WPBFD History

There are two differing stories of what happened to the Styx. One version, put forth in the 1992 book Palm Beach Babylon , claimed Flagler secretly had the Styx burned down while his workers were at the circus. This version is disputed by Jim Ponce, one of the foremost his- torians of Palm Beach, who said there is "no evidence to support the rumor." Ponce believed that the workers had been relocated to the mainland side and the Styx then burned to clean-up what had always been considered only temporary housing. This theory is also supported by evi- dence presented in Pioneers in Paradise , the Palm Beach Post’s 1994 book. The first section of the Royal Poinciana Hotel opened to the public February 11, 1894. There were only 17 guests in the 540 rooms. When completed, the colonial -style hotel was the largest wooden structure in the world. The six stories and basement contained 1,150 rooms, a dining room that seated nearly 1,000 people, a magnifi- cent casino, a large rotunda, and various porches and par- lors. Suites cost $100 a day, but for $38 a couple could stay in a double room with bath. The imposing hotel was painted a bright lemon yellow, as were most of Flagler's enterprises. Construction of the Florida East Coast Railroad moved steadily southward while other railroads across the nation were going bankrupt. On March 22, 1894, the first train pulled into West Palm Beach. Every subsequent train brought prospective residents, businessmen, inves- tors, and guests for Flagler’s hotel. The railroad provided the first convenient access to West Palm Beach by land. There were several fires in the Lake Worth area before the construction boom. These had been limited to single structures because of the distance between existing buildings. The first recorded fire occurred in October of 1893 at the Cocoanut Grove House owned by Commodore C. T. Clarke, a Pittsburgh millionaire. The boarding house, located on the lake front in Palm Beach, was originally built in 1880 by "Cap" E. N. Dimick as his personal home. He converted the home into an inn by adding eight rooms. Later additions enlarged the Cocoanut Grove House to fifty rooms. Guests paid six dollars per person per day for a room, three meals, and all the fruit they could pick from the trees surrounding the inn. They could also take advantage of a rowboat and catboat docked on Lake Worth. At the time of the fire the inn was rented to Henry Flagler as his construction headquarters. "Cap" Dimick, the first owner of the Cocoanut Grove House, would later become Palm Beach's first mayor and a state senator. A statue of him still stands at the Royal Park Bridge entrance to Palm Beach. "Cap" Dimick earned his title in an unusual manner. He always wore a white cap and thus was nicknamed "Cap." This later was taken to be short for Captain, a term used widely

standing on the shoreline of Palm Beach discussing his grand proposals, Flagler pointed across Lake Worth and predicted, "In a few years there'll be a town over there as big as Jacksonville . . . ." News of Flagler's intentions was published far and wide with articles proclaiming the beauty and healthful- ness of the area. People began flooding in, eager to take advantage of job opportunities or buy land in the newly discovered paradise. As a matter of course, real estate prices soared from $150 to $1,000 per acre. Florida had never experienced such a dramatic change in real estate value. Those who had homesteaded a few years earlier, living in virtual poverty, suddenly found themselves inde- pendently rich. Land sold and quickly resold as the val- ues rose, each seller making in turn a substantial profit. Preparations were made for construction of the Royal Poinciana Hotel. The firm of McGuire and McDonald, which had built hotels for Flagler in St. Augustine, was to be in charge under the personal super- vision of J. A. McDonald. Shacks, tents, and boarding houses were quickly put up to house construction work- ers. Ground was broken for the hotel May 1, 1893, and soon there were more than a thousand men working on the mammoth structure. Flagler paid his workers well with unskilled laborers making $1.10 per hour, forty cents above the national standard. All materials for the hotel had to be transported into the area which proved a difficult and expensive process. Lumber was shipped by boat from Eau Gallie to Jupiter, then transferred to the Celestial Railroad, so named be- cause it served four stops; Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Juno. After the eight mile trip by rail to Juno, the materials were reloaded onto another boat for the final ten mile run to Palm Beach. A small army of men labored at each trans- fer point working around the clock, seven days a week. The freight bills for the railroad alone totalled $60,000. Additional materials were shipped down the coast on steamers that had been purchased by Flagler. Many laborers had set up residence in the Styx, an area on the island north of the hotel. The shantytown consisted of small wooden shacks hurriedly thrown to- gether in a dense tangle of jungle. Flagler decided that the west side of the lake, where only a few settlers had taken up residence at the time, was better suited for his workers. He obtained a 50 acre site on the west side from Captain O. S. Porter for $35,000 and a second tract of 60 acres. The great developer laid out a 200 acre townsite along one-half-mile of the lake front. The new town was originally called "Westpalmbeach," but the name was later changed to West Palm Beach. As the grand hotel neared completion, Flagler ar- ranged for a circus to entertain the laborers who had con- structed his latest masterpiece. The big top was set up on the mainland and a huge celebration ensued.

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