The New River is a river in South Florida, USA. The river originates in the Everglades

Everglades

The Everglades are subtropical wetlands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large watershed. The system begins near Orlando with the Kissimmee River, which discharges into the vast but shallow Lake Okeechobee...

 and flows east. After passing through Fort Lauderdale

Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Fort Lauderdale is a city in the U.S. state of Florida, on the Atlantic coast. It is the county seat of Broward County. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 165,521. It is a principal city of the South Florida metropolitan area, which was home to 5,564,635 people at the 2010...

, the river enters the Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

 at Port Everglades

Port Everglades

Port Everglades is a port in Broward County, Florida. As one of South Florida's leading economic powerhouses, Port Everglades is the gateway for international trade and cruise vacations. Already one of the three busiest cruise ports worldwide, Port Everglades is also one of Florida's leading...

 cut. The river is entirely within Broward County and is composed from the junction of three main canal

Canal

Canals are man-made channels for water. There are two types of canal:#Waterways: navigable transportation canals used for carrying ships and boats shipping goods and conveying people, further subdivided into two kinds:...

s which originate in the Everglades

Everglades

The Everglades are subtropical wetlands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large watershed. The system begins near Orlando with the Kissimmee River, which discharges into the vast but shallow Lake Okeechobee...

, splitting off from the Miami Canal

Miami Canal

The Miami Canal, or C-6 Canal, flows from Lake Okeechobee in the U.S. state of Florida to its terminus at the Miami River, which flows through downtown Miami. The canal flows in a south and southeasterly direction for approximately 77 miles, and passes through three counties: Broward, Palm Beach,...

. They are the North New River Canal, which flows on the north side of State Road 84 / Interstate 595

Interstate 595 (Florida)

Interstate 595 , also known as the Port Everglades Expressway and as the unsigned State Road 862, is a Interstate highway that connects Interstate 75 and Alligator Alley in the west with Florida's Turnpike, Interstate 95, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, US 1, and SR A1A before...

; the South New River Canal, which flows on the north side of Griffin Road and the south side of Orange Drive; and a canal which flows south of Sunrise Boulevard.

Origin of name

According to a legend attributed in 1940 to the Seminole

Seminole

The Seminole are a Native American people originally of Florida, who now reside primarily in that state and Oklahoma. The Seminole nation emerged in a process of ethnogenesis out of groups of Native Americans, most significantly Creeks from what is now Georgia and Alabama, who settled in Florida in...

s by writers working in the Florida Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration, New River had appeared suddenly after a night of strong winds, loud noises, and shaking ground, resulting in the Seminoles calling the river Himmarshee, meaning "new water". The report of the Writers' Project attributed the noise and shaking to an earthquake which collapsed the roof of an underground river. Folk historian Lawrence Will relates that the Seminole name for the river was Coontie-Hatchee, for the coontie (Zamia integrifolia

Zamia integrifolia

Zamia integrifolia is a small, tough, woody cycad native to the southeast United States , the Bahamas and the Caribbean south to Grand Cayman and Puerto Rico ....

) that grew along the river, and that the chamber of commerce tried to change the name of the river to Himmarshee-Hatchee during the Florida land boom of the 1920s

Florida land boom of the 1920s

The Florida land boom of the 1920s was Florida's first real estate bubble, which burst in 1925, leaving behind entire new cities and the remains of failed development projects such as Aladdin City in south Miami-Dade County and Isola di Lolando in north Biscayne Bay...

.

The English name is derived from early explorer's maps. The mouth of the river was noted for its tendency to continuously change its entry point into the Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

 through the shifting sand of the barrier island. Each time the coast was surveyed and charted the entry point would have shifted. So the location of the mouth would not be on any previous maps, and from off the coast would appear as if it had just developed. With each charting, the location would be recorded with the notation "new river". Since that was the name used on the maps, that was the name by which the first settlers came to know it, so the name stayed.

History

The area along the New River was occupied in prehistoric times by people of the Glades culture

Glades culture

The Glades culture is an archaeological culture in southernmost Florida that lasted from about 500 BCE until shortly after European contact. Its area included the Everglades, the Florida Keys, the Atlantic coast of Florida north through present-day Martin County and the Gulf coast north to Marco...

. At the time of first contact with Europeans, Tequesta

Tequesta

The Tequesta Native American tribe, at the time of first European contact, occupied an area along the southeastern Atlantic coast of Florida...

 people lived in the area. The Tequesta were gone by the middle of the 18th century. By the 1830s, white settlers had established the New River settlement along the river. The settlers fled the area with the start of the Second Seminole War

Second Seminole War

The Second Seminole War, also known as the Florida War, was a conflict from 1835 to 1842 in Florida between various groups of Native Americans collectively known as Seminoles and the United States, part of a series of conflicts called the Seminole Wars...

, and the U.S. Army built a series of forts called Fort Lauderdale near the river. The first fort was where the North and South Forks joined. The fort was later moved to Tarpon Bend, and then to the barrier island near present-day Bahia Mar. A trading post established in the 1890s by Frank Stranahan

Frank Stranahan

Frank Richard Stranahan was a successful amateur golf champion. Stranahan was also the number one power lifter in his weight class from 1945 to 1954 and he became known on the golf course and off as the "Toledo strongman" long before the modern game of golf and fitness...

 at a ferry crossing of the New River became the nucleus of the city of Fort Lauderdale.

Prior to the 20th century, the New River originated in the Everglades as two streams, the North Fork and South Fork, which merged and flowed about three miles into Lake Mabel, a coastal lagoon

Lagoon

A lagoon is a body of shallow sea water or brackish water separated from the sea by some form of barrier. The EU's habitat directive defines lagoons as "expanses of shallow coastal salt water, of varying salinity or water volume, wholly or partially separated from the sea by sand banks or shingle,...

. The river was heavily modified in the first half of the 20th century. The North Fork was extended as the C-12 Canal along present-day Sunrise Boulevard, while the South Fork was extended by two canals: the G-15 or North New River Canal (created by 1912 to help drain the Everglades) and the C-11 or South New River Canal, which connects to the Miami Canal

Miami Canal

The Miami Canal, or C-6 Canal, flows from Lake Okeechobee in the U.S. state of Florida to its terminus at the Miami River, which flows through downtown Miami. The canal flows in a south and southeasterly direction for approximately 77 miles, and passes through three counties: Broward, Palm Beach,...

. The South New River Canal also connects to the Dania Cutoff Canal, which leads eastward from the C-11 canal to the Intracoastal Waterway. In 1928 a channel was dredged through a barrier island to connect Lake Mabel to the Atlantic Ocean, which allowed salt water and tides to intrude far up the river.

Mouth

The mouth of the New River is located north of Port Everglades

Port Everglades

Port Everglades is a port in Broward County, Florida. As one of South Florida's leading economic powerhouses, Port Everglades is the gateway for international trade and cruise vacations. Already one of the three busiest cruise ports worldwide, Port Everglades is also one of Florida's leading...

 and south of Las Olas Boulevard

Las Olas Boulevard

Las Olas Boulevard is a popular thoroughfare in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States that runs from Andrews Avenue in the Central Business District to A1A and Fort Lauderdale Beach. The easternmost section of the boulevard is interlaced with canals and waterfront homes...

 in downtown
Fort Lauderdale. Four bridges cross this first stretch of the river namely 3rd Avenue, Andrews Avenue, the railroad bridge,
and 4th/7th Avenue. The Florida East Coast Railroad traverses the railroad bridge. After this stretch, the
New River splits into North and South forks. The South fork is dominant and an important conduit for the
maritime industry. On the South fork are numerous boat yards up to and past I-95. The North fork is shallower with a
low clearance Broward Boulevard bridge that soon terminates the navigatable water.