West Palm Beach To Palm Beach Ferry Met Need

Ellwood Sproul of Hobe Sound recalls that when he was a young Marylander based at the Boca Raton Army Air Field during World War II, the surrounding town was pretty quiet — it had fewer than 1,000 residents– and he would go up to Palm Beach, where cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post would let GIs relax on the beach of the Mar-a-Lago mansion.

Sproul says he rode a “dinky little ferry” that crossed the Intracoastal Waterway between West Palm Beach and Palm Beach.

Longtime resident Dora Digby of Lake Worth, now 87, remembered the ferry. She said in a 1992 letter, and in a February 2007 phone interview, that the boat ran from the George Washington Hotel, and later the Helen Wilkes Hotel, over to The Biltmore.

“The ‘captain’ had only had one arm, which sometimes interfered with his navigation. Five cents a ride, with entertainment thrown in,” Dora recalled.

She said it wasn’t a sophisticated business, just a disabled guy trying to earn a living during the war years.
The ferry filled a need after authorities banned cars from crossing the bridges with their headlights on.

Readers: Do any of you remember more about the ferry or its “captain?” Let us know.

Update: The Jan. 31 and Feb. 7 columns on the venerable downtown West Palm Beach office buildings prompted a call from Jeannette Dunkle, widow of John B. Dunkle, who retired in 1991 as Palm Beach County’s clerk of courts after 33 years and died in February 2005. She said Dunkle’s father and uncle, both local mayors, developed the Guaranty and Comeau buildings.

Tags: boats, Boca Raton Army Air Field, Intracoastal Waterway