Pool Company in Pembroke Pines, FL

Pembroke Pines was officially incorporated on January 16, 1960. The city’s name, Pembroke Pines, is traced back to Sir Edward J. Reed, a member of Britain’s Parliament for the County of Pembroke from 1874 to 1880, who in 1882 formed the Florida Land and Mortgage Company to purchase from Hamilton Disston a total of 2 million acres of mostly swampland located throughout the southern half of Florida. A road put through one of the tracts came to be known as Pembroke Road. When incorporating the city, Walter Smith Kipnis, who became the city’s first mayor, suggested the name Pembroke Pines because of the pine trees growing near Pembroke Road.

The first inhabitants of the area were American Indians, who first appeared about 4,000 years ago. Skeletal remains of animal hunters dating back about 10,000 years were found around Broward County, showing that perhaps human beings had lived in the area even earlier.

The town started as agricultural land occupied by dairy farms, and grew after World War II as service members were retiring, including large eastern sections that were part of the Waldrep Dairy Farm, including the present-day Pembroke Lakes Mall. The first two subdivisions were called Pembroke Pines. One of the first homes in the city belonged to Kipnis, the city’s first mayor, and was built in 1956. It was then known as the “Village of Pembroke Pines” and was incorporated into a village in 1959. Builders contested the incorporation, so a legal battle ensued concerning the boundaries of the new municipality. City services were added in the 1960s with the building of the first fire department building near North Perry Airport. University Drive was then the western edge of habitable land for residents.