Lost History Uncovered: Exploring WPB's Forgotten Past

Every city has its secrets. West Palm Beach has lots of little-known facts and stories dating back to its establishment in 1894.  Today, we’ll talk to a local historian and writer about the West Palm Beach you never new existed. That’s next on the City Center Podcast from West Palm Beach.

Episode Transcript

(10:34:28):
Welcome to the City Center podcast. I'm
Jerry Marceau. Every city has its
secrets. West Palm Beach has lots of
little-known facts and stories dating
back to its establishment in 1894. Today
we'll talk to a local historian and
writer about the West Palm Beach you
never knew existed. That's next on the

(10:34:48):
City Center podcast from West Palm Beach.
And joining us today is Janet Naughton, a
faculty, librarian, and history professor
at Palm Beach State College in Lake
Worth. Janet,
welcome. Good morning. First
question, you know, we know that there's
a great deal of history even though the

(10:35:09):
area hasn't been around for a whole lot
of time. It's like we've been here for
thousands of years or hundreds of years.
You know, the city of West Palm Beach is
just a little hair over 130 years old. Is
it natural or normal for a town like
this to have so much history available?
There is so much history here. You just
have to look for it. The people, the

(10:35:30):
places, the events, all of those are
history. Each time you look at a building
or you look at the way the streets go,
all of those tell a story of our history.
You know, and West Palm Beach is a kind
of a place where, you know, we see a lot
of our, a lot of growth, a lot of
buildings going up, and sadly some
buildings coming down. You know, I guess

(10:35:51):
part of what you do, and it's a great
thing, is to preserve the history before
it is lost to time and space. Right.
Anything that's preserved, whether it be
through a story, a photograph, a postcard
or something, then it's really not
forgotten. Right, right. Well what we
have here, you were
kind of to bring us a list
of little known things about the area

(10:36:14):
that we're going to talk about today.
And I know you have some pictures here
that we're going to be able to share.
Now first of all, I see before you this
real interesting collection of postcards.
What kind of role does
postcards play in capturing history?
So I am what they call a deltyologist. So

(10:36:35):
a deltyologist is simply someone who
collects postcards. But I started getting
into collecting postcards when I wanted
to find pictures of some of the things
that were here and that weren't here.
So I started looking for them, and you
can get them on different internet sites
or at postcard shows or by networking
with other people, but each one of those

(10:36:57):
is like a little snapshot in time of
history. And so a deltyologist, did I say
that correct? Yes. So I say if I'm
interested in finding
images or parts of the history of
Save My Community, I would could go to
various auction sites and
collecting places and see if,
oh look there's a picture of the old drug

(10:37:17):
store that used to be there.
You can. You would be surprised at what
you could find. And with
this, I was able to see different
things like Clamata Street and Flagler
Drive all through the ages, all the way
back into the 1890s.
That's really neat. And that's one of the
things that I've already
noticed doing a little bit of
historical digging around. Clamatus is a

(10:37:39):
street. It's been shot
through every decade,
every moment of its existence. You can
find pictures all the way
back to the 1890s, I guess,
and all the way forward. And you can
really see how the
streets changed over time.
And how it hasn't.
That's right. That's right. Sometimes
you'd be surprised what's
still there after a long time.
But we're going to be talking about so

(10:37:59):
many interesting things
here. And you brought us a
wonderful list. And some of these things,
honestly, I've never
heard about. I'm really
interested in finding out about it. We're
going to jump right
in here. First of all,
let's talk a little bit about the
Seminole Sundance
Festival. What was that?
Okay. So the Seminole Sundance Festival,
it was thought of by the
different merchants here in

(10:38:19):
West Palm Beach. The idea was that after
many of the tourists left
for the tourist season at the
end of February, they wanted to have
another festival. So it
was a three-day festival. And
it occurred from about 1916 to the
mid-20s. But it was a
little bit like Mardi Gras.
So they would have parades. They would

(10:38:41):
have dress-up contests.
They would have the prettiest
baby contest. It would be decorated all
up and down Clamatus
Street. And it was just like made
for a great time. And of course, it
brought a lot of business to
the city of West Palm Beach.
So the idea was sort of like to almost
extend the tourist season.

(10:39:02):
Pretty much, right. So after what we call
President's Day back
then was George Washington's
birthday. That pretty much signaled the
end of the season. But again,
there were people that could
stay longer. It's still very nice here in
March. Absolutely. Well, that's
interesting. So it was
basically like a West Palm Beach Mardi
Gras of sorts where fun and

(10:39:23):
parades and all kinds of stuff.
Picture those big brass bands and
marching and the red, white, and blue
ribbons and just a lot of
gaiety and festivities. Never heard of it
before. So interesting
that that even took place. And
it's part of our history. Now another
name that's on your
list. And I'm really curious.

(10:39:45):
Sculptor Augusta Savage. So Augusta
Savage is someone that
lived in West Palm Beach during
her formative years and ended up becoming
a very important figure
in the Harlem Renaissance
and other things. So she was born in
Green Cove Springs. Her family moved here

(10:40:05):
in about 1910 or so.
And the idea was that they were getting
jobs in the town of West
Palm Beach. So she loved to play
in the dirt and sculpt. And over in Green
Cove Springs, they have
that red brick clay. But here
they didn't have that red brick clay. So

(10:40:25):
she was sad about that. But
one day when she was writing
to school, she, as the story goes, she
saw a place where they
would make things like the red
barrel tiles for the Addison Meisner type
homes and other things. So
she ran out and they ended

(10:40:45):
up giving her two buckets of red clay. So
she actually started to
teach after school for a
dollar a day to teach other students how
to do sculpture. And then
she met a person here who was
another artist and many other things in
West Palm Beach. And his

(10:41:05):
name was George Graham Curry.
He saw her talent. And so when the South
Florida Fair came
around and incidentally,
he was the one who started that South
Florida Fair. He allowed
her to exhibit. So he set her
up with a table. And she was actually the
first black person to
exhibit at the South Florida Fair.

(10:41:27):
So she brought all of her little
sculptures and things. And she won the
blue ribbon and $25.
And she sold every piece that she brought
with her. So after that,
Curry pretty much mentored her.
And he arranged for her to go to school
in Harlem, to go to art

(10:41:49):
school. She ended up going to school
in France. She opened up her own school
in New York City during the New Deal
after the Great Depression
in Harlem. And then she exhibited at the
1939 World's Fair in

(10:42:10):
Chicago. So here she went from
Palm Beach County Fair to World's Fair.
And her exhibit, her
piece was called "The Harp."
And it was huge. And it pictured a choir
of people and then a harp.
And at the end of the fair,
it ended up being busted up because she

(10:42:32):
didn't have the funds to
get it bronzed. So that's what
would happen. It was just made of clay.
So a few of the replicas
exist because they sold them as
souvenirs. And actually somewhere I have
a postcard of the harp. But it would be
wonderful if somehow
the city of West Palm Beach could
actually bring that replica back as an

(10:42:54):
homage to this important
artist who lived here. Do we know where
the replica exists anywhere?
That would be a good question.
I'd have to find out. I'm not sure. It
would be fabulous to get it
to come here, to put it on
public display here. It's part of our
history. That would be
fabulous. But she's one of those

(10:43:16):
people that were a little bit forgotten
to history. She's actually
coming back into her own right.
Someone wrote a children's book and then
an adult book on her. And just a
fascinating person who
faced a lot of adversity but kept going.
And she received her break
here from the kindness of the
people of West Palm Beach. That's really

(10:43:37):
great. And you touched on
something that I've thought
about is that we do have, especially
throughout the entire history of the
city, but especially
in the early days, there was a sense of
creative freedom where we've
seen artists that came here
and either painted landscapes or did

(10:43:59):
their art here. And it's wonderful to see
one artist give another artist the
opportunity to grow. Exactly. That's
really fantastic. And I did
not know about this wonderful artist.
There are so many stories out there.
Yeah, this is what's
so great. Architect and school board
superintendent Agnes Ballard, which is

(10:44:22):
associated with women's
suffrage. Right. So think back that it's
the late 19 teens and women
are trying to get the right to
vote. Prohibition is going on. All these
different things are
happening. And finally, the 19th
amendment gets passed. She runs as
superintendent of the Palm Beach County

(10:44:44):
Board of Instruction
and she wins. So hence she was the first,
there was one other woman
at the same time that won at
the same time, Mrs. Stickman, Clara
Stickman, but she became the first
elected official in Palm
Beach County. And it was, you might say,
some people would say more
of a man's world. And she

(10:45:05):
went to architect school in Wisconsin and
then she's down here and
she's designing houses. She
was associated with Addison Meisner. And
for the folks who are
listening and you don't know
about Addison Meisner, give a thumbnail.
So Addison Meisner was
one of the architects that
were here in the boom time of Florida. So

(10:45:28):
this is during the 1920s
when they're starting to design
houses that are not the simple cottage
frame vernacular style
houses. So he brings with this
European influence. He had been from
California, but he would
build the larger houses and they
would have Mediterranean revival
elements. And those are

(10:45:49):
the houses that you still see
in many of our historic neighborhoods,
those stately two story
homes. I suppose you'd be
seeing those down like an L.Cid. Right.
The boom time neighborhoods
that still exist around here.
You have Northwood, Flamingo Park, you
have Grandview Heights,

(10:46:09):
L.Cid. There are so many of them.
And this was a crazy time in history
where you think we have
a land boom going on now.
This was another one of those that was
unprecedented. People
were buying the land up.
You had land speculators. You had dealers
that were trying to promise

(10:46:30):
you the moon sight unseen.
But they were also selling houses and
building houses that were
much larger and more extravagant
than the other ones. So we have some
unique neighborhoods
here in West Palm Beach.
And those boom times, as soon as you're
talking about the early 1920s,
what brought the boom to an end?

(10:46:53):
So the boom came to an end because of
several different
things. Obviously what goes up
must eventually go down. But there was an
embargo on transportation
and there was two hurricanes
that came. They weren't able to get the
materials in. So not only to
not be able to repair the homes

(10:47:15):
that were damaged from the 1928
hurricane, but then also to, you know,
why bring in to build new ones.
But then you also had the stock market
crash of 1929. And after that, the
depression. So while
houses were being built, there were a lot
of them that were
actually sold for back taxes

(10:47:36):
on the courthouse steps. Now, some people
will say that the
destinations like West Palm Beach,
which are more of a tourist and resort
kind of community, were a
little bit depression proof or
recession proof. Was that the case in
1929 or did this area
really suffer during that period?
So it did suffer. I've interviewed and

(10:47:59):
talked to quite a few people
and some people said, well,
you know, we were poor and we really
didn't know anything different. Of
course, in Palm Beach,
people still came down for the season.
And then you also needed the
people to work at the hotels
and the restaurants and other things. But
building did slow down
for quite a bit of time.

(10:48:20):
And there were programs that were
implemented through FDR's
New Deal. And yeah, and then it
didn't really recover until World War
Two. And there's a whole another story
about the prosperity
stemming from World War Two. But before
we do that, a name that's
standing out on your list that
really captures my curiosity, Nurse Rosa

(10:48:42):
Brown. So Nurse Rosa Brown
is someone that most people
here would have never heard of. This
actually goes along with
that, the 1928 hurricane story
and the New Deal. So she came here from
Jacksonville as like a
silver lining in that cloud
of the hurricane because she was a Red

(10:49:03):
Cross nurse. So they had
what they call traveling nurses.
And she came and they opened up these big
tent cities. And she was
in charge of the tent city
for segregated people. So for the black
residents. And she did such a good job
commanding the troops
in recognizing different things like
disease, sanitation, that

(10:49:25):
they kept her on. So she ended
up working for the Red Cross and the
school board. And she stayed
here and she taught home health
hygiene. She worked for the industrial
high school. And she was
just an amazing person. And
both she and Agnes Ballard, there was
suggestions to name county

(10:49:47):
schools after her. And that never
came to fruition, but I haven't given up.
I think that they both
deserve a school named after them.
It's a little bit off topic here, but you
talked about schools. I
mean, what was the situation,
especially early on, when did West Palm
Beach get its first

(10:50:08):
public school, first, I guess,
a high school? When did that take place?
Right. So the first, what I
would call like the permanent
that wasn't just like a little school
house was in 1908. So they built what
became central school
and the central school complex and not
very far from here. But at

(10:50:28):
the time, it was considered
west of town. So that's where the Dreyfus
School of the Arts is
today. Right. So the first school
built in 1908, it was built by William
Wofflin, again, in that
Mediterranean revival kind of
style that was so popular, expensive. But
the parents, they were
like, Oh, no, you can't send

(10:50:50):
our children all the way out there. So
for one thing, they had to
cross the railroad tracks and
they didn't have the warning systems that
they have. It was pretty
swampy land out there. And then
there were animals. So you would have the
Panthers, the Bobcats, the
alligators. So again, at first,
it was like considered way out there in

(10:51:11):
the bonies. That is a
different West Palm Beach than
what we know today. Definitely. The idea
that something that to us
is so centrally located,
like the Dreyfus School is would have
been considered to be way
out west. Oh, yeah. Where
the Kravis Center is. That's insane.
That's something. All
right. So we'll move on. And

(10:51:32):
your list is just so fascinating. George
Curry and of course, Curry
Park, Pleasant City and South
Florida Fair. How do those all come
together? Okay. Well, if you
think about when people come
to West Palm Beach, they come for so many
different reasons, whether for
recreation, for investment,
for vacation. But George Curry was what

(10:51:52):
you might call a wander
wanderlust kind of person that like
to travel. He ended up here by mistake,
but he was creative and he
ended up becoming one of our
earliest mayors. He helped build the
town. He was in real estate,
business, and so many other
things. But one of the things that he did

(10:52:14):
was he started what today we
call the South Florida Fair,
the same one that I had mentioned before.
And he lived over actually
across from Woodlawn towards
Flagler Drive and on a street named after
himself, Curry Crescent. And
he developed several different

(10:52:34):
neighborhoods around here. So George
Curry was also a poet. He was very
creative and artistic.
And he came up with a saying for West
Palm Beach. So you know how we do the
initials and acronym
and we just say W.P.B. His acronym was
Where Prosperity
Beckons. I have never heard that

(10:52:56):
before. That is fascinating. A great
Chamber of Commerce moment.
So telephones were first put
through here and when they came through
it ended up being later sold to Bell
South. But they had the
wires through the trees. Really? And

(10:53:17):
George Curry had the first
phone and his phone number,
can you guess what that was? 001. It was
one. He had the first phone. That's
funny. Wait a minute.
So you're saying that the actual
telephone wires were strung through the
physical trees, not a
telephone pole. Right. Through the trees,
through the woods, right?

(10:53:39):
Do you have any idea how many
phones there were when the system was
first launched? Probably
like two. There was more
than that. But I'm not sure. Wow. That is
something. And again, just a touch on it.
He was one of the folks who established
the South Florida Fair. Yes, he did. And

(10:54:00):
you can see how that
that's really grown over the years.
Obviously at the beginning it
was a place for people to show
off their produce, how big their cabbages
were, and for children to show their
ponies, people to show
different things they grew, what the
quilts that people would. So
they didn't have all the rides

(10:54:21):
and the bells and whistles that they have
today. And now I would
assume that the original fair
wasn't at the South Florida fairgrounds
that we know today. It was someplace
else. No, it was here
in town and it's moved a couple of times
since then. Wow. Again,
fascinating history. Now, just
touching on something else, since we're
talking about the fair, Yesteryear

(10:54:43):
Village is out at the
South Florida Fair. Can you talk to us,
describe what that is for our
audience? Yeah. So Yesteryear
Village is actually a unique, what you
would call like a living
history complex. A lot of other
cities have it and we're lucky to have
that by us. So what they've done is that
they brought different
buildings from different areas of the

(10:55:04):
county out there. So there
you'll find an old church, a fire
department, a schoolhouse, a fishing
camp, all different buildings
that they have out there. So
what people can do is they can go try to
step back in time, so to
speak, and see what it would have
been like to live here. And they also

(10:55:25):
have people that demonstrate
at certain times of the year
so that you can see them making
horseshoes. Right. So you get
flavor for what, for one of a
better term, early life in Palm Beach
County was like. Now, these are not
replica homes, they are
the real home. They are the real home. So
sometimes buildings have to
be raised for progress, but

(10:55:46):
sometimes they're instead picked up and
moved. And this is a nice
cluster where you can almost walk
down a main street and feel like that
you're back in time. That's
really cool. All right, so we'll
move along. Now, this is a crazy name
because it seems to be
counter. Seaboard Airline Railway

(10:56:07):
Station. What's that about? Okay, so it's
another railroad that
came through for passengers
in addition to Henry Flagler's Florida
East Coast Railway. So this is further
west and you know it
today as the Tri-Rail, but that came
through here in 1926. The

(10:56:29):
train station there is from 1926.
It's the original train station and that
was designed by famous
architects Harvey and Clark.
Okay, and if you go to the Tri-Rail
station today, you're seeing that
building. Exactly. So that's
another 100 years old. That's incredible.

(10:56:50):
And it's in heavy use today
and I know that it basically
is a place where people can exchange and
get on different types of
transportation to move around
the city or move into another, to move to
another community either
north or south. So it's still a
very active place for transportation.
Yes, definitely. School
children used to take that to
go for their annual trip to Washington DC

(10:57:11):
and I took it not too
long ago to go to Savannah.
Do you know what Seaboard Airline was?
Why was why airline? That was like a
juxtaposition. I think
they called it airline because it went so
fast. Ah. Yes. So there's
some marketing. It was marketing.
At one time I think that they also called

(10:57:33):
it the Orange Blossom
Express. Oh, that's a very
lovely name. It does make sense. A very
sweet sounding name indeed.
All right. Going down your
list and it's just so fascinating. Let's
talk a little bit about,
we touched on the boom time
in the early part of the, in the
twenties. Let's talk about some of the
developments that took place
during that period of time. Right. So the

(10:57:55):
different developments that were coming
about were very large
planned communities. So before that it
was more like a little
cottage city where the small
framed vernacular homes or boarding
houses or hotels would
spring up. But at this time
people were actually buying full lots,

(10:58:16):
plaiting them, giving them
maybe fanciful names and then
trying to sell the lots in there. And so
they would work with, you would have a
whole team of people
and they brought all of these workers to
West Palm. So you would have your
developer, you would have
your salesman, you would have your people
that would work on the

(10:58:37):
house. And so Grandview Heights,
if you think about some of the names of
these, they're trying to
play to being a little bit
loftier and on higher ground than the
standard area. And they
are, they're built on a ridge.
So they are a few feet higher than the
other ones. If you ride your bikes

(10:58:58):
through there, you can
really feel it in the back of your legs.
But no means mountainous.
No. And I was being funny.
So, and on top of that, we also saw
during these boom times, some fairly
significant buildings
taking place in downtown. We know the
Como building, which was, I

(10:59:20):
believe there was a bit of a
building race between the folks building
the Como building and the folks building
the Harvey building.
Right. Right. So they, something that
changed during this time
with these buildings was you
now had elevators. So once you had
elevators, that was the idea of having
skyscrapers. And I've seen

(10:59:41):
some things where they've said, you know,
it was going to be by 1930, have
buildings that were 40
feet tall. Wow. Right. So they definitely
had some lofty goals. And
for a long time, those two
buildings were indeed the tallest
structures in the entire
city. So then, and they're still

(11:00:02):
remarkable structures today. So it's
really fascinating. Tell
me about, this is a great
title, The Cottage City. The Cottage
City. So that was a nickname that people
called it because they
would often come here for two winter. So
they would stay in
something that was near the sea.
And it would be basically wooden. Think

(11:00:24):
of frame vernacular, one,
sometimes two story houses,
and they would have basically a wrap
around porch. You would have the screen
door, no air conditioning
so that the breeze could float through.
Sounds delicious. But it
was full of these balmy
cottages, just having the fresh air come

(11:00:47):
in. So it was sort of
an architectural style
just here, just a beautiful tropical
home. And indeed, back
then, there was no central air,
there was no air conditioning. You had to
rely on the tropical breezes
to create an environment that
was comfortable in any way. Right. And
the architects generally
knew which way to build them
so that they would catch the prevailing

(11:01:08):
breezes. Do you know if any of those
types of homes still
exist today? Most of them are gone.
There's a few streets where
if you go down, you'll see
some of them, but they're getting few and
far between. Sure, sure.
Moving right along. One that,
when it also is an interesting title that

(11:01:29):
piques my interest. West Palm Beach
School in the Jungle.
Oh, that's the one that we just talked
about. Oh, of course. So the
jungle would have been like
downtown by today's standards. Right,
yeah. Near the Kravis Center
down in the jungle. It really
was a jungle. And another thing was that
one of my postcards here tells about

(11:01:51):
somebody wrote on the
back of it that this school was built for
the sportsman's children.
So the people that would
come here to fish, to hunt, and it was a
big attraction. You
would get a guide to take you
out for the day, and they would hunt for
all different things and
taxiderm them. So there

(11:02:13):
would be the big hunting. And that would
be a great thing to
attract people here. Of course,
it was before they had all of the laws,
environmental laws, that
you had the plume hunters,
that they would be hunting plumes, birds
for the ladies hats. So
they would just kill the egret
other things. That's sad. But I can

(11:02:33):
understand it was a different time and
age, but it's terrible
that beautiful wildlife was taken for
something like a hat.
Definitely. So the Audubon Society
brought an end to that. But what some
ladies would do, though,
if they were environmentally
conscious, is they would wear an ostrich

(11:02:54):
hat, a hat with an ostrich
feather, because you don't
have to kill the ostrich to get the
feather. There you are.
There you are. All right. So we
move up moving along. Now talk about
Banyan Street and its role in
prohibition. Okay. So
Banyan Street is one of the alphabetical
streets, the original streets in West
Palm Beach, when Henry
Flagler laid them out. And it had a

(11:03:15):
reputation for being the drinking street.
So again, you're kind
of going back to that whole Mardi Gras
theme. So that would be
where you would have the saloons.
There were obviously some brothels and
things like that. So that
was more like the Wild West
type of the street. Okay. And this is
during the time, again,
you're thinking of when it was

(11:03:36):
prohibition. So Henry Flagler had a
drinking fountain put in so
that people could drink water
instead of drinking the alcohol. And the
Women's Christian
Temperance Union, which was against
drinking, they had their leader. Her name
was Carrie Nation. And she

(11:03:59):
was six foot tall and she
would come to these different towns. And
apparently she sometimes used a hatchet
to go up and actually
bust up the bottles at the bar. So she
actually made a visit to
here. Wow. So Carrie Nation made
an appearance here in West Palm Beach.
Yes. Because we were such a
party town. Exactly. Okay. So

(11:04:19):
the idea that, okay, Banyan was sort of
where you went to have a good time and to
imbibe and to party.
What was the, do you have any sense of
what, what the vibe was on St. Clamatus,
which is sort of Main Street? So Clamatus
was more business
oriented and also for shopping.
So there were different shops. You could

(11:04:39):
get your shoe shop, your
haberdashery, which was men's
suits. You could go to some little
luncheonettes and places to eat. So it
was more, it's pretty
much a little bit like how it is now.
Sure. So you could take the family to
Clamatus. You could go
ahead and shop in Clamatus. But then when
it's time to party, you head

(11:04:59):
on over to Banyan. Exactly.
And people would come here from different
places, from Boynton Beach,
from Lantana, from other places.
And you could drive after 1914 and take
the Dixie Highway, which
was now open, or you could
actually come by boat. That's
interesting. So prior to 1914, say if I

(11:05:22):
was down in Lake Worth or
Lantana, I would just hop on my boat and
then come up the, the, the, the Lake
Worth lagoon to this
party. Right. You could take the train,
you could travel by water,
but the roads until Carl Fisher
put the Dixie Highway in in 1914, the
roads were pretty terrible.
Yeah. So Dixie Highway start

(11:05:43):
before 1914, there was no Dixie Highway.
It was just right. It wasn't a
thoroughfare. It wasn't
paved or widened as it is today. It's so
funny. You, you think of
these roads as always being there
for decades and you know, generations,
generations. Everything does have a
start. And it's interesting
to think of that the Dixie Highway became

(11:06:06):
a reality, what, about 20
years after the establishment
of West Palm Beach as a city. Right. Or
30 years. 30 years. Yeah. My
math is not what it should be.
But yeah, I mean, that's, that's crazy.
Okay. So let's move on
now. We've talked about
Banion Street. Talk about what, what it
means for flower streets. Oh, flower

(11:06:26):
streets. So when it was
laid out in 1893, preparing for before it
was actually a town,
Henry Flagler laid it out,
but he got some advice from some ladies.
So it was a woman who named
the streets after flowers. So
you know that we have Banion, Clematis,
which was actually
pronounced clematis. And it turns out

(11:06:49):
that it's not a native flower here. They
made a mistake. And then
Datura, which is a poisonous
flower. And then you have some ferns,
which are Ivernia is a fern
and Fern Street, Gardenia,
and Hibiscus. So she helped name those
all for plants and for flowers. And
that's where all those

(11:07:09):
names came from. Yes. And then there's a
missing one. And the
missing one, its name is Althea.
So Althea would be the one to the north
of Banion. Well, there you
go. And so we're missing the,
the mythical street of Althea. Yes.
Great. Great. Very, very interesting.
Okay. So we have another,

(11:07:31):
another new topic here, the city
beautiful movement in
Flagler park. No idea. Never heard
of that. Tell me about it. So the city
beautiful movement, you can
think of it as sort of like
city planning, urban planning, and also
putting aside land for
public use. So this was instituted
by the Olmsted brothers who had laid out

(11:07:54):
places like Central Park
and the Washington Mall. So
we needed a place here in West Palm
Beach. So they put aside the
area, which is known as the Y,
at Clematis, where you have that Y, and
then it faced the
waterfront. So that is part of the city

(11:08:15):
beautiful movement, setting aside parks
for public uses. And so
they had things like they
would have a bandshell where you would
have live bands, of course,
then it was your, mostly your
brass instruments. I could imagine.
That's where they put the library. So we
had memorial library
that was built after World War I. And it

(11:08:37):
was memorial to those
soldiers. And this is where you
would, people would go to hang out. So
you could have your shopping or your
eating and drinking,
and then go relax in the park and listen
to music. A regular city center, I think.
It's an area of land that's gone through
many, many changes. I know

(11:08:57):
that I've seen very early
photographs of that particular area where
it was very, very forested.
There were lots of plants and
trees and little pathways running around.
And then, of course, I
moved into this part of the
world in 1970. And at that time, the city
library was right there.
And it was that very modern

(11:09:19):
looking 1960s sort of building that was
just really beautiful.
It's only a shadow of what our
new beautiful Mandel Public Library is.
But that area has seen so
many changes. So it's been a part
of the center of the city for quite some
time. Right. And when
you mentioned those plants,

(11:09:40):
so there was a master horticulturist. His
name was Professor Di Gattro from
Switzerland. So he was one
who helped figure out the different
plants to put along there. And it was
very beautifully forested.
Even the ancient photographs that I've
been able to see online. Yes, you're

(11:10:00):
exactly right. It was,
it looked like a little mini tropical
paradise. And there was the
ban show and all that stuff
going on there. And the library has
always been an important part of the city
all the way from when
it was once in a boathouse. And people
would come to the reading
room and then they would have
memorial library and that 1960s era

(11:10:20):
library. People still talk about that.
They have many memories.
And then the library today, I love that
its address is 411
Clamatus, which is information.
Very interesting. Okay, so let's move on.
And another item here
on your list that really
piques my interest. Sea base. I'm sorry,

(11:10:43):
sea plain base at sixth.
Tell me what that means.
Right. So people think about aviation and
they don't necessarily
think about West Palm Beach.
But we were part of that cradle of
aviation. So as early as 1911, there was
a sea plain base here.
And they would fly those Curtis sea

(11:11:05):
plains. And they would first
take people up and down the
waterway sightseeing. They eventually had
night flights. And then
they would take people all the
way to Havana. Wow. And people would come
out and just watch and
wonder. And, you know, we take
flying for granted, but imagine never
seeing a flying machine
before. And imagine just seeing

(11:11:27):
a flying machine come and land on the
water. Right. I mean, it had
to be really exciting times.
And of course you would pay to do that,
but it would be something
that people would all come out
and look at. So when did the city start
developing what we would
consider to be more of a regular

(11:11:48):
type of airport? How did that come about?
Right. So we have our Palm Beach
International Airport off
of Belvedere Road. So it started as a
flying field that was Mr. Belvedere's.
And then it ended up
becoming a dedicated flying field in the
1930s. And it was called
Morrison Field. And it was named

(11:12:09):
after a female aviator. So we have Amelia
Earhart, but West Palm Beach had Grace
Morrison. So she was
one of the first women to fly cross
country in her airplane.
And she died in a car accident
just a month or so before the field was

(11:12:31):
dedicated in the 1930s. So
they named the field after her.
So this field ended up in World War II.
It was a designated spot
for our army air force.
They would fly in and out. They had
barracks. And later on,

(11:12:52):
when it was discontinued,
it was the home of Palm Beach Junior
College for a few years. So
the students lived in the former
barracks and swam in the swimming pool
and had all that land for
archery and other things. Now,
I understand that Morrison Field and the
fact that so many young

(11:13:14):
service men and women traveled
through that conduit to get to wherever
they're going, that they
came away with a very strong
impression of West Palm Beach. And some
actually came back. Is
that true? Yes. After the war,
that there were people that ended up
coming back, you now had the Veterans

(11:13:34):
Administration. You could
buy a house with the VA bill. And we were
starting to have these places of
education. So you would
have the young families come back. And it
still had that feel of some
of the places in the South
Seas and other places that they had been
deployed to. And so the
Morrison Field, which eventually

(11:13:55):
became Palm Beach International Airport,
had an incredible impact on
the growth and the history
of our area. It has a long and storied
history that most people
don't know. Absolutely. Well,
this has been fascinating. We've gone
through your list and I personally have
learned so much in just
this little bit. Now, you're also an

(11:14:16):
author and you have a book. Can you tell
us a little bit about
it? One of the books that I brought with
me today, I wanted to say that it was
pretty much born here
in our West Palm Beach Mandel Library. So
the book is called "Overdue in Paradise,
the Palm Beach County Library History."
So this is a compilation of essays that

(11:14:38):
people have submitted
on their different libraries. So the
employees at the Mandel Library wrote
their history. And we have
the Good Samaritan Hospital, their
history, and other places.
And it won an award. So it's a
very nice Florida Authors and Publishers
Association award-winning

(11:15:00):
book. But I like to say,
again, that's a community book. I had the
idea and I was one of the
editors, but it was our community
and tells those stories. There's history
in everything.
Absolutely. And you've proven that
here today. Now, about this book, if I'm
interested in reading this book, is it
something I can get on
Amazon? Yes, you can. And it's called

(11:15:20):
"Overdue in Paradise, the
Library History of Palm Beach
County." Fascinating book. I look forward
to reading that. What
you've done here is you've
given us an opportunity to see some just
small little fragments of
the history of what is West
Palm Beach and in Palm Beach County.
Hopefully, this is going to
spark some interest in some of

(11:15:41):
the people listening. If folks want to
learn more, is there a
place people can go to really
sort of dive into the history of the
area? Well, I would say that
the number one place is the
Historical Society of Palm Beach County,
the Richard and Pat
Johnson Museum. But our library,
the Mandel Library, has a Florida room

(11:16:02):
that has amazing
collections of books and artifacts and
maps that really tell the story of West
Palm Beach. Fantastic. I
want to thank you for your
time. What you do here to preserve the
history as this area
develops is so important. It's so
important to keep our grasp on the past
as we move into the future, and you're

(11:16:23):
doing a great deal for
that. So thank you. Thank you. And thank
you for joining us. The City Center
podcast is a production
of the City of West Palm Beach
Communications Department. I'm Jerry
Marcello. We'll see you next time.