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 1 July 2006, the population estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau is 37,145.
The city is best known as the home of the Gulfstream Park horse racing track, which hosts the Florida Derby. 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.
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-freeclimate 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 electrity 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.
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