Fort Lauderdale

Fort Lauderdale is a city on Florida's southeastern coast, known for its beaches and boating canals. The Strip is a promenade running along oceanside highway A1A. It's lined with upscale outdoor restaurants, bars, boutiques and luxury hotels. Other attractions include the International Swimming Hall of Fame, with pools and a museum of memorabilia, and Hugh Taylor Birch State Park, featuring trails and a lagoon.

Built in 1838 and first incorporated in 1911, Fort Lauderdale is named after a series of forts built by the United States during the Second Seminole War.[11] The forts took their name from Major William Lauderdale (1782–1838), younger brother of Lieutenant Colonel James Lauderdale. Development of the city did not begin until 50 years after the forts were abandoned at the end of the conflict. Three forts named "Fort Lauderdale" were constructed including the first at the fork of the New River, the second at Tarpon Bend on the New River between the present-day Colee Hammock and Rio Vista neighborhoods, and the third near the site of the Bahia Mar Marina.[12]

Known as the "Venice of America", Fort Lauderdale has 165-miles of inland waterways across the city.[13]

In addition to tourism, Fort Lauderdale has a diversified economy including marine, manufacturing, finance, insurance, real estate, high technology, avionics/aerospace, film, and television production. The city is a popular tourist destination with an average year-round temperature of 75.5 °F (24.2 °C) and 3,000 hours of sunshine per year. Greater Fort Lauderdale, encompassing all of Broward County, hosted more than 13 million overnight visitors in 2018.[14] Each year nearly 4 million cruise passengers pass through its Port Everglades, making it the third largest cruise port in the world.[15] With over 50,000 registered yachts and 100 marinas, Fort Lauderdale is also known as the yachting capital of the world."[16]

History

Florida and Timeline of Fort Lauderdale, Florida
The area in which the city of Fort Lauderdale would later be founded was inhabited for more than two thousand years by the Tequesta Indians.[17] Contact with Spanish explorers in the 16th century proved disastrous for the Tequesta, as the Europeans unwittingly brought with them diseases, such as smallpox, to which the native populations possessed no resistance. For the Tequesta, disease, coupled with continuing conflict with their Calusa neighbors, contributed greatly to their decline over the next two centuries.[18] By 1763, there were only a few Tequesta left in Florida, and most of them were evacuated to Cuba when the Spanish ceded Florida to the British in 1763, under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1763), which ended the Seven Years' War.[17] Although control of the area changed between Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Confederate States of America, it remained largely undeveloped until the 20th century.[citation needed]

The Fort Lauderdale area was known as the "New River Settlement" before the 20th century. In the 1830s, there were approximately 70 settlers living along the New River. William Cooley, the local Justice of the Peace, was a farmer and wrecker, who traded with the Seminole Indians. On January 6, 1836, while Cooley was leading an attempt to salvage a wrecked ship, a band of Seminoles attacked his farm, killing his wife and children, and the children's tutor. The other farms in the settlement were not attacked, but all the white residents in the area abandoned the settlement, fleeing first to the Cape Florida Lighthouse on Key Biscayne, and then to Key West.[19]

The first United States stockade named Fort Lauderdale was built in 1838,[20] and subsequently was a site of fighting during the Second Seminole War. The fort was abandoned in 1842, after the end of the war, and the area remained virtually unpopulated until the 1890s. It was not until Frank Stranahan arrived in the area in 1893 to operate a ferry across the New River, and the Florida East Coast Railroad's completion of a route through the area in 1896, that any organized development began. The city was incorporated in 1911, and in 1915, was designated the county seat of newly formed Broward County.[21]

Fort Lauderdale's first major development began in the 1920s, during the Florida land boom.[22] The 1926 Miami Hurricane[23] and the Great Depression of the 1930s caused a great deal of economic dislocation. In July 1935, an African-American man named Rubin Stacy was accused of robbing a white woman at knifepoint. He was arrested and being transported to a Miami jail when police were run off the road by a mob. A group of 100 white men proceeded to hang Stacy from a tree near the scene of his alleged robbery. His body was riddled with some 20 bullets.[24] The murder was subsequently used by the press in Nazi Germany to discredit U.S. critiques of its own persecution of Jews, Communists, and Catholics.[25]

When World War II began, Fort Lauderdale became a major U.S. base, with a Naval Air Station to train pilots, radar operators, and fire control operators. A Coast Guard base at Port Everglades was also established.[26]

Until July 1961, only whites were allowed on Ft. Lauderdale beaches. There were no beaches for African-Americans in Broward County until 1954, when "the Colored Beach," today Dr. Von D. Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park, was opened in Dania Beach; however, no road was built to it until 1965. On July 4, 1961, African Americans started a series of wade-ins as protests at beaches that were off-limits to them, to protest "the failure of the county to build a road to the Negro beach."[27]: 30 [28] On July 11, 1962, a verdict by Ted Cabot went against the city's policy of racial segregation of public beaches, and Broward County beaches were desegregated in 1962.

Today, Fort Lauderdale is a major yachting center,[29] one of the nation's largest tourist destinations,[29] and the center of a metropolitan division with 1.8 million people.[30]

Population size


After the war ended, service members returned to the area, spurring an enormous population explosion that dwarfed the 1920s boom.[18] The 1960 census counted 83,648 people in the city, about 230% of the 1950 figure.[31] A 1967 report estimated that the city was approximately 85% developed,[32] and the 1970 population figure was 139,590.[33]

After 1970, as Fort Lauderdale became essentially built out, growth in the area shifted to suburbs to the west. As cities such as Coral Springs, Miramar, and Pembroke Pines experienced explosive growth, Fort Lauderdale's population stagnated, and the city actually shrank by almost 4,000 people between 1980, when the city had 153,279 people,[34] and 1990, when the population was 149,377. A slight rebound brought the population back up to 152,397 at the 2000 census. Since 2000, Fort Lauderdale has gained slightly over 18,000 residents through annexation of seven neighborhoods in unincorporated Broward County.[35]

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 38.6 square miles (99.9 km2), 34.7 square miles (90.0 km2) of which is land and 3.8 square miles (9.9 km2) of which is water (9.87%).[36] Fort Lauderdale is known for its extensive network of canals; there are 165 miles (266 km) of waterways within the city limits.[37]

The city of Fort Lauderdale is adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean, includes 7 miles (11 km) of beaches,[38] and borders the following municipalities:[citation needed]

Neighborhoods

Fort Lauderdale has a program for designating and recognizing neighborhoods. Under the Neighborhood Organization Recognition Program,[43] more than 60 distinct neighborhoods have received official recognition from the city. An additional 25–30 neighborhoods exist without official recognition, although the city's neighborhood map displays them as well.[44]

Climate

According to the Köppen climate classification, Fort Lauderdale has a tropical rainforest climate (Köppen Af), landing just above a tropical monsoon climate (Köppen Am) in terms of precipitation. While the city does not have a true dry season, much of the seasonal rainfall comes between May and October. Winters are frequently dry and sunny, and drought can be a concern in some years.

Fort Lauderdale is situated in USDA hardiness zone 10b.

The wet season runs from May through October, and weather is typically hot, humid, and wet with average high temperatures of 86–90 °F (30–32 °C) and lows of 73–78 °F (23–26 °C). During this period, more than half of summer days may bring brief afternoon or evening thunderstorms with lightning and bursts of intense rainfall. The record high temperature of 100 °F (38 °C) was recorded on June 22, 2009, and August 4, 1944.

The dry season often arrives some time in November, and lasts through early to mid April. Seasonable weather is often warm, dry, and sunny. Average high temperatures of 75–83 °F (24–28 °C) and lows of 60–70 °F (16–21 °C) are typical in the dry season. On rare occasions, cool fronts may make it all the way south to Fort Lauderdale, and the city will see a day or two of highs in the 60s °F (16–21 °C) and lows in the 40s °F (4–10 °C). Rare frosts occur every few decades, and only once in recorded history have snow flurries been reported in the air, which occurred on January 19, 1977.[45][46] During the dry season (winter), brush fires can be a concern in many years.

Annual average precipitation is 60.95 inches (1,550 mm), with most of it occurring during the wet season from May through October. However, rainfall occurs in all months, even during the drier months from November through April. Fort Lauderdale has an average of 131 precipitation days annually. The hurricane season is between June 1 and November 30, with major hurricanes most likely to affect the city or state in September and October.[47] The most recent storms to directly affect the city were Hurricane Irma in 2017,[48] in addition to Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Wilma, both of which struck the city in 2005. Other direct hits were Hurricane Cleo in 1964, Hurricane King in 1950, and the 1947 Fort Lauderdale Hurricane.

Notes

Language spoken at home among residents at least five years old; only languages (or language groups) which at least 2% of residents have spoken at any time since 1980 are mentioned

1) Refers to 2013–2017 American Community Survey data;[69] the last Decennial Census where language data was collected was in the 2000 census

2) Refers to 2008–2012 American Community Survey data;[70] the last Decennial Census where language data was collected was in the 2000 census

3) Refers to 2013–2017 American Community Survey data;[74][75] the last Decennial Census where foreign-born population data was collected was in the 2000 census

4) Refers to 2008–2012 American Community Survey data;[76][77] the last Decennial Census where foreign-born population data was collected was in the 2000 census

5) Only countries of birth which at least 2% of residents were born in at any time since 1980 were born in are mentioned

6) Mean monthly maxima and minima (i.e. the highest and lowest temperature readings during an entire month or year) calculated based on data at said location from 1991 to 2020.