New River (Broward County, Florida)

The New River is a tidal estuary in South Florida, United States. The river is connected to the Everglades through a series of man made canals. After passing through Fort Lauderdale, the river connects to the Atlantic Ocean at Port Everglades cut. The river is entirely within Broward County and is composed from the junction of three main canals which originate in the Everglades, splitting off from the Miami Canal. They are the North New River Canal, which flows on the north side of State Road 84 / Interstate 595; 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.

According to a legend attributed in 1940 to the Seminoles 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) 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.

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