The city’s story isn’t only Flagler’s. When the Black community living in the “Styx” on Palm Beach island was displaced in the 1890s, many resettled on the mainland in the Northwest neighborhood, building a community of churches, businesses, and Bahamian-influenced cottages that became the city’s first National Register historic district. The railroad workers, the carpenters, the families who kept the resort running — they are as much the founders of West Palm Beach as the magnate who drew the map. The arts followed: the Norton, the largest art museum in Florida, and the Kravis Center stage.
Here is the thing the name keeps half-hidden: West Palm Beach is the city; Palm Beach is the island. Across the Intracoastal sit the Gilded-Age hotels Flagler built — the Royal Poinciana, The Breakers — and the mansions of the very rich. West Palm Beach was the other side of that economy: the depot and the storefronts, the carpenters and railroad men, the place where the work got done and the workers lived. That split still defines the city. It is the down-to-earth, culturally rich mainland — the one with the downtown, the museums, and the nightlife — looking across the water at the glamour it helped build and supply.
Why People Visit West Palm Beach
West Palm Beach rewards visitors who want culture with their coastline: a serious arts scene, a lively downtown, historic neighborhoods under the palms, and the Intracoastal at the center of it all. Add the island just across the water and the year-round South Florida sun, and Flagler’s mainland city makes an easy case for itself.
