What’s with Flagler? Nearly everything in West Palm Beach traces back to one man. Henry Flagler — Standard Oil partner, railroad magnate — came down the Florida coast in the 1890s laying his Florida East Coast Railway, and decided the barrier island across the lagoon would make a glittering winter resort for wealthy Northerners. But a resort needs a workforce, a depot, a downtown. So in 1893 Flagler laid out a working town on the mainland to serve the island, paid two settlers $45,000 for the site, ran his rails in, and named it for exactly where it sat: West Palm Beach. The city has been Flagler’s ever since.
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.
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.
