Three-fourths of a century have passed since South Florida’s real estate boom hit bottom. For decades, scholars opined that such a free-for-all of unbridled capitalism, and the resulting collapse, never would be repeated. Now we know better.
Here’s a summary of what we said in Pioneers in Paradise:
Few would imagine Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast would suffer a “readjustment.” What was most surprising was how quickly and how hard everything fell. From the height of the boom, 1924 and 1925, things had started to sour even by 1926. Why did the South Florida boom crash? The list is long.
Railroads and ships couldn’t get building materials down in time. The law was catching up with the con artists and the tax man with the speculators. The nation’s stock market was getting sick.
Northern bankers, investors and chambers of commerce, watching their money exit, retaliated with negative campaigns that pointed out swindles or gouging or little weather problems called hurricanes.
Nervous speculators, in a bit of self-fulfilling prophecy, began to take the money and run. Then came the killer hurricanes of 1926 and 1928.
South Florida out-speculated its market, and demand began to drop.
When you’re selling confidence, and the confidence departs, it’s all over.
As late as 1929, the city had posted a boom-high total property value of $89 million, one and a half times the figure of just two years earlier. But it was all on paper, and it didn’t take long for the real financial picture to catch up.
In one awful year, from 1929 to 1930, West Palm Beach’s property value dropped more than half.
By January 1935, 75 years ago this month, it was down to $18.2 million, little more than its preboom 1920 value.
The city of gold hadn’t just collapsed. It was rubble.
Palm Beach Daily News file photo
In 1921, Palm Beach was expanding from its Flagler-era hotel life and developing a commercial and residential character, as shown in this aerial photograph of the Everglades Club and golf course. The height of South Florida’s real estate boom was 1924-25. But the economy started to sour shortly thereafter. And the hurricanes of 1926 and ’28 only worsened matters.
Tags: economy, real estate
Readers: Last week marked the 500th Post Time column!
In honor of the occasion –not to mention Palm Beach County’s Centennial — we gave you a list of the 25 biggest events in the county’s history, from a 1999 compilation we updated to 2009. Well, we gave you 25 through 11. Here’s the top 10. For some entries, we’ve added famous quotes.
10. 1945-2009 growth explosions; 2008-’09 real estate collapse.
9. Boom collapses into bust, late 1920s; region thrown into Depression. “A boom means something that is soon over with; West Palm Beach should keep on growing like this for years,” City Building Inspector Jonathan H. Brophy said.
8. Citrus industry develops, late 19th century.
7. West Palm Beach founded, 1894; Palm Beach County, 1909. Region expands from resort role.
6. 1928 hurricane kills up to 3,000 in Glades; Hoover Dike built for flood control. “It woke up old Okeechobee, and the monster began to roll in his bed,” wrote Zora Neale Hurston in Their Eyes Were Watching God.
5. Everglades drainage; sugar industry develops, 1900s-’20s.
4. 1947 hurricane/flood leads to creation of South Florida Water Management District.
3. World War II, 1941-45: U-boat wars, bases spring up, growth spurt. “It was my first trip to Florida. I didn’t like the experience,” said Frank Leonard Terry, the sole survivor aboard the W.D. Anderson, sunk 12 miles north of Jupiter on Feb. 22, 1942.
2. South Florida’s real-estate boom, mid-1920s.
1. Henry Flagler comes to Palm Beach, 1890s. “I have spoken of the godfather of this state. May the state of Florida recognize his benefits The coming years will make clear how wise was his judgment,” said the Rev. George Morgan Ward at a memorial service at Palm Beach’s Royal Poinciana Chapel on the first anniversary of Flagler’s death in 1913.
Photo: Special to Neighborhood Post
This photograph shows the aftermath of the 1928 hurricane at the Wannamaker home in Palm Beach and of D.H. Conkling’s Marchioness sloop that had run aground. Conkling was founder of The Palm Beach Post.
Tags: 1928 Hurricane, agriculture, economy, Henry Flagler, hurricanes, real estate, World War II
This is our 500th column since Post Time began Jan. 19, 2000.
Special thanks go to recently retired Managing Editor Bill Rose, who had the idea, and Neighborhood Post editor Tom Peeling, who’s shepherded all 500 columns, along with all the copy editors who caught my mistakes.
But we couldn’t do it without your interest. Keep the questions coming! To honor the moment, we’re running an updated version of a list we compiled in 1999 of the 25 top events. Several state and local historians volunteered to rank them. The list was revised with help from Bill McGoun, retired Post editorial writer and author of Southeast Florida Pioneers.
Here’s 25 through 11:
25. Dairy industry bought out, 1980s-1990s.
24. Scandals send three county commissioners and two West Palm Beach commissioners and alleged accomplices to prison.
23. Proposed U.S. Sugar deal would restore sugar fields to Everglades (2009).
22. Downtown revitalized, 1980s-2000s.
21. 1980s spark increased growth.
20. Interstate 95 missing link completed through region, 1987.
19. Florida Atlantic University founded, 1964.
18. Civil War, 1861-65; Jupiter Lighthouse darkened to help blockade runners.
17. Battles of Okeechobee, Jupiter help push Seminoles into Everglades, 1837-38.
16. Region struggles through integration woes, late 1960s-early ’70s.
15. Refugees from Latin America and Caribbean change region’s demographics, 1960s-90s.
14. Jonathan Dickinson chronicles Indian groups now extinct, 1696.
13. Anthrax attack starts in Boca Raton; local aspects of Sept. 11.
12. IBM, Pratt & Whitney and others bring high-tech industry to Florida, 1950s-’60s.
11. 2000 election and Palm Beach County’s butterfly ballot change presidential election.
Palm Beach Post file photo: Visitors examine some of the super engines built by Pratt & Whitney in northern Palm Beach County during an open house in 1978. Pratt and IBM, which was in southern Palm Beach County, brought the high-tech industry to Florida in the 1950s-’60s and provided thousands of jobs.”
Tags: agriculture, Civil War, economy, immigrants, notorious crimes, schools
