Delray Name Has Mexican Roots

Readers: The Jan. 19 column repeated the explanation that the name of Delray Beach comes not from del rey, Spanish for “of the king,” but from Detroit’s Delray neighborhood, once its own city.
That prompted a call from Jean Kurth, a volunteer at the Delray Beach Historical Society.
She said our Delray Beach is in fact named for that neighborhood in Detroit, but that neighborhood is, in fact, named for a town in Mexico called Del Rey. Kurth said some society files explained the link to the Mexican town.
The society’s current exhibit, which runs through this month, is called Linton. It details the early history of the town before it was renamed Delray Beach in 1898. Area pioneers Maj. Nathan Smith Boynton, William Seelyn Linton and David Swinton had come down from Michigan in 1895.

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