Palm Beach County is a county in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Florida. Its history dates back to about 12,000 years ago, shortly after when Native Americans migrated into Florida. Juan Ponce de León became the first European in the area, landing at the Jupiter Inlet in 1513. Diseases from Europe, enslavement, and warfare significantly diminished the indigenous population of Florida over the next few centuries. During the Second Seminole War, the Battles of the Loxahatchee occurred west of modern-day Jupiter in 1838. The Jupiter Lighthouse, the county's oldest surviving structure, was completed in 1860. The first homestead claims were filed around Lake Worth in 1873. The county's first hotel, schoolhouse, and railway, the Celestial Railroad, began operating in the 1880s, while the first settlers of modern-day Lake Worth Beach arrived in 1885. During the 1890s, Henry Flagler and his workers constructed the Royal Poinciana Hotel and The Breakers in Palm Beach and extended the Florida East Coast Railway southward to the area. They also developed a separate city for hotel workers, which in 1894 became West Palm Beach, the county's oldest incorporated municipality. Major Nathan Boynton, Congressman William S. Linton, and railroad surveyor Thomas Rickards also arrived in the 1890s and developed communities that became Boynton Beach, Delray Beach, and Boca Raton, respectively.
The Florida Legislature established Palm Beach County, effective on July 1, 1909, splitting it from Dade County. The dredging of canals from the coast to Lake Okeechobee in the 1910s for the purpose of agricultural shipments led to the beginning of settlements around Lake Okeechobee. From then through the mid-1920s, the county experienced rapid population growth and a significant increase in land values, especially during the land boom. Many of the county's historic buildings and districts were constructed in the 1910s and 1920s; architect Addison Mizner alone designed 104 structures. However, the rapid growth and prosperity ended with the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane and the start of the Great Depression. The hurricane devastated the county and resulted in at least 2,500 deaths. Hundreds of thousands of men and women arrived in Palm Beach County during World War II for training and supporting the war effort, while several coastal towns were placed under blackout conditions due to the presence of German U-boats just offshore.
Many personnel who trained in Palm Beach County during the war later vacationed or relocated to the area. Consequently, a post-war boom ensued, with 19 new municipalities incorporated between 1947 and 1963, while over 100,000 people lived in the county by 1950. During the civil rights movement, schools in the county slowly desegregated despite the Brown v. Board of Education ruling and were not officially integrated until 1973. Rapid population growth occurred in the western suburban communities in the 1980s, though the larger eastern cities experienced urban blight by then. This led to downtown revitalization efforts, most notably with the opening of Mizner Park in 1991 and CityPlace in 2000. The close results of that year's presidential election in Florida and Palm Beach County's "butterfly ballot" led to a recount and controversial decision by the United States Supreme Court. In 2004 and 2005, hurricanes Frances, Jeanne, and Wilma caused significant damage in the county. Although population growth has slowed somewhat in recent decades, the 2020 census reported that nearly 1.5 million people are year-round residents of Palm Beach County.
History Prior to 1860
Approximately 12,000 years ago, Native Americans began migrating into Florida. The earliest tribes that settled in or near modern-day Palm Beach County included the Ais, Calusas, Jaegas, Mayaimis, and Tequestas. University of Florida professor John Mann Goggin in the 1940s and 1950s documented 42 archaeological sites in Martin and Palm Beach counties indicating the presence of indigenous peoples, while Bob Carr of the Archaeological and Historical Conservancy updated Goggin's survey in 2004. Major sites include the Belle Glade mound; Big Gopher and Big Mound City, to the southeast of Canal Point; Boca Raton Inlet Complex; Boynton Cave; Boynton Mound Complex, near the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge; Guest Mound Complex in Palm Beach; Loxahatchee River Complex, near Jupiter; Patrician mound in South Palm Beach; Riverbend Park, which contains evidence of inhabitation dating as far back as the Paleo-Indian period, to the west of Jupiter; Riviera Complex, with one site in Riviera Beach and Palm Beach; and the Spanish River Complex in Boca Raton and Highland Beach.
Although an estimated 20,000 Native Americans lived in South Florida when the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, their population diminished significantly by the 18th century due to warfare, enslavement, and diseases from Europe. In 1513, Juan Ponce de León, who led a European expedition to Florida earlier that year, became the first non-Native American to reach Palm Beach County, after landing in the modern-day Jupiter area. He would name the Jupiter Inlet, "Rio de la Cruz" (River of the Cross). Among the first non-Native American residents were African Americans, many of whom were former slaves or immediate descendants of former slaves who had escaped to Florida from plantations in Alabama and Georgia. They began arriving in what was then Spanish Florida in the late 17th century and found refuge among the Seminoles.
In either 1659 or 1660, the Spanish aviso San Miguel de Archangel wrecked just south of the Jupiter Inlet. The 33 survivors took refuge at the Jeaga village of Hobe, located at present-day DuBois Park, until being rescued. Another maritime incident occurred near the same area in 1696. A storm, likely a hurricane, caused the barkentine Reformation to capsize around the Jupiter Inlet during its voyage from Port Royal, Jamaica, to Philadelphia. The occupants, which included Quaker merchant Jonathan Dickinson and his family, were held captive by the Jobe tribe for several days. After being released and having most of their possession taken, the party had to travel on foot northward until reaching St. Augustine. Dickinson published a journal in 1699 detailing the ordeal and later served in several political offices including mayor of Philadelphia from 1712–1713 and 1717–1719 and speaker of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly in 1718 and 1719.
During the Seminole Wars, former slaves fought alongside the Seminoles against white settlers and bounty hunters. Portions of the Second Seminole War occurred in Palm Beach County, including the Battles of the Loxahatchee in January 1838. Intending to follow the Seminoles southward from Fort Jupiter, Major General Thomas Jesup decided that Major William Lauderdale, his Tennessee Volunteers, and "construction pioneers" – which were men from the United States Third Artillery Regiment then led by First lieutenant Robert Anderson, who would later be commander at Fort Sumter at the beginning of the American Civil War – must cut a trail through the dense vegetation to the New River Settlement in modern-day Fort Lauderdale. Major Lauderdale, the 233 Tennessee Volunteers, and the construction pioneers began carving the trail on March 2, 1838, and reached the New River Settlement four days later. Covering a distance of , the trail was originally known as "Lauderdale's Route", but later became known as "Military Trail" due to its usage by the United States Army over the next few decades. Eighty-five years later, in 1923, much of the modern highway of Military Trail would be paved across this path.
In 1841, Seminole Chief Chachi became the first resident of Palm Beach County known by name. His village was located near the present-day site of Interstate 95 and Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard. That same year, soldiers in the United States Army camped by a freshwater lake and named it Lake Worth in honor of Army colonel William J. Worth, who is credited with ending the Second Seminole War.
1860–1889
The county's oldest surviving structure, the Jupiter Lighthouse, was completed in 1860, six years after receiving authorization to the land from President Franklin Pierce. During the American Civil War, Florida was a member of the Confederate States of America. To aid the cause of their state, Augustus O. Lang and James Paine removed the lighting mechanism, dimming the lighthouse and assisting their blockade runners. Lang was also the first white settler in Palm Beach County. He built a palmetto shack along the eastern shore of Lake Worth in 1863 after abandoning the cause of the Confederacy. After the Civil War ended, the Jupiter Lighthouse was re-lit in 1866. A National Weather Service office was established at the lighthouse complex in the 1870s. However, the office was moved to Miami in 1911 after that city's population began to rapidly grow.
The 1870 census recorded a population of 85 in Dade County, which then included modern-day Broward, Martin, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties. Hiram F. Hammon filed the first homestead claim on Lake Worth in 1873, not too long before Hannibal Pierce filed the second claim. At the time, fewer than 12 people resided around Lake Worth. In October 1873, a hurricane caused a shipwreck between Biscayne Bay and the New River. The crew survived, but nearly died due to starvation because of the desolation of the area. An act of Congress on June 20, 1874, resulted in the establishment of five Houses of Refuge along the east coast of Florida between the Matanzas Inlet and Biscayne Bay. Orange Grove House of Refuge No. 3 was built near Delray Beach in 1876. The Tustenegee Post Office opened on the east side of Lake Worth in 1877, becoming the area's first post office. In January 1878, the Providencia capsized offshore Palm Beach with a cargo of approximately 20,000 coconuts. These coconuts were then planted. The incident is credited with being the namesake of Palm Beach County and the town of Palm Beach.
By 1880, the population of Dade County reached 257. In the same year, the first hotel around Lake Worth opened after Elisha N. "Cap" Dimick converted his home into the Cocoanut Grove House. Five years later, in 1885, the Barefoot mailman route began serving the area. Carriers would deliver mail by foot or boat from Palm Beach and other nearby communities to as far south as Miami, a round trip distance of . Also in 1885, Fannie and Samuel James, both African-American, became the first settlers at the future site of the city of Lake Worth, though this area would originally be called Jewell after the post office founded there in 1889. The first schoolhouse in southeast Florida (also known as the Little Red Schoolhouse) opened in 1886 in Palm Beach near where the Flagler Memorial Bridge stands today.