“People would meet us at places and ask us questions,” said widow Ruth, who lives at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens. “He was a great talker and loved storytelling.”

Watson worked for NATO in Europe in the 1950s, at one point overseeing atomic planning.

In 1953, he became head of the Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. Watson retired as a major general in 1962. Among his honors: the Bronze Star and the Distinguished Flying Cross. Two years earlier, he’d created a foundation that raised $350,000 to rebuild Woodrow Wilson Rehabilitation Center in Virginia, where his disabled son was treated. The center’s student activities building was named for him in 1967.

Watson moved in the late 1970s to North Palm Beach’s Old Port Cove.

He got involved in several technologies, including solar heating. He also took a year off in 1978 to pilot his 44-foot yacht in the Caribbean.

“He was very humble and didn’t want to talk much about his experience,” pal Gordon Gaster, a semi-retired Merrill Lynch executive, said last month. “Tom Brokaw called it the greatest generation,” Gaster said from his home in Jupiter. “This is a fellow that I think deserved to be recognized in that group.”

Update: Our June 10 column on military bases prompted a call from Roger St. Martin of Lake Worth. He noted, correctly, that we omitted the Biltmore Hotel in Palm Beach. In 1943 and 1944, the U.S. Coast Guard used it as a training base for the SPARs, its women’s reserve. In 1945, it was the Navy Convalescent Hospital, with about 700 patients.

Harold E. Watson (Palm Beach Post file photo)

Toward the end of World War II, ‘Watson’s Whizzers’ went through Germany, Austria, Denmark and France and got at least a sample of nearly every German plane out of Europe so the parts could be scrutinized. The prime trophy: the Messerschmitt 262, the world’s first working fighter jet (above). In all, Watson’s group ferried 40 German planes, including nine Me-262s. (Palm Beach Post file photo)

“People would meet us at places and ask us questions,” said widow Ruth, who lives at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens. “He was a great talker and loved storytelling.”

Watson worked for NATO in Europe in the 1950s, at one point overseeing atomic planning.

In 1953, he became head of the Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. Watson retired as a major general in 1962. Among his honors: the Bronze Star and the Distinguished Flying Cross. Two years earlier, he’d created a foundation that raised $350,000 to rebuild Woodrow Wilson Rehabilitation Center in Virginia, where his disabled son was treated. The center’s student activities building was named for him in 1967.

Watson moved in the late 1970s to North Palm Beach’s Old Port Cove.

He got involved in several technologies, including solar heating. He also took a year off in 1978 to pilot his 44-foot yacht in the Caribbean.

“He was very humble and didn’t want to talk much about his experience,” pal Gordon Gaster, a semi-retired Merrill Lynch executive, said last month. “Tom Brokaw called it the greatest generation,” Gaster said from his home in Jupiter. “This is a fellow that I think deserved to be recognized in that group.”

Update: Our June 10 column on military bases prompted a call from Roger St. Martin of Lake Worth. He noted, correctly, that we omitted the Biltmore Hotel in Palm Beach. In 1943 and 1944, the U.S. Coast Guard used it as a training base for the SPARs, its women’s reserve. In 1945, it was the Navy Convalescent Hospital, with about 700 patients.

Harold E. Watson (Palm Beach Post file photo)

Toward the end of World War II, ‘Watson’s Whizzers’ went through Germany, Austria, Denmark and France and got at least a sample of nearly every German plane out of Europe so the parts could be scrutinized. The prime trophy: the Messerschmitt 262, the world’s first working fighter jet (above). In all, Watson’s group ferried 40 German planes, including nine Me-262s. (Palm Beach Post file photo)

From the May 31, 1971, Palm Beach Post help wanted ads

From the May 31, 1971, Palm Beach Post help wanted ads

We launched the HistoricPalmBeach.com on July 16, 2009, in honor of Palm Beach County’s 2009 centennial and the upcoming publication of Palm Beach County at 100: Our history, our home, the official centennial history book. We had a vision of HistoricPalmBeach.com becoming a treasure trove of local history, including gems from the archives of The Palm Beach Post and memories contributed by members of the community.

Since the launch of the web site, we’ve added a Facebook page and a Twitter feed. Readers have submitted more than 300 comments and photos to the site, including dozens of stories contributed to the Your History section and dozens of photos.

We’ve made the historic archives of The Palm Beach Post, Palm Beach Daily News, and other historic south Florida newspapers available for free through a partnership with Google News Archive.

At the beginning of 2010 we added a This Week in History feature and a Then and Now photo gallery. During the month of February we added a Black Palm Beach section for Black History Month.

And we’ve created a place names map with links to more than 100 stories of the people and stories behind the names of cities, parks, lakes, streets, schools and more.

We continue to invite readers to contribute your stories, photos and questions about local history. We hope you’re having as much fun with HistoricPalmBeach.com as we are!

We launched the HistoricPalmBeach.com on July 16, 2009, in honor of Palm Beach County’s 2009 centennial and the upcoming publication of Palm Beach County at 100: Our history, our home, the official centennial history book. We had a vision of HistoricPalmBeach.com becoming a treasure trove of local history, including gems from the archives of The Palm Beach Post and memories contributed by members of the community.

Since the launch of the web site, we’ve added a photos.

We’ve made the Google News Archive.

At the beginning of 2010 we added a Black Palm Beach section for Black History Month.

And we’ve created a place names map with links to more than 100 stories of the people and stories behind the names of cities, parks, lakes, streets, schools and more.

We continue to invite readers to contribute your stories, photos and questions about local history. We hope you’re having as much fun with HistoricPalmBeach.com as we are!

When Harold E. Watson of Palm Beach Gardens died at 82 on Jan. 5, 1994, his passing went mostly unnoticed in this publication, if not elsewhere.

Such as in the halls of the U.S. Air Force, where all he did was sneak the world’s first fighter jet out of conquered Nazi Germany, out from under the nosy noses of the Soviet Union.

He was born in Connecticut in 1911. In 1933, in a bit of geographical irony, he joined that state’s famed Pratt & Whitney aircraft firm, now an institution in Palm Beach County. He later joined the Army Air Corps, which became the Air Force.

In April 1945, Germany’s surrender was imminent. The Allies feared the Third Reich had given Axis partner Japan secrets about its nascent jet and rocket technology.

Famed Army Gen. Hap Arnold turned to Watson.

In the next five months, “Watson’s Whizzers” went through Germany, Austria, Denmark, Austria and France. It got at least one sample of nearly every German plane, engine and part out of Europe and to Indiana, where parts were torn apart and scrutinized.

That “moved our research and development ahead rapidly four to five years,” Watson said in an October 1983 Palm Beach Post article.

The prime trophy: the Messerschmitt 262. Watson didn’t even have a pilot in Europe who could fly it. He had to set up a school with seven pilots and 10 mechanics who trained under two German pilots.

And he wrangled Willy Messerschmitt himself a trip to America.

In all, Watson’s group ferried 40 German planes, including nine Me-262s along with FW190s and Junker Ju88s. They were planes that didn’t go to Japan — which surrendered weeks later. And they didn’t go to the Russians.

One plane is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

Next week: Retirement.

Harold Watson in 1983.

When Harold E. Watson of Palm Beach Gardens died at 82 on Jan. 5, 1994, his passing went mostly unnoticed in this publication, if not elsewhere.

Such as in the halls of the U.S. Air Force, where all he did was sneak the world’s first fighter jet out of conquered Nazi Germany, out from under the nosy noses of the Soviet Union.

He was born in Connecticut in 1911. In 1933, in a bit of geographical irony, he joined that state’s famed Pratt & Whitney aircraft firm, now an institution in Palm Beach County. He later joined the Army Air Corps, which became the Air Force.

In April 1945, Germany’s surrender was imminent. The Allies feared the Third Reich had given Axis partner Japan secrets about its nascent jet and rocket technology.

Famed Army Gen. Hap Arnold turned to Watson.

In the next five months, “Watson’s Whizzers” went through Germany, Austria, Denmark, Austria and France. It got at least one sample of nearly every German plane, engine and part out of Europe and to Indiana, where parts were torn apart and scrutinized.

That “moved our research and development ahead rapidly four to five years,” Watson said in an October 1983 Palm Beach Post article.

The prime trophy: the Messerschmitt 262. Watson didn’t even have a pilot in Europe who could fly it. He had to set up a school with seven pilots and 10 mechanics who trained under two German pilots.

And he wrangled Willy Messerschmitt himself a trip to America.

In all, Watson’s group ferried 40 German planes, including nine Me-262s along with FW190s and Junker Ju88s. They were planes that didn’t go to Japan — which surrendered weeks later. And they didn’t go to the Russians.

One plane is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

Next week: Retirement.

Harold Watson in 1983.

This photo ran in the Palm Beach Post on the July 18, 1968, with the caption: “Boca Raton Community Hospital celebrated its first birthday Wednesday with the traditional cake, handshaking formalities and the untraditional lighting of the candle a la finger. The finger belongs to Richard Murray, personnel and development director. Doing the lighting honors is Mrs. Gloria Drummond, first president of the Debbie-Rand Memorial Service League. The birthday gathering was held in the hospital visitor’s lounge.” (Palm Beach Post staff file photo)

This photo ran in the Palm Beach Post on the July 18, 1968, with the caption: “Boca Raton Community Hospital celebrated its first birthday Wednesday with the traditional cake, handshaking formalities and the untraditional lighting of the candle a la finger. The finger belongs to Richard Murray, personnel and development director. Doing the lighting honors is Mrs. Gloria Drummond, first president of the Debbie-Rand Memorial Service League. The birthday gathering was held in the hospital visitor’s lounge.” (Palm Beach Post staff file photo)

The large open area in downtown West Palm Beach stood at South Flagler Drive and Chase Street, across from the famed Hut drive-in.

In the late 1960s, it was a mini-city for local hippies. Remember them?

Four months of clashes with police followed. Officers made numerous arrests for drug sales. They reported finding trash, human waste, and even used condoms in the park and on lawns of nearby homes and the doorsteps of churches.

As always is the case, the problems were the work of some, not everyone. Unofficial leaders said they could police their own. But they were overmatched.

Forty years ago this week, on July 7, 1970, police had had enough.

They swept the park, posting “keep off” signs, and arrested 64 young people — many now grandparents.

Two years later, a judge ruled two city ordinances designed to run the young people out of the park violated their First Amendment rights to free assembly.

Soon after that, the city ordered all parks closed at 9 p.m., except for planned, supervised activities and lighted courts.

“The park was a damned national disgrace,” Police Chief William Barnes said in 1978, as the city considered allowing a Memorial Day Dixieland Band concert — about as unhippie as you can get — at the site.

“Pot smoking, hellraising, fornicating on the grounds, bottle and rock throwing — you name it,” growled Barnes, who would retire as police chief in 1980 and die of cancer at 87 in February 2009. People’s Park now is the site of Phillips Point. One of our lingering mysteries is why it’s called that. Readers: can you help?

(Special thanks to staff researcher Niels Heimeriks.)

A worker begins putting up “Keep Off The Grass” signs on July 7, 1970, in People’s Park in West Palm Beach. A crackdown in the park that day led to dozens of arrests of hippies by West Palm Beach police. (Palm Beach Post staff file photo)

The large open area in downtown West Palm Beach stood at South Flagler Drive and Chase Street, across from the famed Hut drive-in.

In the late 1960s, it was a mini-city for local hippies. Remember them?

Four months of clashes with police followed. Officers made numerous arrests for drug sales. They reported finding trash, human waste, and even used condoms in the park and on lawns of nearby homes and the doorsteps of churches.

As always is the case, the problems were the work of some, not everyone. Unofficial leaders said they could police their own. But they were overmatched.

Forty years ago this week, on July 7, 1970, police had had enough.

They swept the park, posting “keep off” signs, and arrested 64 young people — many now grandparents.

Two years later, a judge ruled two city ordinances designed to run the young people out of the park violated their First Amendment rights to free assembly.

Soon after that, the city ordered all parks closed at 9 p.m., except for planned, supervised activities and lighted courts.

“The park was a damned national disgrace,” Police Chief William Barnes said in 1978, as the city considered allowing a Memorial Day Dixieland Band concert — about as unhippie as you can get — at the site.

“Pot smoking, hellraising, fornicating on the grounds, bottle and rock throwing — you name it,” growled Barnes, who would retire as police chief in 1980 and die of cancer at 87 in February 2009. People’s Park now is the site of Phillips Point. One of our lingering mysteries is why it’s called that. Readers: can you help?

(Special thanks to staff researcher Niels Heimeriks.)

A worker begins putting up “Keep Off The Grass” signs on July 7, 1970, in People’s Park in West Palm Beach. A crackdown in the park that day led to dozens of arrests of hippies by West Palm Beach police. (Palm Beach Post staff file photo)

The 1887 construction of the Jupiter Inlet railway dock made it possible for steamships to reach the Celestial Railroad. Note the Jupiter Lighthouse in the background at left. (Photo courtesy of the Historical Society of Palm Beach County)

Dora Doster stands on the cow catcher of Celestial Railroad’s No. 1 locomotive. The railroad opened on July 4, 1889, and was the only game in town until Henry Flagler started Florida East Coast Railway, spurring the demise of the Celestial. (Photo courtesy of the Historical Society of Palm Beach County)

The 1887 construction of the Jupiter Inlet railway dock made it possible for steamships to reach the Celestial Railroad. Note the Jupiter Lighthouse in the background at left. (Photo courtesy of the Historical Society of Palm Beach County)

Dora Doster stands on the cow catcher of Celestial Railroad’s No. 1 locomotive. The railroad opened on July 4, 1889, and was the only game in town until Henry Flagler started Florida East Coast Railway, spurring the demise of the Celestial. (Photo courtesy of the Historical Society of Palm Beach County)

For a decade, we’ve been privileged to answer your questions about historic people, places and events in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast.

But there’s been a pleasant side benefit we hadn’t envisioned when we started: Those 500-plus columns have generated a remarkable database.

Here’s more from staff researcher Michelle Quigley:

“Over the years, the Post Time column has told us how Delray Beach, Boca Raton, Hypoluxo and other places got their names.

“The columns were printed in Neighborhood Post, then compiled into a database, but we didn’t have a good way to store and display that information.

“Now we can share stories with you in a way that makes them easier to find, and more fun to browse. All the columns are on historicpalmbeach.com. Look for the “Place Names Map” link on the main menu. This feature lets you click on a map for links to place name origins. There are already 100, with more to come.

“For example, if you click on Lake Osborne you’ll find a short description of the connection to the Osborn (no ‘e’) family, among the first settlers to the area, and links to two columns with more detail about the family and how the lake had been called Metalkaoska by Native American residents.”

Tell us what you think!

Update: Our June 17 and June 24 columns on Chief Ho-Ti-Pi brought this from Jim Anderson of West Palm Beach:

“I once attended a performance of his, which was held (for lack of a better venue, I guess) at the old Lake Worth American Legion Arena on Lucerne Avenue. The arena was set up to hold boxing and/or wrestling matches as there was a ring in the center with seats on all four sides. The ‘chief’ arrived in full Indian regalia and sang to the accompaniment of an upright piano, which had been laboriously hauled up into the ring, for the performance. As I remember, Chief Ho did have a fine voice, but the event was sparsely attended. My recollection is that this took place in the late 1940s or very early ’50s. (No wrestlers attended.)”

Lake Osborne in May 1965 (Palm Beach Post file photo)

For a decade, we’ve been privileged to answer your questions about historic people, places and events in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast.

But there’s been a pleasant side benefit we hadn’t envisioned when we started: Those 500-plus columns have generated a remarkable database.

Here’s more from staff researcher Michelle Quigley:

“Over the years, the Post Time column has told us how Delray Beach, Boca Raton, Hypoluxo and other places got their names.

“The columns were printed in Neighborhood Post, then compiled into a database, but we didn’t have a good way to store and display that information.

“Now we can share stories with you in a way that makes them easier to find, and more fun to browse. All the columns are on “Place Names Map” link on the main menu. This feature lets you click on a map for links to place name origins. There are already 100, with more to come.

“For example, if you click on Lake Osborne you’ll find a short description of the connection to the Osborn (no ‘e’) family, among the first settlers to the area, and links to two columns with more detail about the family and how the lake had been called Metalkaoska by Native American residents.”

Tell us what you think!

Update: OurJune 24 columns on Chief Ho-Ti-Pi brought this from Jim Anderson of West Palm Beach:

“I once attended a performance of his, which was held (for lack of a better venue, I guess) at the old Lake Worth American Legion Arena on Lucerne Avenue. The arena was set up to hold boxing and/or wrestling matches as there was a ring in the center with seats on all four sides. The ‘chief’ arrived in full Indian regalia and sang to the accompaniment of an upright piano, which had been laboriously hauled up into the ring, for the performance. As I remember, Chief Ho did have a fine voice, but the event was sparsely attended. My recollection is that this took place in the late 1940s or very early ’50s. (No wrestlers attended.)”

Lake Osborne in May 1965 (Palm Beach Post file photo)