Learn about our rich history

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In the beginning, West Palm Beach was populated primarily by railroad workers and construction crews building hotels and homes in Palm Beach. The newly established community quickly transformed itself into a real town. 

 When Henry Flagler announced his plans to extend the FEC Railway through Palm Beach, blacks from northern Florida, Georgia and the Bahamas moved to the area in search of work. By the early 1890s, they had established a small settlement on what is now Palm Beach, called the “Styx”, which was located on the east side of Lake Worth. Eventually housing more than 2,000 black residents in small shacks, the property was leased to residents for $3 a month by the Bradley brothers, owners of the Palm Beach casino. 

Many Styx residents were employed at Flagler’s railroad and hotels. Others worked as field laborers on the pineapple and vegetable farms or in the multitude of manual labor jobs required to reshape the Florida wilderness. Residents of the Styx established two churches as early as 1893. One was the Bethel A.M.E. Church, which would later become Payne Chapel A.M.E. Church in the Northwest Neighborhood. The other was the Mount Olive Baptist Church, which was located on the corner of Clematis and Tamarind in West Palm Beach and housed the first school for 74 black children from 1894 to 1895. This church would later become the Tabernacle Baptist Church in the Northwest Neighborhood. It was built at its present location in the Northwest Neighborhood in 1925 of yellow brick imported from Alabama. Its design is attributed to the Reverend J. M. Coleman, pastor of the church from 1914 to 1942. Styx residents established two other churches: St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church and St. John Missionary Baptist Church. 

When the Town of West Palm Beach was established in 1894, blacks living in the Styx began relocating to the western shore of Lake Worth. At first, they settled west of the FEC Railroad tracks near what is now Tamarind Avenue and First Street. The black community soon spread as far south as Evernia Street, and as far north as Seventh Street, west of the railroad tracks. This area was the start of what would become known as the Northwest Neighborhood. 

 In 1912, the Bradley brothers evicted all the black residents living in the Styx. Most resettled in the Northwest Neighborhood area. As the population increased, the neighborhood expanded northward towards another black settlement, known as Pleasant City. Pleasant City was located between what are now Eighteenth and Twenty-third Streets, and North Dixie Highway east of the FEC Railroad tracks. The Northwest and Pleasant City neighborhoods were adjacent, with Northwest being the larger of the two. Part of the northward expansion was known as Freshwater. Located between Sapodilla and Douglass between 13th and 15th Streets, the Freshwater area featured larger homes built by wealthy blacks. 

Most homes built in the neighborhood during this time were small wood-framed cottages known as shotgun houses. Based on African-American building traditions, the homes were typically two to four rooms deep with no hallways. Built on masonry piers, most of the Northwest Neighborhood shotgun homes featured tall double-hung windows and full width front porches. 

 By 1915, the neighborhood was the center of the black society in the City. Segregated from the white community, the black population established its own institutions, churches, businesses and social clubs. Several black doctors, dentists and pharmacists established practices within the neighborhood during this time, including Dr. Thomas LeRoy Jefferson, Dr. Thomas R. Vickers, Dr. W. H. Collie, and Joseph Wiley Jenkins. They became prominent Northwest citizens, with some building commercial offices and stately homes for themselves along with rental properties within the neighborhood.

A new school was built in 1914 on the block between Tenth and Eleventh Street between Sapodilla and Division Avenues. The property for the school was donated by Henry Speed, a successful realtor and part-owner of the city’s first black-owned lumber company. Called Industrial High, the school served students from the first through the tenth grades. 

The connection between residents of the Northwest Neighborhood and Palm Beach remained closely tied, with many blacks working at the hotels in positions such as maids, servers, laundresses, or as golf course caddies and fishing guides. Haley Mickens ran an “Afromobile” concession on Palm Beach, which consisted of wicker chairs propelled by tricycles that were popular among winter resort visitors.

Mickens built his first home, a one-story Frame Vernacular style structure located at 801 4th Street, in the Northwest Neighborhood between 1902 and 1905. In 1917, he moved this structure to 502 Division Avenue, where it currently stands.

He then built a two-story wood framed house at 801 Fourth Street in 1917.

His wife, Dr. Alice Frederick Mickens, was a philanthropist and humanitarian who promoted black education throughout the state, and carried out many good works over her seventy years of active service to the black community of West Palm Beach. She promoted many local organizations that pushed for the betterment of the community including the Women’s Civic League, the Emanon Child Welfare Club, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and Church Women United. 

A lottery style gambling game called Bolita became popular in the Northwest Neighborhood during this era. Set up in 1913 by the Northwest’s most influential 1920’s resident, James Jerome (“Cracker”) Johnson. The game became so popular that Johnson reportedly earned $10,000 a week from the proceeds. Johnson was also a real estate developer and supported many local charities. He was a constable, property owner and bootlegger, who built the City’s black jail, and also assisted the City of West Palm Beach, preventing financial bankruptcy. With numerous real estate holdings, Johnson readily provided homes, rental properties and services for people in need of assistance in the Northwest. 

Northwest Development during the Florida Land Boom Era During the economic prosperity of the Florida Land Boom era, job opportunities attracted large numbers of blacks from all over the country to West Palm Beach, with the black population growing at a faster rate than the total population. Jobs were plentiful, especially in construction and farm labor, and encouraged a stable economy. A number of businesses were started or expanded in the Northwest Neighborhood during this period, including beauty parlors, laundries, funeral homes, grocery stores and tailor shops. Many of these were initially operated out of private homes but later grew into large-scale commercial operations. 

 Churches were at the center of Northwest Neighborhood life and several established churches expanded during the prosperity of the 1920s. Originally founded in 1893 by residents in the Styx as the Bethel A.M.E. Church, the Payne Chapel A.M.E. Church built a new church at 801 Ninth Street in 1925. The brick building was designed by Hazel Augustus, a prominent black architect. 

Women played an important role in the Northwest Neighborhood community. In addition to Dr. Alice F. Mickens’ numerous efforts to improve access to quality education, her sister-in- law, Mamie Frederick, also actively served the black community. 

In 1925 she founded the Women’s Civic League of Palm Beach along with Dr. Mickens and Etta R. Shuford. The group provided food and clothing to needy children, among other charitable acts. Her house at 627 3rd Street was built in 1926. Gwen Cherry was Florida’s first black woman legislator. A resident of Miami, Cherry spent summers with her relative Mollie Holt, who built a house at 625 Division Avenue in 1926. Cherry inherited the house upon Holt’s death. In 1927, Industrial High School became the first school in Palm Beach County to offer blacks an education through the twelfth grade. Previously the school had graduated students after finishing the tenth grade. Black students came from all over the county to attend the school run by Principal J. W. Mickens. 

As the boom turned to bust, the Northwest Neighborhood was among the first to suffer. When three prominent wood-framed Palm Beach hotels, including Flagler’s Breakers Hotel, burned in 1925, many Northwest residents lost their jobs. When the hotels were rebuilt, mostly white help was hired in their place. As building efforts slowed throughout the City, many black workers in the building industry were also laid off. 

When the 1928 hurricane swept across Palm Beach County, thousands of people lost their lives in the storm and thousands of others were left homeless. The bodies were buried in two mass graves; one for the 69 white casualties and one for the approximately 674 blacks killed during the storm at 25th Street and Tamarind Avenue. 

In November 1929, the City Commission of West Palm Beach adopted an ordinance defining the boundaries of the segregated black neighborhoods known as the Northwest Neighborhood and Pleasant City. No black person could live outside the area except when employed as a domestic in a white household. No black person was allowed to conduct a place of business outside of the area as well, and all whites were likewise barred from living or conducting business within the designated black district. The City Commission set Twenty-Third Street as the northern boundary and the alley between Clematis Street and First Street as the southern boundary. The FEC Railroad tracks formed the eastern boundary south of Seventeenth Street. Between Seventeenth and Twenty third Streets, North Dixie Highway functioned as the eastern boundary. Clear Lake bounded the western part of the neighborhood. To mark the transition from black to white neighborhoods, the names of the north-south streets were changed at Clematis Street. Rosemary Avenue became Florida Avenue, Sapodilla Avenue became Georgia Avenue, and Division and Douglass Avenues ended at Clematis. Tamarind Avenue remained the same as Okeechobee Boulevard. South of Okeechobee, Tamarind became Parker Avenue.

 During the Great Depression, the low economic and social status of blacks meant being in the worst position in deteriorated economic conditions, which affected the entire community. During the 1930s, the black population of West Palm Beach continued to grow, though moderately compared to the previous decade. Bound by the segregation ordinance, the Northwest Neighborhood remained the focal point of the City’s black community. Due to this, a substantial number of buildings were still constructed in the Northwest Neighborhood during the Depression years to meet population needs.

In the Northwest Neighborhood, the City of West Palm Beach used WPA funds to build a Woman’s Club at 600 Thirteenth Street in 1932. It provided sewing work for black women through the Civil Works Administration (CWA), a Federal Emergency Relief Administration program that created temporary jobs for millions of unemployed.

Efforts by Northwest residents such as Dr. Mickens to improve educational opportunities and conditions for blacks often resulted in black leaders visiting West Palm Beach in the 1930s including Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, Howard Thurman, Ralph Bunche, and Charlotte Hawkins Brown. Because there were very few hotel facilities for blacks in West Palm Beach, Dr. Mickens and her family hosted many of these individuals in their home. A home for delinquent and homeless black children in West Palm Beach was established in the early 1930s by Mamie Frederick in her home. 

In 1933, Robert Saunders opened the Sunset Cocktail Lounge and Ballroom at 609 Eighth Street (Figure 9). It showcased top name black entertainers of the day, including Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Cab Callaway and Fats Waller. The Sunset was the entertainment center for the local black population through the 1950s. Wealthy whites wintering in Palm Beach sometimes reserved tables at the shows as well. 

 The passage of civil rights legislation marked some major changes in West Palm Beach. In 1960, the 1929 ordinance defining the boundaries of the black community was repealed by the City. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination in public facilities, in government, and in employment, invalidating the Jim Crow laws in the southern U.S. In 1966, Palm Beach County schools were integrated by court order and schools for blacks were either closed or consolidated with public schools that had previously been for whites only. In 1968, the first African-American students were admitted to Palm Beach Junior College.

In 1957, the city sold the 4200 acres to the Perini Land and Development Company, with the proviso that the first area to be developed would be residential, and exclusively for blacks. Over 500 acres just west of the Northwest Neighborhood were developed as promised and called Roosevelt Estates. The new development became a major middle class neighborhood for black families. It was a major gain for area blacks, many of whom had moved to Riviera Beach after their segregated neighborhoods ran out of room. As a result of desegregation, the black community became scattered throughout the City. Most of the upper- and middle-income residents and businesses left the Northwest Neighborhood, changing the residential diversity that had existed.

 In 1978, the first black West Palm Beach City Commissioners, Eva Mack and Ruby L. Bullock, were elected. Eva Mack became the city’s first black mayor in 1982. A chronicle of West Palm Beach black history, titled Like a Mighty Banyan was published the same year that showcased local black history. At that time, residents of the Northwest Neighborhood formed a group called “Save Our Neighborhood” led by community activist Elizabeth Munnings and then-Mayor Eva Mack. The group, which also included Dr. Alice Moore, Preston Tillmon and Etta Shuford, actively pursued a National Register nomination, which resulted in the Northwest Neighborhood being the first NRHP historic district listed in the City. The group also pressed the City to create a local Historic Preservation Ordinance in response to the numerous demolitions that were occurring in the Northwest Neighborhood. The Northwest Neighborhood was added to the newly created West Palm Beach Register of Historic Places in 1993. In 1986, the Palm Beach County Black Historical Preservation Society acquired the Gwen Cherry house at 625 Division Avenue in order to create a neighborhood history museum. The group renovated the home, but due to financial and security challenges the house was eventually demolished. Other significant homes were lost in the Northwest Neighborhood during the 1980s and 1990s, including the home of architect Hazel Augustus at 615 Division Street.

In 1997, the City moved two houses from near U. B. Kinsey Palmview Elementary school in the Northwest Neighborhood to the north side of Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard. One was the home of Dr. Thomas R. Vickers was originally located at 800 Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard, built in 1939. Dr. Vickers was born in Key West and educated in Washington, DC. He began practicing medicine in the Northwest Neighborhood in West Palm Beach in 1916. The house has been rehabilitated and now serves as offices for the City’s Youth, Family and Community Resources program. 

The other relocated home was built by Joseph W. Jenkins, a pharmacist originally from South Carolina who moved to the Northwest Neighborhood in West Palm Beach in 1933 (Figure 12). His home, built in 1946 at 1117 Division Avenue, now serves as a community arts center.

Editor: Dr. Alisha Winn | awinn@wpb.org