PALM BEACH and WEST PALM BEACH, two cities of Florida, U.S.A., on the most easterly point of the east coast, 30o m. S.S.E. of Jacksonville. They are on Federal highway and the East Coast Inland waterway, and are served by the Florida East Coast and the Seaboard Air Line railways, and several steamship lines. Palm Beach, on a long narrow island between the Atlantic Ocean and Lake Worth (an arm of the ocean) had a resident population of 1707 in 1930 Federal census. It is one of the most luxurious winter resorts in America, with palatial hotels, clubs and private estates. West Palm Beach, stretching for 12 m. along the opposite side of Lake Worth, is also a pleasure resort and centre for tourists, with many hotels and furnished apartments, and in addition is the county seat of Palm Beach county and the commercial and financial centre of a wide area. Its population in 1930 was 26,610 by the Federal census; transient population of the two cities and their contiguous suburbs ("Greater Palm Beach") in the winter of 1927-28 was about ioo,000. Three bridges span the lake, which is usually dotted with yachts, sea-sleds and other small craft, and is the scene of an annual regatta on Feb. 20, 21, and 22. West Palm Beach already has a substantial wholesale distributing trade and ships considerable produce (especially fruits and early vegetables) and its commercial importance will increase with further progress in reclaiming the northern Everglades. Both cities have a com
mission-manager form of government. The assessed valuation of Palm Beach for 1928-9 was $48,534,624; of West Palm Beach, $98,000,000.
The development of Palm Beach as a winter resort began about 1892. West Palm Beach was incorporated as a town in 1903 and as a city in 1911. In 1900 its population was only 564; in 1910, 1,743; and in 1920, 8,659. In 1924 an extension of the Seaboard Air Line gave connection by rail with the west coast. The Palm Beaches did not suffer from the storm which wrecked Miami in Sept. 1926, but they were badly damaged (to the amount of approximately $30,000,000) by the hurricane of Sept. 1928, which devastated Porto Rico and parts of Florida, especially the Everglades and the south-eastern shores of Lake Okeechobee; and about 23,000 refugees (chiefly from outside the city) were under care of the Red Cross in West Palm Beach for a time. The coco-nut palms fringing Lake Worth, to which the cities owe their name, are the result of the wrecking of a Spanish cargo of coconuts off the coast in Jan. 1879.