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others on warfare with the stronger given in return for laying the rails, it
Calusa, but whatever the cause, there was absolutely necessary that he find
were only about 80 Indians in prospective buyers. His land
southeast Florida in 1763, and they companies sought immigrants both in
left for Havana when the Spanish the North and in the South.
ceded Florida to Great Britain at the They were not hard to find. Swedes
end of the French and Indian War.
from the Northeast formed the nucleus
The British held the area for only of Hallandale, and Danes from the
20 years, ceding it back to Spain in Midwest founded Dania. Southern
the Treaty of Paris following the farmers, lured by better land and
American Revolution. Sometime milder winters, joined the Danes and
after the re-establishment of Spanish Swedes and founded Pompano and
rule, Broward's first non-Indian Deerfield, besides. Much of the
settlers arrived. fieldwork was done by blacks from
The United States obtained Florida either the South or the Bahamas.
from Spain in 1821. Colonel James Dania became the area's first
Gadsden, who conducted the first incorporated community in 1904,
survey in 1825 of today's Broward followed by Pompano in 1908 and
County, was not impressed. A road Fort Lauderdale in 1911. All three
would be impractical, he wrote, pre-date Broward County itself,
because "the population of the route which was formed from portions of
will probably never be sufficient to Dade and Palm Beach counties in
contribute to [its maintenance], while 1915 and named for former
the inducements to individuals to keep Florida governor Napoleon
up the necessary ferries will scarcely Bonaparte Broward.
ever be adequate."
In less than a century, a land "unfit for
When Henry M. Flagler learned that human habitation" has been turned in
Miami was unaffected by the great freeze of February 1895, to the permanent home of nearly two million people and the
he decided to extend the FEC Railroad south from Palm winter residence of tens of thousands more. In earlier times, it
Beach. On February 22, 1896, the first train reached the could not have happened. Today's Broward County is very
New River. much a product of the industrial age. The sun and sand and
sea have been here for millennia, but the roads, railroads
Until the Florida East Coast (FEC) Railroad was brought
and seaport are new additions which have vastly transformed
through in 1896, the area was accessible to only a hardy
the area's landscape.
few. And until Everglades drainage was begun a decade
later, only the coastal ridge and scattered spots of high In 1960, when an Intracoastal Bridge on Commercial
ground to the west were habitable. Until Port Everglades was Boulevard was in the offing, Haft-Gaines made their move.
opened in the 1920s, there was no dependable anchorage They planned to develop “The Landings” in three stages: The
for large ships. This is not to say, however, that Broward is a First Section from 52nd Street to 56th Court; the Second
totally new-made land. The opening quotation from Dr. Section from 56th Court to 59th Street; the Third Section was
William Sears, professor of anthropology at Florida Atlantic the area which later became Bay Colony.
University, is true only in terms of what today's residents
The first group of model homes was completed and open to
consider necessary. But, prior to the modern era of settlement,
the public in the Spring of 1962. They were located adjacent
small bands of Indians got along very nicely for perhaps
to the intersection of 55th Street and Bayview Drive. People
4,000 years.
came to look, to be impressed and to contract for homes
Besides making it possible for more settlers to reach Broward, patterned on these models. The paving of the First Section
the railroad also made it necessary. If Flagler were to reap streets was completed and the construction of homes for the
any return on the state and private lands which he had been early purchasers was underway in the summer of 1962. n

16 The Landings & Bay Colony