Stranahan House: The Oldest Building in Broward
Near Fort Lauderdale, Florida
On the north bank of the New River, dwarfed now by the towers of downtown, stands a wide porched wooden house that is the oldest surviving building in all of Broward County. This is the Stranahan House, and its story is the story of the town itself. In eighteen ninety three, a young Ohioan named Frank Stranahan arrived at the age of twenty seven to run a ferry and camp at a spot called Tarpon Bend on the river.
He soon set up his own trading business with the Seminole, who poled their dugout canoes downriver to swap otter hides, alligator skins, and egret plumes for cloth, tools, and sewing machines. Stranahan earned a reputation for fair dealing, and his post became the heart of the tiny New River settlement. He served as its postmaster.
In nineteen oh one he built the structure that still stands here, using the lower floor as his trading post and the upper floor as a community hall for the growing settlement. By nineteen oh six he had moved his store nearer the new railroad, and the old post was remodeled into a home for Frank and his wife Ivy, the town's first schoolteacher. Placed on the National Register of Historic Places in nineteen seventy three, it survives today as a museum.
