The following article was published in the Quad City News, Coconut Creek Anniversary Edition, published November 18, 1987. Some updating of the information has occurred.

From the earliest days of populating northern Broward County, the area that now encompasses Coconut Creek, Margate, North Lauderdale, Tamarac, and parts of Coral Springs was primarily farmland or Florida wilderness. Early Pompano settlers were mostly farmers, and many of those pioneer families farmed land west of Pompano (it didn’t become Pompano Beach until 1947) for decades. Those families included names familiar even today -- Lyons, Blount, Sample, McNab, Wiles, and Hammond -- because of roads named for them.

Where Windmill Park stands today
Behind the Earl Johns property at 1051 N.W. 45th Avenue, a windmill and a cement water trough still remain as remnants of the migrant camp that extended along 45th Avenue and westward in the days of extensive agriculture in this area. West of 45th Avenue were acres of farmlands worked by some 300 migrant field workers housed in barracks.

They burned grass from the acreage, plowed by mule-drawn hand plows, and sowed and reaped crops by hand. They were paid $1.25 per day, and a day was ten hours long. Mr. Johns recalled the view of the labor camp at night with the campfires in front of each shanty and the families eating, following by group singing of spirituals.

Summers were a nightmare of heat and insects. Area pioneers remember in particular, the fierceness of horseflies and mosquitoes that attacked the livestock. In order to save their livestock from these flying killers, most farmers trucked their horses and mules to a railroad siding on Dixie Highway, where they were loaded onto boxcars and sent to North Florida for the summer.

Those early roads were mostly one-lane shell or dirt trails leading to or by the farms operated by those pioneers. In time, two state highways were eventually built -- State Road 7, which became part of the federal highway system as U.S. 441, and State Road 834 (now Coconut Creek Parkway), which followed the route of the old Hammondville Road west from Pompano. Hammondville was probably the first “community” in the Quad City area, and was named that because a store and one or two other business establishments flourished at what is now the intersection of Coconut Creek Parkway and State Road 7, on or adjacent to the Hammond property.

Lyons Road, now a major north-south thoroughfare, originally stretched from Palm Beach County south to Cypress Creek (the C-14 canal), then turned west at what is now West Atlantic Boulevard to dead end at the Two Mile Canal (now Riverside Drive in Coral Springs). Portions of Lyons Road came into existence north of what is now Coconut Creek Parkway simple because drainage of an agricultural area known as Punkin Swamp required digging of shale and sludge that was piled up alongside a drainage ditch. Flattened out, it became the base of a road that was eventually paved.

A sawmill, serving farmers, carpenters, and builders for miles around, once stood just south of West Atlantic Boulevard, east of Lyons Road, and the David Moore Dairy Farm was once located where Coconut Creek Elementary and Broward Community College now stand. Tomato farms were still on the land across the Parkway from Coconut Creek Plaza until the mid-1980’s. Just north of the Plaza, strawberries, peppers, and beans were growing when Coconut Creek became a city in 1967.

Once Edgefield

Pompano Beach real estate developer R. E. Bateman realized the area would grow, and bought the land that became the nucleus of Coconut Creek in 1956. Approaching 15 feet above sea level, the area was well drained. There were trees everywhere, particularly native pines. These, coupled with an abundance of rock, caused Bateman to speculate why the reason the area hadn’t been farmed -- there was too much clearing and root-stumping to do. However, he thought, if as many of the trees as possible were retained, it could be developed into beautiful homesites. He named the area “Edgefield” -- and started clearing the land that literally was on the edge of several farm fields. Deciding the community-to-be needed a more tropical name to attract home buyers, he changed it to “Coconut Creek” -- borrowing from the Dade County communities of Coconut Grove and Indian Creek.

By the early 1960’s, homebuilder John W. “Jack” Brown had teamed with Bateman, and Brown would become the principal builder of the early Coconut Creek homes in the area called South Creek today. Among the first moves made to attract buyers was laying out a park area around Lake Julie. White sand was brought in to make a “beach” on the east side of the park, and in 1963-64, there were water skiing exhibitions every Sunday afternoon. People came in droves to see events performed by area ski clubs on Lake Julie and the lagoon. This park today is the site of the City’s Community Center and is now known as Donaldson Park.