During World War II, the recreation area encompassed by Colony Club Road was the site of the corrals and paddocks for the United States Coast Guard’s Silver Thatch Mounted Beach Patrol, which protected the coast from U-boat activity and saboteurs. The patrol headquarters stood at the site of the old Silver Thatch Inn, built by the Jelks family around the 1930s. After the Coast Guard requisitioned the property in 1942, stables, corrals, and a paddock were built behind the hotel, which served as headquarters for the unit and barracks for the men. Beginning an eight-hour duty at 4 P.M., the unit patrolled from Hillsboro Inlet to Port Everglades. In 1945 the unit was decommissioned and the hotel returned to civilian control. In 1954, Ed Stack, who later became Broward County Sheriff and then was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, purchased the property and started the Bath and Tennis Club of Pompano Beach there. The hotel was torn down in 1972, when the Silver Thatch Atlantic Plaza was built on the property, and the recreational area remains because of a 1962 deed restriction that precludes any building on the parcel.