So the Spaniards covered for their mapmaker's error and dubbed the unpredictable waterway the New River. That might have been fine, for latter-day marketing purposes, if the American settlers who began showing up in the 1830s hadn't insisted on an English translation. George points out that these same Spaniards originally called the Miami River Agua Dulce, or Sweet Water, while Lake Okeechobee was supposed to be Lake Miami, or Miamyami, as the Indian called it. Only some early cartographic errors have kept local football fans from cheering the Agua Dulce Dolphins. New River may have historic value, but it's still dull.
Businesses ignore the name.
There are, George points out, other local historic references with more grab. It could be the Tequesta River, after the tribe that dominated this end of the Florida peninsula until they cast their fate with the Spaniards. Some early European settlers might be worth memorializing. In Fort Lauderdale's riverside Colee Hammock Park, a marker commemorates the Colee Massacre. The fellow most responsible for Fort Lauderdale's abrupt transition from a sleepy riverside trading post was Gov. Napoleon Broward, who made the town the starting point and headquarters for his audacious scheme to drain the Everglades in 1906.