AC Services in Port Everglades, FL

Port Everglades is composed of land within three municipalities, Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale and Dania Beach and unincorporated Broward County. Port Everglades is a man-made seaport. The port was originally dredged from Lake Mabel, a natural body of water that was a wide and shallow section of the Florida East Coast Canal system. In 1911, the Florida Board of Trade passed a resolution that called for a deep-water port. The port was originally intended to ship produce to the North and the West. In 1913, the Fort Lauderdale Harbor Company was formed and eventually dug out the Lake Mabel Cut, which opened the New River to the sea and created access for small boats.

In 1924, the founder and mayor of the city of Hollywood, Florida, Joseph Wesley Young, bought 1,440 acres (5.8 km²) of land adjacent to the lake. He then created the Hollywood Harbor Development Company. Three years later, the Florida Legislature established the Broward County Port Authority. On February 22, 1928, 85 percent of Broward County’s residents gathered for a ceremony in which President Calvin Coolidge was to push a button from the White House detonating explosives to remove the rock barrier separating the harbor from the Atlantic Ocean. The button malfunctioned, but the barrier was removed shortly thereafter.

Bay Mabel Harbor was dedicated on February 22, 1928. Many of South Florida’s local women’s clubs agreed that the port needed a new name to better represent the region. They held a name changing contest, and the name Port Everglades was selected. The reason for this was as follows: “The gateway to the rich agricultural area embraced in the 4,000,000 acres (1,600,000 hectares) at the Port’s very backdoor.”The container handling capacity of the port was increased with a new 41 acres (17 hectares) terminal, completed in 2010. The expansion increased Port Everglades’ freight handling area by 15%.