She was the Amelia Earhart of Palm Beach County: Adventuresome and daring, with a tragic end to her short life.
Grace Morrison — secretary to a glamorous Palm Beach architect and weekend flier — championed the creation of a Palm Beach County airport in the 1930s, when the forerunner of today’s international airport was a small strip with a windsock called Lightbown Municipal Airport.
Flying was so new to Palm Beach County that the first landing marker and aerial beacon went up in 1929.
Morrison began pressing to improve the primitive facility — first contacting local officials, and when that failed, the federal government.
On Dec. 13, 1932, John Demarest of Hypoluxo sold 440 acres of land to an association formed to build a new air terminal. Six weeks later, runways were staked out. The total cost of the “modern” airport was estimated at $180,000.
“When completed, the new airport will be one of the best in the entire south,” Palm Beach Life magazine reported on Jan. 28, 1936.
On Dec. 19, 1936, the airfield was dedicated. It had expanded to 598 acres and was paid for by the county, the state and two federal agencies.
The airport was dubbed Morrison Field. But Grace Morrison was not there.
She had been killed just months earlier, on Sept. 5, near Titusville, while driving her brother to college.
The first plane to depart, an Eastern Airlines DC-2, carried 14 passengers. The first official landing at the airport carried three men, among them Grace Morrison’s boss, architect Maurice Fatio.
– Eliot Kleinberg, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Photo courtesy of the Historical Society of Palm Beach County
What was the first plane to fly over Palm Beach County? That happened in 1911, long before there was an airstrip here. The plane took off from what is now Currie Park.
For more on Palm Beach County history, get your copy of Palm Beach County at 100: Our History, Our Home.
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Today, chic ladies shriek for Chanel. But back in 1905, the woman who peddled ‘the latest French novelties’ was named Madame Najla Mogabgab — and she featured kimonos and other exotic costumes in her store inside Henry Flagler’s Royal Poinciana Hotel. The hotel boasted Fifth-Avenue-quality shops, and their dazzling window displays prompted the Palm Beach Daily News to dub the hotel’s shopping corridor ‘The Broadway of the Hotel Royal Poinciana.’ Next door were several other retailers, including Anthony’s, founded in 1895.
Photo courtesy of the Historical Society of Palm Beach County. The shop inside the Royal Poinciana Hotel features kimonos hanging on the left, lamps for sale above the dress racks, and lace and hatpins in the cases on the right.
Want to know more about our fashionable history? Order your copy of Palm Beach County at 100: Our History, Our Home. The 304-page, full-color, hardcover book — by The Palm Beach Post and the Historical Society of Palm Beach County — is the county’s official centennial book. It will be available on Nov. 1 for $45, plus tax, shipping and handling. Order your limited-edition copy at gallerypalmbeach.com
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Lewis Currier was principal of the Delray high school and grammar school in the late 1920s, when this school photo was taken. (We know you can’t see him on this small image. Click on the photo to see a larger image.)
In those days, the camera rotated to take group photographs, so Currier posed on one side, then ran around to get on the other side of the photo, too.
His daughter, Charlotte Currier Schneiter, sent in this photograph to commemorate the centennial of Palm Beach County. Charlotte was born “at home on North Swinton Avenue” in 1932. She attended all of her school years at this school except for one — her senior year, 1949-50. Students moved to Seacrest High School that year and met new kids from Boca Raton and Boynton Beach.
“We were not happy to have to leave Delray High in 1949,” recalls Charlotte, who now lives in Jupiter. “But we all survived and became very good friends!”
Lewis Currier left education after a few years and bought land in Belle Glade. He farmed there during the week and returned home to Delray on the weekends.
Today, the Delray school, built in 1913, is the entertainment complex known as Old School Square.
PHOTO: Courtesty Charlotte Currier Schneiter
Want to know more about Palm Beach County history? Order your copy of the official centennial book, Palm Beach County at 100: Our History, Our Home, by The Palm Beach Post and the Historical Society of Palm Beach County. The 304-page, full-color, hardcover book publishes Nov. 1. Order yours now for $45 (plus tax and shipping) at gallerypalmbeach.com
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