Short-statured Commodore Avylen Harcourt Brook ‘rescues’ President-elect Warren G. Harding aboard Brook’s 22-foot sloop “Klyo” after Harding’s houseboat cruising south on the New River Sound (now part of the Intracoastal Waterway) hits a snag “orchestrated” by Brook, the city’s unpaid public relations director, in 1921. Harding (white pants, waving his hat) annually took Florida cruises aboard houseboats furnished by politicians and friends. (Courtesy, Ft. Lauderdale Historical Society).
Whenever he was able, Harding played golf at the nine-hole Lauderdale golf links, a portion of today’s Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, which during World War II was Naval Air Station – Ft. Lauderdale. The Station trained hundreds of pilots, bombers, and navigators, including the future U.S. President, George Herbert Walker Bush.
