today as a museum and is Broward County's oldest standing structure. In 1896, the Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) extended its line south from West Palm Beach to Miami, with a station in Fort Lauderdale. The first train stopped in Fort Lauderdale on 22 February 1896. Further development was spurred by the construction of the first automobile bridge across the New River in 1904. Fort Lauderdale was incorporated in 1911. In 1915, it became the county seat of the newly established Broward County, which also consisted of the incorporated towns of Dania, Deerfield, Hallandale, and Pompano (all four towns later added "Beach" to their names) and the unincorporated settlement of Davie. The first census after the city's incorporation, the 1920 census, documented a population of 2,065. In 1920, construction of the first canals in the city began, clearing the mangroves and creating the first "finger islands" that became synonymous with the city. In February 1925, a state-commissioned census recorded 5,625 people in Fort Lauderdale, and a real-estate boom was in progress in South Florida. While the land rush was focused on the Miami area, communities throughout the region, including Fort Lauderdale, Pompano Beach and Boca Raton were swept up in the speculative buying frenzy. A census undertaken by the city during the first week of December 1925 counted a population of 15,315, an increase of 300% in less than 10 months. By the end of the year, however, the region's infrastructure, unable to cope with the sudden influx, began to crack under the strain. Faced with a supply of materials which far exceeded its shipping capacity, the FEC instituted an embargo on shipping on 18 August 1925, restricting transport to fuel, petroleum, livestock, and perishable goods. On 29 October, all shipments except foodstuffs were eliminated, in an effort to reduce the transport backlog the railroad was experiencing. 1926-1945 The Florida land boom collapsed in 1926. At that time, the only methods of bringing supplies into the area were on the FEC's single track or through the Port of Miami, as Port Everglades was not yet completed. On 10 January 1926, the schooner Prinz Valdemar sank in the channel of the Port of Miami, trapping eleven vessels and effectively blockading the port until 29 February, when the Army Corps of Engineers dug a new channel around the capsized vessel. Real estate firms solely financed by continuous development began to fail, and