situated in the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse Outstanding Natural Area Around 12,000 years ago, Native Americans began migrating into Florida. An estimated 20,000 Native Americans lived in South Florida when the Spanish arrived. Their population diminished significantly by the 18th century, due to warfare, enslavement, and diseases from Europe. In 1513,
Juan Ponce de León became the first European in modern-day Palm Beach County when he landed at the
Jupiter Inlet. Among the first non-Native American residents were
African Americans, many of whom were former slaves or immediate descendants of former slaves, arriving in what was then
Spanish Florida in the late 17th century. Finding refuge among the
Seminoles, the former slaves or descendants of former slaves fought alongside them against
white settlers and bounty hunters during the
Seminole Wars. Portions of the
Second Seminole War occurred in Palm Beach County, including the
Battles of the Loxahatchee in 1838. The county's oldest surviving structure, the
Jupiter Lighthouse, was built in 1860, after receiving authorization to the land from President
Franklin Pierce in 1854. During the
American Civil War, Florida was a member of the
Confederate States of America. Two Confederate adherents removed the lighting mechanism from the lighthouse. One of the men who removed the light, Augustus O. 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 relit in 1866. in 1900 Very few people lived in modern-day Palm Beach County prior to the arrival of
Henry Flagler, who first visited in the early 1890s. A
Standard Oil tycoon, Flagler was instrumental in the county's development around the turn of the century. First, he purchased land on both sides of
Lake Worth. Other investors followed suit, causing a small boom and bringing in existing businesses and resulting in the establishment of many new businesses. The
Royal Poinciana Hotel, constructed by Flagler and his constructed crews to accommodate wealthy tourists, opened for business in February 1894. About a month later, the
Florida East Coast Railway, owned by Flagler, reached West Palm Beach. On November 5, 1894, Palm Beach County's oldest city, West Palm Beach, was incorporated. In 1896, another hotel built by Flagler was opened, the Palm Beach Inn, later renamed
The Breakers. He also constructed
his own winter home, which he and his wife moved into in 1902. The arrivals of Major
Nathan Boynton, Congressman
William S. Linton, and railroad surveyor Thomas Rickards in the 1890s also proved important because they developed communities that later became
Boynton Beach, Delray Beach, and
Boca Raton, respectively. The
Florida Legislature voted to establish Palm Beach County in 1909, carving it out of what was then the northern portion of
Dade County and initially including all of
Lake Okeechobee. The southernmost part of Palm Beach County was separated to create the northern portion of
Broward County in 1915, the northwestern portion became part of
Okeechobee County in 1917, and southern
Martin County was created from northernmost Palm Beach County in 1925. The boundaries remained the same until 1963, when the Florida Legislature reduced Palm Beach County's share of Lake Okeechobee from about 80 percent to less than 40 percent and divided the lake more equitably among
Glades,
Hendry, Martin, and Okeechobee counties. A final change to the county's boundaries occurred in 2009, when a small portion of land was given to Broward County. The 1910s and much of the 1920s brought prosperity and rapid population growth to South Florida, coinciding with the
Florida land boom of the 1920s. Many local historic districts and landmarks
listed in the
National Register of Historic Places in Palm Beach County were designed and constructed during the 1920s, with the main contributors being architects
Maurice Fatio,
Addison Mizner,
Marion Sims Wyeth, and the firm
Harvey and Clarke, which included
Gustav Maass. Total property value in West Palm Beach skyrocketed from $13.6 million in 1920 to $61 million in 1925, before briefly reaching a pre-
Great Depression peak of $89 million in 1929. The city's population quadrupled between 1920 and 1927. Early on September 17, 1928,
the Okeechobee hurricane made landfall near West Palm Beach as a category-4 storm and crossed Lake Okeechobee shortly thereafter. While the hurricane caused catastrophic impact in eastern portions of the county, the Lake Okeechobee region suffered a much heavier loss of life. Wind-driven storm surge in the lake inundated hundreds of square miles, including the nearby communities of
Belle Glade,
Pahokee, and
South Bay. At least 2,500 deaths occurred, many of whom were black migrant farmers. Damage in South Florida totaled roughly $25 million. In response to the storm, the
Herbert Hoover Dike was constructed to prevent a similar disaster. As a result of
1926 Miami hurricane and the 1928 storm, Palm Beach County, along with the rest of South Florida, began suffering economic turmoil and pushed the region into the Great Depression, even before the
Wall Street Crash of 1929. Housing prices dropped dramatically in the county, with the total real estate value in West Palm Beach falling to $41.6 million in 1930 and then to $18.2 million in 1935. However, the decade also brought an airport to the county. Morrison Field, later renamed the
Palm Beach International Airport, opened in 1936. After the U.S. entered
World War II, it was converted to an
Air Force Base in 1942. During the war, thousands of servicemen arrived in Palm Beach County for training and supporting the war effort. Following the conclusion of World War II, a number of veterans returned to the area for work, vacation, or retirement. On August 28, 1949, a category-4
hurricane struck Lake Worth Beach with
maximum sustained winds of 130 mph (215 km/h), causing considerable damage. Throughout Palm Beach County, the hurricane destroyed 65 homes and damaged 13,283 others. The area's first television station,
WIRK-TV Channel 21, began broadcasting on September 13, 1953. It went off the air less than three years later. However,
NBC affiliate
WPTV-TV and
CBS affiliate
WPEC first aired in 1954 and 1955, respectively – both of which are still in existence today.
Richard Paul Pavlick nearly attempted to assassinate then President-elect
John F. Kennedy while the family vacationed in Palm Beach in December 1960. On December 11, Pavlick forwent his attempt because Kennedy was with his wife,
Jacqueline, and their two children. Four days later, Pavlick's car, which had sticks of dynamite inside, was surrounded by police and he was arrested. Charges against Pavlick were dropped on December 2, 1963, 10 days after
Kennedy was assassinated in
Dallas, Texas.
Hurricane David struck near West Palm Beach late on September 3, 1979, with sustained winds of 100 mph (155 km/h). The storm's winds shattered windows in stores near the coast and caused property damage. A few roofs were torn off, and numerous buildings were flooded from over 6 in (150 mm) of rainfall. Damage in the county reached $30 million, most of which was incurred to agriculture. The county became the center of controversy during the
2000 presidential election. Allegedly, the
"butterfly ballot", designed by Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections
Theresa LePore, led to an unexpectedly large number of votes for
Reform Party candidate
Pat Buchanan, rather than for
Democrat Al Gore. Due to the aforementioned "butterfly ballot" and the closeness of the statewide results between Gore and
Texas Governor George W. Bush, the
Florida Supreme Court mandated manual recounts in all counties with disputed results. However, the
Supreme Court of the United States overturned the decision in
Bush v. Gore on December 12, allowing
Florida Secretary of the State Katherine Harris to award the 25 electoral votes to Bush, as Harris's tally prior to the state-ordered recounts placed him ahead of Gore by 537 popular votes. In turn, this gave Bush victory in the national election. Following the
September 11 attacks in 2001, a
Federal Bureau of Investigation investigation revealed that 12 of the 19 hijackers trained or resided in Palm Beach County during the months prior to the attacks. Later that month, during the
anthrax attacks, a letter containing
spores of this substance was mailed to the
American Media, Inc. building in Boca Raton. Three people were exposed to the anthrax, including
Robert Stevens, a photo editor who later died after an infection induced by exposure. Over 90% of
Florida Power & Light customers lost electricity. Two deaths occurred in Palm Beach County. The storm inflicted some degree of impact to more than 55,000 homes and 3,600 businesses. Palm Beach County suffered about $2.9 billion in damages. In August 2012, the outer bands of
Hurricane Isaac dropped at least of rain near
Lion Country Safari. The consequent flooding left neighborhoods in
The Acreage,
Loxahatchee,
Loxahatchee Groves,
Royal Palm Beach, and Wellington stranded for up to several days. As
Hurricane Irma approached in September 2017, mandatory or voluntary evacuations were ordered for more than 290,000 residents of Palm Beach County. Although the storm passed well west of the county, much of the area experienced hurricane-force wind gusts, with a peak gust of in West Palm Beach. as well as five fatalities.
Toponymy The
coconut palm,
Cocos nucifera, is not native to Florida (nor anywhere else in the United States). Its presence in what is today Palm Beach County is due to the shipwreck of the Spanish ship
Providencia in 1878, near today's
Mar-a-Lago. It was traveling from
Havana to
Cádiz, Spain, with a cargo of coconuts. The shipwreck was within walking distance of the shore—the Florida State Archives conserves a picture of a painting—and a deliberate grounding so as to obtain an insurance payout has been proposed. The coconuts were salvaged, too many to be eaten, and thousands were planted. A lush grove of palm trees soon grew on what was later named Palm Beach. ==Geography==