, businesses and people important in the downtown’s development. The tour begins at 10:00 am at the Historical Society booth. Great fun!

GreenMarket Pompano Beach is produced by the Pompano Beach Historical Society.  It is open every Saturday through April 30th on Flagler Avenue at NE 1st Street, from 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM.

During the Prohibition era, one of the more popular speakeasies in the area was run by Henry and Clara Klein in the old Pinehurst subdivision (located between the Pompano city limits and the beach).  Unlike other establishments, the Klein’s bar was a relatively quiet place that catered to a “respectable” crowd.

Cap’s Place Island Restaurant in Lighthouse Point is surely Broward County’s oldest restaurant in continuous operation, dating back to 1928.  Although always a seafood restaurant, primarily, some of the items on its early menu are no longer available, such as turtle stew and turtle egg pancakes.  Hearts of palm salad is still a staple on Cap’s menu, but now the hearts of palm (or, as it was known as, swamp cabbage) are harvested in the Lake Okeechobee region, rather than locally.

One of Pompano Beach’s short-lived tourist attractions was Roger Brown’s World of Miniature Horses, a pseudo farm that displayed miniature and dwarf horses, some as small as 17 inches tall.  A small track was used to stage miniature horse races.

The attraction opened in 1982, and was located on NW 31st Avenue, just south of the Florida Turnpike entrance.  By 1985, dwindling attendance forced the owners to close the attraction and the following year the miniature horses were sold at auction.

Although freezing temperatures was the most recognized threat to Pompano’s winter vegetable crops, local farmers also had to be prepared for other natural disasters, as well.

In September and October, 1933, for instance, heavy rains led to the destruction of up to 75 percent of the first two plantings of beans and peppers in Pompano, as well as in low-lying areas of Deerfield and Oakland Park.

Perhaps Pompano Beach’s least known golf course is the Leisureville Fairway, a private nine-hole, par-three course that opened in 1969.  It is owned by the Leisureville Community Association and use is restricted to residents of the development.

A newspaper advertisement that ran in the November 18, 1925 edition of the Miami News listed Pompano’s selling points:

Sixteen miles of paved roads

Fine oiled road leading to the Atlantic Ocean beach

The best bathing beach on the East Coast

Good drainage system

Best water on East Coast

Good dairying possibilities

Good stock raising opportunities

A territory that produces more vegetable than any East Coast section

Population of 1,750, as compared with 733 in 1923

A good school

Two good churches, bank, bakery, doctors, department store, three meat markets, several grocery stores and billiard parlor

Crate and insecticide business

A number of developments employing hundreds of men

Newspaper plant with first class job printing equipment

Active Woman’s Club

Active Chamber of Commerce with paid secretary

Three garages, lumber yards, telephones, electric light plant

Nine filling stations

A Postal Telegraph office

A Western Union Telegraph office

Several good hotels under construction

Fishing sport of great interest to anglers

Deer, wild turkey and plenty of birds in season

Several subdivisions of wonderful development

Tax roll, 1925, $5,000,000

In 1962, the Pompano Beach Jaycees organized a charity golf tournament at Palm Aire County Club, pitting Sam Snead against Arnold Palmer.  Although Palmer was unfamiliar with the course, he still shot a five-under-par 67, beating Snead by a single stroke.

The Jaycees reported selling 2,500 tickets to the event, but it was suspected that the crowd was much larger, due to lax gate security.

Since the 1960s, visiting entertainment and sports celebrities have found Pompano Beach’s Palm Aire development a convenient place to stay when they are in the area.

Over the years, a partial list of high-profile visitors includes: Jayne Mansfield, Elizabeth Taylor, Jerry Lewis, Morey Amsterdam, Jack Carter, Henny Youngman, Dick Shawn, Jan Murray, Leslie Caron, Jack Klugman, Deborah Kerr, Goldie Hawn, Martina Navratilova, Phil Rizzuto, Billie Jean King, Don Meredith, Evonne Goolagong, Buster Crabbe, Jessica Tandy, Hugh Cronyn and Donald O’Conner. 

Calvary Presbyterian Church, located on Coconut Creek Parkway, was formally established in 1959 with 75 members.  It was originally called Community Presbyterian Church, but was soon renamed Margate Presbyterian.  In 1960, following developer Robert Bateman’s donation of land in what would become Coconut Creek for a permanent facility, the church adopted its current name. 

On January 10, 1888, Henry Flagler opened the Ponce de Leon Hotel in St. Augustine, the first of his extensive hotel system along Florida’s east coast.

Since 1968, the Ponce de Leon has been part of Flagler College.

Dr. Thomas Kennedy, considered to be the first medical doctor in what is today Broward County, visited Pompano in the early days (probably before 1906):

On one morning I got off the train at Pompano.  At that time the people at Pompano all lived down on what they called the muck, on the canal [actually near today’s Lake Santa Barbara, where the Cypress Creek flowed into the Florida East Coast Canal, today’s Intracoastal].  They came out to the depot in a little foot trail, there were no roads there at that time.  I had walked about a mile in the scrub.  I heard a gun fire about a quarter [mile] ahead of me, and in about a couple seconds I heard it fire again.  I walked on, got up to where the gun fired, found Uncle Jim Pearce and he had a buck and a doe lying right across the little trail.

At that time deer were plentiful in this country, and in acorn time thay got out in the oak scrub to eat the acorns, and Uncle Jim and his people lived on venison, and that is all the kind of fresh meat any of us got for several years after I come to this country.

Excerpt from “Thomas S. Kennedy: An Autobiography by a Country Doctor, Part Two” in Broward Legacy, Vol. 6 Nos. 3 & 4 (Summer/Fall 1983), p. 28.

An undated (but probably early 1930s) publication by the Florida Department of Agriculture describes the Seminole Indians living in Broward County:

These Indians live under primitive conditions here and and elsewhere in the Everglades region. The Seminoles have never acknowledged allegiance to our government and they still maintain their tribal rules, even to the administration of the death penalty for offenses against their laws. They speak their own language in addition to a form of English, and are a most interesting feature of this section. The brightly-colored costumes, palmetto-thatched open huts, heavy bead ornaments of the women and the knowledge that their chief source of livelihood is still the bounty of nature in fruit, fish and game, all add to the attraction.

Excerpt from Florida, (Florida Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Immigration, n.d.), p. 15.

Butterfly World, a public attraction and research facility located in Tradewinds Park, was the brainchild of Ronald Boender, a retired electrical engineer with a life-long fascination with butterflies.

In 1987 he approached the Broward County Commission requesting that it approve a 10,000 square foot butterfly facility at the county park in Coconut Creek.  Butterfly World opened to the public on March 28, 1988.

On Sunday, January 13, 1985, Presbyterians from throughout South Florida gathered at Pompano Beach’s First Presbyterian Church to worship and dedicate a new presbytery, the coordinating organization for the churches within its boundaries.

The new presbytery, given the name Presbytery of Tropical Florida, stretched from Fort Pierce to Key West and west to Naples and included 76 existing congregations.

Today the Tropical Florida presbytery includes 57 churches in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Monroe, Martin, St. Lucie and Hendry counties.  Its administrative offices are located in Pompano Beach.