Hallandale Beach, Florida

Hallandale Beach is a city in Broward County, Florida, United States. The city is named after Luther Halland, a worker for Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast Railroad. As of the 2010 census, the population was 37,113. It is part of the South Florida metropolitan area, which was home to 5,564,635 people at the 2010 census.

The city is best known as the home of Mardi Gras Casino greyhound racing track, which hosts the World Classic. It also has a sizable financial district, with offices for a number of banks and brokerage houses. Sometimes referred to in jest as the "southernmost Canadian city," Hallandale Beach has been a popular vacation destination for decades, and many of the tourists come from Quebec and the Northeastern United States; a significant number of these tourists eventually retire to the area.

History

Hallandale Beach, like most of Broward County, had no permanent population until the end of the 19th century. The Seminole Indians hunted in the area and gathered coontie roots to produce arrowroot starch, but their settlements were further inland.

Railroad magnate Henry Flagler, owner of the Florida East Coast Railway, recruited Luther Halland, a brother-in-law of Flagler's agents, to found a settlement south of the community of Dania. Halland and Swedish immigrant Olaf Zetterlund touted the frost-free climate and cheap land of the settlement (then named Halland, later changed to Hallandale). Halland constructed a small trading post and became its first postmaster of the small community.

By 1900, the city had slowly grown to a dozen families—seven Swedish, three English, and two black. In 1904 the first school was built, and the first church followed two years later. Hallandale was primarily a farming community; the beach was undeveloped and used by the residents only for recreational purposes.

Hallandale was incorporated on 14 May 1927. By that time, a thriving community of 1,500 residents, with electricity and street lights, was in place. In 1947, Hallandale was reincorporated as a city, allowing it to expand its borders through annexation of nearby unincorporated land. In August 1999, the city officially changed its name to Hallandale Beach.^[2]

Hurricane Katrina first made landfall between Hallandale and Aventura, Florida.

Geography

Hallandale Beach is located at .^[3] According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area 4.55 square miles (12 km²). 4.21 square miles (11 km²) of it is land and .34 square miles (1 km²) of it (7.47%) is water.Is small ,but beautiful town

Demographics

As of the census^[4] of 2000, there were 44,282 people, 18,051 households, and 8,700 families residing in the city. The population density was 8,143.1 per square mile (3,144.0/km²). There were 25,022 housing units at an average density of 5,943.5 per square mile (2,294.8/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 77.25% White (62.6% were Non-Hispanic White,)^[5] 16.02% African American, 0.23% Native American, 1.00% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 2.79% from other races, and 2.66% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 18.81% of the population. 9.9% were of Italian, 6.3% American, 5.3% West Indian, 5.2% German and 5.2% Russian ancestry according to Census 2000.

There were 18,051 households out of which 12.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 35.8% were married couples living together, 9.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 51.8% were non-families. 45.2% of all households were made up of individuals and 25.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 1.88 and the average family size was 2.60.

In the city the population was spread out with 13.2% under the age of 18, 5.3% from 18 to 24, 22.9% from 25 to 44, 22.8% from 45 to 64, and 35.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 53 years. For every 100 females there were 85.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 82.6 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $28,266, and the median income for a family was $37,171. Males had a median income of $31,287 versus $24,882 for females. The per capita income for the city was $22,464. About 13.1% of families and 16.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 26.4% of those under age 18 and 13.0% of those age 65 or over.

As of the year 2000, English was spoken as a first language by 59.66% of the population and Spanish by 19.50%; the "southernmost Canadian city" also had French spoken by 5.23% of the population, with the majority being French Canadians. Other languages included were Romanian at 2.71%, Italian at 1.96%, French Creole at 1.80%, Yiddish 1.70%, Russian 1.32%, German 1.27%, Hungarian at 1.17%, Polish at 0.85%, Hebrew at 0.77%, and Portuguese, spoken by 0.72% of all residents.^[6]

Public schools

Hallandale Beach's public schools are part of Broward County Public Schools. Grades K-5 students are zoned for Hallandale Elementary School. Grades 6-8 students are zoned for Gulfstream Middle School. Grades 9-12 students are zoned for Hallandale High School. However many Hallandale Beach residents send their children to other schools across the county.

Media

Hallandale Beach is a part of the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood media market, which is the twelfth largest radio market^[7] and the seventeenth largest television market^[8] in the United States. Its primary daily newspapers are the South Florida-Sun Sentinel and The Miami Herald, and their Spanish-language counterparts El Sentinel and El Nuevo Herald. Hallandale Beach has its own newspaper, The Hallandale Digest, which is published monthly.

Notable residents

Notable current and former residents of Hallandale Beach include:

• Stewart H. Appleby (1890–1964), represented New Jersey's 3rd congressional district from 1925–1927, and retired to Hallandale Beach^[9]
• Meyer Lansky (1902–1983), Jewish gangster; financial wizard of the National Crime Syndicate
• Dave Mitchell (b. 1947), Dallas and Miami radio personality, lived in Hallandale Beach 1992-2000

References

External links

• City of Hallandale Beach official site