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REFLECTING ON OUR PAST By Hugh Morris Sailboat Bend, a small neighborhood located immediately southwest of the downtown business district, is the birthplace of Fort Lauderdale. Traces of Tequesta Indian settlements in the area date back to 1450 BC. On the trail of later-day Seminole Indians in 1838, U.S. Army Major William Lauderdale and a handful of Tennessee Volunteers pitched camp at the forks of New River, in what is now called Sailboat Bend, and built the first military Fort Lauderdale. Modern development began in the late 1800s with the arrival of Henry Flagler's Iron Horse. As commerce grew by both water and rail, Sailboat Bend in the early 1900s became a working class neighborhood where trades people -- carpenters and masons and blacksmiths -- built their own homes without benefit of architects or building codes. These "cracker" or "vernacular" houses utilized native materials such as Dade County pine, and many of them still exist in defiance of termites, hurricanes and bulldozers. Some display superior detail, imagination and workmanship, which were commonplace 50 years ago but are rare today. Many of these old houses have been restored or renovated as comfortable modern residences, and they form the basis for the neighborhood's distinctive charm as well as its historic significance. Sailboat Bend flourished until the 1950s when the community entered an era of decline. In common with other core cities, Fort Lauderdale suffered in the post-World War II period as suburbs grew and businesses moved to malls and to strip shopping centers. Sailboat Bend experienced a fate similar to many downtown residential areas -- drugs, crack houses, prostitution. With one of the highest crime rates in the entire city, Sailboat Bend in the 1960s and '70s was well on its way toward becoming just another urban ghetto. Government agencies wrote it off as a lost cause -- a rundown residential area dispensable in the planned redevelopment of downtown. It is a small area of no more than about 60 city blocks, one-third of which is occupied by government offices and social service agencies. Tired of being invaded by undesirables, threatened by vagrants and ignored by government, long-time residents and other property owners began to fight back, and the community has made a remarkable recovery in a relatively short period of time to reach the point where it is today -- a blend of historic residential and business districts, with a very modern Arts and Science District sandwiched in between; of public housing and luxurious waterfront dwellings, with a center core of comfortable old homes which attract an eclectic mix of residents who enjoy downtown living. In 1980, the Sailboat Bend Civic Association was formed with an immediate goal of combating crime and other illegal activity. Among the first targets of the citizens' ire were a blood-and-guts tavern and a flop house located on the site now occupied by the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. From a crime-fighting stance, the civic association soon expanded its activities to seek recognition as a decent, convenient and distinctive neighborhood in which to live. Through the association, residents launched a public relations campaign to make real estate agents, mortgage lenders and homebuyers familiar with this downtown neighborhood of charming and solid old houses available at bargain prices. To help accomplish this goal, Sailboat Bend introduced the House and Garden Tour in Fort Lauderdale in 1988. It has been an annual event ever since, but the emphasis has |