The City of Lauderhill was born on June 30, 1959.The “Founding Father” was a builder/developer named Herbert Sadkin.The City’s social services building is named Sadkin Center. The first officers of the City, appointed by the Governor of Florida were Harold Wolk, who became the first Mayor, and Council Members, David Shapiro, Herbert Sadkin, Nathan Ringler and Jerome Wolk; they held office until the first general elections in the city on November 2, 1965.

If Herbert Sadkin had not been talking with a friend while in New York, Lauderhill would have been known as “Sunnydale”.The friend was a well-known journalist, William Safire, who wrote for the New York Times.Safire said he disliked the name “Sunnydale”, because it sounded like a neighborhood in Brooklyn.Mr. Safire liked the word play of hill and dale.Mr. Sadkin mentioned there are no hills there, Mr. Safire replied, “There are probably no dales in Lauderdale, either!”

When the first houses were developed in Lauderhill, very few people wanted to come out to “Dairy Farm country” to live.The Lauderhill Mall, which opened in 1966, was the first enclosed air-conditioned mall to open in the southeastern United States.The land where the mall is located used to be a place to trap alligators and other animals.

Inverrary is a planned urban development, which means that all the land is planned out before the building begins and each section is designed for a specific purpose.Inverrary became the home of the Inverrary Country Club and site of the Jackie Gleason Inverrary Golf Classic.

The Northwest section of the city was developed in the late 70s as a mainly single-family home community.When building started in this section, because it was considered to be so far west, the comment was, “You are buying a home in the Everglades!”