One of the key epochs in our city’s early history occurred from 1915 to 1920. Before then:
• There was no road north from Broward County.
• There were no bridges to the beaches in Fort Lauderdale, Deerfield, Pompano, Dania or Hallandale, nor to the Davie area, according to historian Stuart McIver.
• For the Seminoles, drilling in the Everglades had dried up their canoe trails and their hunting and trapping grounds.
But things were about to change. In 1915, the first car drove through from West Palm Beach on a road called Dixie Highway. The first telephone service (long operating up North) was established. And fresh milk was delivered for the first time.
Speaking of milk, a name arose that would loom large in our history: Hamilton Forman. He opened up the first local dairy in Davie, named Forman’s Sanitary Dairy.
The Forman name would echo down through the decades. The dairy founder’s son took his father’s name and dipped into politics by delivering political flyers with milk from his father’s dairy. Ultimately he would become a significant landowner and mover and shaker in education, healthcare and politics up until his death in 2010.
Action on bridges finally came after the county voted on a $400,000 bond issue, which also stipulated money for roads.
In Fort Lauderdale, part of the momentum came from developers like David Alexander, who had built the beach’s first hotel, the Las Olas Inn. There wasn’t enough traffic to fill the rooms because guests could arrive only by boat.
Alexander must have been ecstatic when road access through a swampy area astride the New River was built to a spot for the Las Olas drawbridge. The firm that built the Hillsboro Lighthouse, Champion Bridge of Wilmington, Ohio, was awarded a contract to build the bridge.
It’s kind of amazing that anything got built in those days. The lighthouse, for example, was first proposed in 1884 to head off numerous shipwrecks in the area. Approval came after 16 years of rejected annual appeals to the U.S. Congress. The lights finally came on in 1907.
The opening of the Las Olas Bridge in 1917 was a huge deal. Nearly every vehicle in town joined a motorcade to the beach. The selling of beach lots began to take off. So did business for the Las Olas Inn.
But 1917 was also the year the U.S. entered the war in Europe that began in 1914. President Wilson finally acted after the Germans sank growing numbers of U.S. merchant ships that were contributing to Britain’s war effort. He summoned Congress to declare “a war to end all wars.”
Fort Lauderdale joined the mobilization as young men volunteered for duty overseas. In addition, according to McIver, “Fort Lauderdale Mayor Reed formed a Home Guard, which drilled with wooden rifles at a school athletic field.” I’m not sure how much that scared the Germans.
But the Fort Lauderdale Bank was badly affected, as customers drained countless savings accounts to buy Liberty Bonds. So much was withdrawn that the local bank had to merge with a larger state bank.
A year later the war ended, and troops overseas came home. Soon we were looking ahead to the ’20s and a real estate boom unlike any other.
As for the Seminoles, they made a major move. Tribe members previously were forbidden from being educated in white schools. One who did received a death sentence.
But with other avenues closed, the Tribe decided that time was over. Wearing traditional Seminole dress, Tony Tommy entered second grade as a teenager and quickly advanced, skipping grades. And so began the rise of a people that led to the thriving and prosperous community we see today.
