By Fran Folic for History Fort Lauderdale
What does a 32-year-veteran Broward County judge do once he steps away from the bench? If you are the Honorable Robert Lee, you devote your time as a volunteer to preserving South Florida’s rich history and making it accessible to all online at History Fort Lauderdale!
While most people recognize Judge Lee for serving as the chair of the Broward County Canvassing Board during the notorious Bush v. Gore 2000 U.S. presidential election recount, what they don’t know is that his service to the county, the state and to future generations of historical researchers worldwide is a continuing passion project.
A history maker himself, Lee was the first openly LGBTQ individual appointed to the state court bench in the State of Florida in 1997. His legacy paved the way for subsequent LGBTQ bench members. He’s presided over nearly 350 jury trials and issued over 500 published legal decisions during his career. He’s served as the head administrative judge for the county court in Florida’s 17th Judicial Circuit where he’s received numerous honors, including the Chief Justice Award for Judicial Excellence.
And now, not content to watch history stay “only recorded in the books,” Lee has devoted his free time to scanning, compiling and organizing scores of valuable resources – more than 2,300 historical volumes archived since 1962 (but dating back much further), covering Broward County and Florida, the Everglades, Seminole Indians, nature, architecture, biography, antiques and artifacts, locally themed fiction and signed editions by famous authors – to make History Fort Lauderdale’s library catalog completely digitized, searchable, and available online.
“I’d say I spent about 230 hours on this project, alone,” joked Lee. “We’re talking eight-hour days; working on weekends to get this done. And this labor of love was not without its challenges!”
What started as an idea for a commemorative America250 and 25th anniversary exhibit chronicling the Bush v. Gore “hanging chad” recount case, turned into a much larger research project that ultimately resulted in Lee’s curated “Justice from the Sea to the Sawgrass — A History of the Broward County Judiciary” exhibit. This deep dive into our region’s storied past, complete with photos, news ephemera and historical artifacts, recently debuted at History Fort Lauderdale in May and will be displayed soon at the Broward County Courthouse.
It was during this arduous research process (another 350 volunteer hours) that Lee struggled with finding text titles and resources in an antiquated card catalog drawer. With the blessings of History Fort Lauderdale’s Executive Director Patricia Zeiler and Managing Director Ellery Andrews, Lee tackled the Herculean task of digitizing the extensive archives.
“A volunteer of Judge Lee’s stature and expertise is immeasurable,” shared Zeiler. “History Fort Lauderdale regularly receives calls from researchers across the nation seeking specific, niche requests. Prior to digitization, our team would physically have to search a paper card catalog and stacks. Now, in less than 30 seconds, they have access to the whole Hoch Library with Library of Congress numerical and bibliographical references. With so many volumes, we never thought this was possible. We are grateful and appreciative of his incredible gift!”
“I’m the kind of person that always needs to be doing something,” laughed Lee. “I have all this energy that needs to be channeled somewhere. And when I was in the process of researching the Bush v. Gore case materials, I realized this was something much bigger. In this online day and age, we need to think about how people consume information and conduct research. So, I gave myself a deadline, rolled-up my sleeves and just dove into it.”
A self-proclaimed “history nerd” and “book guy,” Lee’s background in historical education and humanities made him the perfect candidate for the project. He’s focused on the preservation and interpretation of other historic sites including Stranahan House in Fort Lauderdale and the McLean Farmhouse at Tradewinds Park in Coconut Creek. During his time as a judge, he also volunteered for more than 15 years at the Stonewall National Museum, Archives & Library where he was trained by the late LGBTQ philanthropist and former New York Public Library System archivist Paul Fasana, to catalogue the organization’s library collection of more than 25,000 volumes and archival items. He also gained valuable insight from David Fairchild from Fairchild Tropical Gardens.
In the process of poring over thousands of book titles, Lee made some surprising discoveries.
“We found 100 books in the collection that are so rare and valuable…worth more than $1,000 that it would be difficult to locate these elsewhere.” He continued, “While Broward became a county in 1915, we existed as a city in 1911. I found the schoolbooks used for kids in 1912 when Broward wasn’t even on the map. Who knew they made books in color back then? Speaking of maps, I found all kinds of interesting ones – from drainage systems to how to grow crops and 100-year old oversized fold-out maps including highway illustrations before there was an interstate system!”
According to Lee, the most rewarding aspect of this passion project was realizing the depth of historical books that History Fort Lauderdale possesses.
“As libraries go, HFL’s collection on the Seminole tribe is truly outstanding and comprehensive and people should know about this,” he said. “There’s even a whole section on citrus. A fun find was cataloging the large number of Florida cookbooks going back to the 1920s. Cookbooks were big fundraising tools for nonprofits back in the day. I actually took my first stab at sweet potato biscuits from a recipe I found in one. It came out pretty good! And travel…we uncovered travel literature going back to the 1950s including trips to Cuba. Apparently, the first judicial court conference was held in Havana. The state paid for people to fly there from Key West, but by 1961, materials related to Cuba just sort of disappeared.”
Judge Lee encourages history buffs and the next generation of researchers to delve into the online catalog and make some discoveries of their own.
“There’s a wealth of information just waiting to be accessed!”
Visit https://hub.catalogit.app/history-fort-lauderdale to browse the new digitized catalog or see the actual books in-person at the Hoch Research Library on History Fort Lauderdale’s campus located at 231 SW 2nd Ave. in Fort Lauderdale.
