Coral Springs is located in Florida, just north of Miami. It has seen its population boom in the post-war years. Here, Karl Miller looks at how the mapping of Florida took place in the 19th century - and how the area was formed in the 20th century.
The Coral Springs covered bridge, an old building in the city. Source: Legionaries, available here.
Like many cities formed during the rise of suburbia in post-World War II America, Coral Springs, Florida expanded extremely rapidly. Founded in 1963, it grew from just 1,489 residents in 1970 to over 134,394 in 2020, becoming one of the largest fifteen municipalities in Florida. Also like many other new American cities, its story started well before incorporation.
For over a thousand years, Tequesta natives occupied the area that would eventually become Coral Springs. Archaeological digs showed several areas of native occupation including camps and burial sites, ending when the last of the tribe, decimated by European disease, departed for Cuba in 1763. While Seminole natives and others likely crossed through the area in the decades after the Tequesta left, the first recorded visit to the future area of Coral Springs did not come until long after the Tequesta departed.
Upon receiving Florida from Spain by the treaty of Adams-Onis in 1819, the United States began to organize the territory they had acquired. Starting with the Land Ordinance Act of 1785, the United States adopted a common system, the Rectangular Method, for measuring land. Starting from a designated point called a meridian, the new territory was divided north and south into 36-square-mile blocks called townships that were further measured east and west by ranges. Measured from a meridian established at Tallahassee, the land that would eventually become Coral Springs sat at Township 48 South, Range 41 East.
Working through the swamps
George MacKay, a 35-year-old New York surveyor who had moved to Florida to conduct various business interests, was hired by the United States Surveyor General’s Office in 1845 to conduct surveying work in the southeastern part of the state. Valentine Y. Conway, the Surveyor General of Florida, instructed MacKay to survey land south of Township 44 “to the Atlantic coast, and as far west as practicable.” Using a magnetic compass and a surveyor’s chain which was specified to be “33 feet in length . . . containing 50 links . . . made of good iron wire,” MacKay’s team – which included his younger brother Alexander as well as several enslaved persons - proceeded to work their way through the south Florida swamps, enduring the insects, heat, snakes, and alligators that the profession routinely experienced at that time.
On March 26, 1845, MacKay surveyed the area in which the future Coral Springs would sit. His brief survey notes show he found a rocky area with “scrub pine, cypress . . . and sawgrass.” In a later account of his surveying expedition, MacKay described the conditions they encountered, stating often the weather was so still “there was not enough air stirring to move as aspen leaf” and that their measuring lines could only pass in places “by cutting away the lofty fresh grass and wading (or rather wallowing) through the mud and underrubbish.”
Having completing his assigned survey, MacKay, after going on a difficult trip in which his boat “was driven back to New River two or three times by contrary wind, turned in his report to the Surveyor General’s headquarters in St. Augustine.” Based on his account showing 888.6 miles surveyed, he was paid $3,555. He eventually moved back to Caledonia, New York, where he died in 1880.
Growth
The land itself remained isolated for several more decades, until the state government sold it as part of a grant to speculator Richard Bolles in 1908. After the draining of south Florida swamps began in earnest under Governor Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, the land was acquired by Henry “Bud” Lyons in 1919 as part of his 20,000-acre green bean and cattle operation. In 1961, Lyons’ widow sold the land to developer James S. Hunt for $1 million, setting the stage for Coral Springs to be incorporated two years later.
As a case study in the growth of suburban America, the surveying expedition that first reached the area of the future Coral Springs illustrates a typical first step in development. It illustrates how a city can quickly go from an undeveloped natural setting to a major suburban municipality in only a few short decades. While in a sense this example shows the triumph of progress, it is also a cautionary story in that the path to rapid development came at the cost of destroying extensive areas of pristine wetlands and wildlife habitat. When faced with a similar situation in the future, hopefully a more balanced, deliberate outcome will result.
What do you think of the development of Florida? Let us know below.
1 U.S. Census Bureau, “Characteristics of the Population: Florida,” 1970, accessed January 15, 2022 at https://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1970a_fl1-01.pdf; U.S. Census Bureau, “QuickFacts: Coral Springs, FL,” 2020, accessed January 15, 2022 at https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/coralspringscityflorida.
2 Joe Knetsch, "The Surveys of George Mackay: A Drawer of Lines on the Map of South Florida," The Florida
Surveyor, Vol. II, Issue 1 (October 1994).
3 C. Albert White, A History of the Rectangular Survey System (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of Land Management, 1983): 332, accessed December 20, 2021 at https://www.blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files/histrect.pdf, 332.
4 U.S. Government Survey Field Notebooks, Vol. 84, 1845: 283, accessed October 13, 2021 at https://ftp.labins.org/glo_all/Volume84_pdf/Folder%2013%20pg%20262%20to%20285_pdf.pdf.
5 Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1896): 261, accessed November 20, 2021 at https://www.google.com/books/edition/Annual_Report_of_the_Board_of_Regents_of/Lt1f3-7J2xcC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=weathermaking+ancient+and+modern+smithsonian+mackay&pg=PA260&printsec=frontcover.
6 A.H. Jones. A.H. Jones to George MacKay, February 2, 1846. Letter. MacKay-Hutchinson Family Papers 1836-74, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.
7 U.S. Treasury Department, Letter from the Secretary of the Treasury Transmitting the annual report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office: 112, accessed December 21, 2021 at https://digitalcommons.law.ou.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1607&context=indianserialset.
8 New York, Death Index, 1880-1956, New York Department of Health, Albany, NY; NY State Death Index; Certificate Number 5870.
