Did you know? Before there were beach bars and bingo nights, Pompano had a horse track, for a week.
It was 1926. The land boom was in full swing, money was everywhere, and someone decided to spend $1.25 million (real money back then) building what they hoped would be South Florida's premier horse racing destination.
Teams of men worked around the clock to finish it. When they did, the numbers were staggering: a grandstand that seated 6,800 people, stables for 1,000 horses, a mile-long clay-and-sand track. Oh, and the entire population of Pompano at the time? About 2,000 people.
Christmas Day, 1926, the place opened. Thousands arrived by special bus. Jockey F. Weiner rode a horse named Russell to victory. Bets were placed. Champagne was flowing.
Then Florida's governor shut the whole thing down. Pari-mutuel betting was illegal, and he personally dubbed Pompano Park "a center of lawbreakers." Racing stopped. The $1.25 million track pivoted to boxing matches and polo until a hurricane in 1928 turned it into a Red Cross station.
It wasn't until 1964 that horse racing finally came back to Pompano legally. Pompano Park became a genuine institution, packed with 18,000 fans on big nights.
Then in 2022, Caesars Entertainment pulled the plug for good. The horses left. The casino stayed.
Let's get into it. 🐟
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📰 LOCAL NEWS
📰 Pompano's Downtown Is No Longer a Concept
Bids to build the new City Hall closed Friday. That's not a small thing.
The broader plan is ambitious. A 75-acre redevelopment stretching from Dixie Highway to I-95. A 12-block waterwalk through the heart of downtown — think San Antonio River Walk, Pompano edition. New office space, retail, restaurants, and residential all woven together. Old Town is already showing what's possible. The rest is catching up fast.
For years, the $2 billion downtown transformation has been the kind of story that sounds big but feels far away — renderings, roundtables, commission votes. This week it got real. A builder is about to be selected to break ground on the civic anchor of the entire New Downtown project: a new City Hall and parking deck at 125 Dixie Highway, designed to cluster government, foot traffic, and public programming into one walkable hub.
If you've been waiting to see whether this city is actually going to follow through — this is your answer.
👉 Track the progress at downtownpompanobeach.org