Hillsboro Inlet, one of the most historic locations in Pompano Beach, was named by surveyor William de Brahm in the early 1870's in honor of British aristocrat Lord Wills Hill, the Earl of Hillsborough, though how the spelling changed is unclear. In 1885, when the government established a beach mail route from Lake Worth to Miami, the inlet became one of the water barriers that barefoot mailmen crossed by rowboat. In 1887, mailman Edward Hamilton found his rowboat on the opposite side of the inlet and lost his life trying to swim across; his body was never found. The beach mail route ended in 1892 after a road was built between the two locations. In 1902, Congress appropriated funds for a lighthouse at the inlet, and five years later the Hillsboro Inlet Light Station began sending its light to sea, filling the 100 mile gap between the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse to the north and the Fowley Rocks Lighthouse to the south and shining 27 miles out to sea. The lighthouse has operated continuously except during maintenance and dark periods in World War I and World War II. The inlet received its first bridge in 1925 with a swing span structure, later replaced by the present bascule bridge in 1966. South Florida's earliest settlers knew the inlet as a prime sport fishing location, and by the 1930s several charter and drift boats were operating there; as tourism grew, the charter fishing fleet expanded and became home to many well-known fishing guides. In 1974, the lighthouse was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In the early 1990s, after the U.S. Coast Guard proposed deactivating it partly because of maintenance issues, local enthusiasts formed the Hillsboro Lighthouse Preservation Society, developed a plan to keep the lighthouse operating, and provided public access to the historic structure. The City of Pompano Beach opened Hillsboro Inlet Park in 2005, where scenic views of the inlet and lighthouse became a central attraction.