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| Delray Beach - looking west on Atlantic Avenue (1930s) Florida State Archives/Florida Memory - postcard |
As with many Florida settlements of the late 1800s, Delray Beach’s provenance was rooted in farming. Hopeful entrepreneurs led the way.
William S. Linton (1856-1927), a member of the United States House of Representatives from Michigan 1893-1897, came to Florida in 1894 or 1895 (accounts and timelines vary) to seek business opportunities. An account from 1894 indicates Linton bought 160 acres for $25 an acre and then placed a deposit on an additional 640 acres. He returned to Florida with David Swinton, Nathan S. Boynton and others to assess possibilities.
The Port Huron Daily Times (May 23, 1895) reported the group who visited in 1895 formed a corporation that year to purchase 300,000 acres from “Fort Pierce to the Biscayne Bay …” for $5 million. They intended to sell the land in lots at “exceedingly low” prices. Their purpose: “to get colonists from the Dakotas, Nebraska and other parts where failure of crops has placed farmers in hard straits and to give them an opportunity for a fresh start in one of the most fertile spots on God’s footstool." (This is probably a reference to the resemblance of the Florida peninsula to a footstool to the rest of the nation).
The Town of Linton, as then named, was platted in 1895 and sat in today's Delray area. By 1896, Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway laid its tracks through and built a train depot in the frontier community. Many of the early streets were named after Linton’s settler friends (today’s Fifth Avenue was once named Blackmer Avenue).
By 1897, Linton faced financial woes. Boynton stepped in and bought Linton’s shares of the land company. The troubles affected settlers who bought lots after Linton's creditors went after them; land titles were clouded. Some settlers left but others remained and decided to restart by shedding the town’s name. Pioneer W.W. Blackmer, also from Michigan, suggested the town be renamed Delray, the same as a community that sits in today’s southwest Detroit (known also for a time as Delray Junction). The town name was formally changed in 1901.
Delray Beach’s African American residents have played an important and singular role in the city’s history. Many of their farmers remained in the area (and remain yet) when others left after the 1896 freeze or when Linton’s financial problems surfaced. Their West Settlers community was established in 1894 as the town’s first African American community. An historical marker at NW Fifth Avenue, west of Atlantic Avenue, serves as a tribute to their role in Delray Beach. For more about the marker, erected in 2009, and the people and place it recognizes, see https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=96808 – Historical Marker Database.
About the name Delray Beach: after several failed referendums (objections mainly from Delray Beach), the town of Delray and Delray Beach voted to merge in July 1927. Today, Delray Beach counts more than 70,000 residents. Its population, as well as its trendy reputation, is quickly growing.
Some farms remain; today, South Floridians often visit these popular "pick your own farms" to buy fruits and vegetables.
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| Swinton, third from left in Saginaw 1908 Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15189525 |
Sources:
The Daily News (Pensacola, Dec. 17, 1901
The Palm Beach Post, July 13, 1927
Boca Raton News May 21, 1995
The Palm Beach Post, Oct. 7, 1995
Tags: About Delray Beach, Delray, Delray Beach, W.S. Linton, Nathan Boynton, David Swinton, Delray Beach
