Fort Lauderdale

• State: FL
• Country: United States
  Tequesta Indians originally inhabited today's Florida's Gold Coast, which is now Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami. Spain's Don Juan Ponce de Leon was probably the first European to set explore this area. In 1857 Fort Lauderdale, the middle of the now Gold Coast, was a swamp. During the Seminole Wars a wooden fort was built and named after Tennessee Volunteer Major William Lauderdale. Soon the fort was abandoned and left to rot in the mangrove swamps and later was inhabited by runaway slaves and army deserters. To transform the swamp into prime real estate, it took Charles Green Rhodes to plan the dredging of parallel canals, using the fill to create long peninsulas between them. It was the same theory used to create Venice, Italy, which earned Fort Lauderdale the nickname, "Venice of America." Flagler's railroad followed and the city was incorporated in 1911 with William H. Marshall as its first mayor. In the same year members of the Florida Board of Trade passed a resolution calling for a deepwate