Fort Lauderdale

Fort Lauderdale is a coastal city on the Atlantic Ocean in southeastern Florida, situated north of Miami. The settlement took its name from military stockades built during the Second Seminole War. An extensive network of inland waterways and residential canals earned the locality the title Venice of America.

Major William Lauderdale established the initial military outpost along the New River in 1838 during skirmishes with native forces. Civilian trade expanded in the 1890s when Frank Stranahan operated an overland ferry service and a community trading post. The arrival of the Florida East Coast Railway accelerated agricultural export and land sales, leading to municipal incorporation as a city in 1911. A real estate boom in the 1920s stimulated the dredging of coastal mangrove swamps into finger islands and artificial channels for residential development.

Port Everglades transfers refrigerated container cargo, refined petroleum products, and international cruise traffic through deepwater berths along the Atlantic coast. AutoNation supplies passenger automobiles, light pickup trucks, original replacement hardware, and mechanical maintenance services across a network of franchise retail stores. Cloud Software Group creates enterprise application software, desktop virtualization platforms, and remote network access tools sold under the Citrix brand, while National Beverage Corp. produces carbonated sodas, fruit juices, and the sparkling water label LaCroix.

Bonnet House Museum and Gardens preserves a subtropical oceanfront plantation estate designed in the 1920s by artist Frederic Clay Bartlett. The Broward Center for the Performing Arts stages Broadway musical productions in an auditorium overlooking the New River. The International Swimming Hall of Fame maintains an archive of aquatic sports memorabilia and international competition artifacts beside regulation training pools. The Museum of Discovery and Science houses the Great Gravity Clock, which uses colored kinetic spheres to measure minutes and hours.