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The columns on the gun club that gave Gun Club Road its name prompted a note from Lake Worth dentist Dr. Thomas J. Pirkle.
He says a range also operated south of Okeeheelee Park, west of Pinehurst Road and south of Forest Hill Boulevard in suburban West Palm Beach.
“Many people used these abandoned shooting ranges until Okeeheelee Park was built. Because the direction of shooting was north, the powers that be enforced trespassing violations after Okeeheelee Park opened so that no one there would be hit by a stray bullet, and there were a lot of stray bullets,” Pirkle said.
“Before that time these ranges were used by a myriad of shooters from black powder shooters (like me) to young professional people with .45 caliber machine guns. The amazing thing about these ranges (I think there were three) was that they were staggered, and you could often hear bullets go past you if you were on one of the more forward ranges.
“I have asked a lot of people what they were named and who built them, but no one seems to know. I had assumed that they were part of Morrison Field and the U.S. Army Air Forces, and were perhaps built in WWII. They were certainly abandoned by the ’80s when I shot there.
“The area was posted with no trespassing signs that those that shot there ignored … It was a pretty isolated area at the time.”
Readers: Once again, we need your help!
An aside: Pirkle says his uncle and his uncle’s father were superintendents of Palm Beach’s Mar-a-Lago estate for decades. Pirkle says he thinks his parents were the only people ever married there.
Mar-a-Lago managing director Bernd Lembcke said the club has hosted many weddings since Donald Trump turned it into a club in 1995. But he couldn’t say whether anyone was married there when Marjorie
Merriweather Post owned it.
Tags: unanswered questions
Q: Do you know, or can you find out, where Alternate A1A (the title) came
from? Or even where the title A1A came from?
I’m especially interested in Alternate A1A though, since it’s a route I’ve been driving on since 1972.
–Pat Souders,
Palm Beach Gardens
Q: I remember in the 1940s, Old Dixie Highway going from Jupiter down to what is now Frederick Small Road. At that point you made a left-hand turn, crossed the tracks and went south. It still was Old Dixie Highway. Old Dixie now goes only to what is called Indian Creek. When was the change and why?
– Robert Thamm,
Jupiter
We searched our own archives and sought help from the town of Juno Beach, the Loxahatchee River historical societies, and the Florida Department of Transportation, with no luck.
We know that Dixie Highway, the original artery from Jacksonville to Miami, was in many spots nothing more than tree limbs laid horizontally and filled in with sand.
It was so bumpy, locals called it “Corduroy Road.”
We can tell you that a coastal road called Atlantic Boulevard opened in 1927.
Later it was called State Road 1.
In November 1946, to avoid confusion with nearby U.S. 1, the state decided to call it A1A.
Readers: Can you help?
Tags: unanswered questions
Bob Michaels, a language arts teacher at Emerald Cove Middle School in Wellington and former Palm Beach Post TV critic, wrote to ask about the story behind “Gun Club Road.”
“Obviously at some point in time there must have been one,” he said.
Indeed, there was a gun club, say residents of Gun Club Estates, a neighborhood of six square blocks developed in the 1950s.
It’s framed by Military Trail, Kirk Road, Southern Boulevard and, of course, Gun Club Road.
Residents say a shooting range operated in the area, and when the developer bought the tract, he named the neighborhood for it. Streets are named for guns: Browning, Colt, Winchester.
Now, of course, the road is better known as home to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office and the county jail, or as it’s sometimes called, the “Gun Club Hilton.”
We searched through clips, 1950s city directories and property records, but never learned the name of the gun range.
We wondered whether it’s because it wasn’t an established facility, but rather just a commonly used spot.
Or, it might have been connected to the nearby Morrison Field air base, now Palm Beach International Airport. Longtime lawyer Ray Royce recalls that the area where the jail and the Trump golf course now stand had a bunker where he thinks the military stored munitions.
Readers, can you help?
Mail bag: Our Jan. 8 segment on John D. MacArthur prompted a call from
retired mortgage broker Jim Hartigan of North Palm Beach. He wanted to also
point out that MacArthur was a cousin of World War II Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
Tags: place names, unanswered questions
The Jan. 3 column on local history questions that have stumped us prompted some phone calls — but they provided only a little illumination.
Reader Orin Bennett, 88, of suburban West Palm Beach, who’s lived in the area since the Fourth of July, 1924, could not pin down the origin of Congress Avenue. But he did say that the road has been there since the 1930s, which would negate the theory that it was named during World War II. Bennett said he recalled the original Congress Avenue being just a few blocks long. “It was just a little short road, not very significant,” he said.
And David Eckis of Lantana recently noticed a spot near the Palace Skating Rink at Lantana Road, where it appears Old Congress once went through and continued to the Palm Beach County Park Airport.
Meanwhile, I’m still looking for help on the stories behind Lantana’s Mayfield, Euclid and Prospect streets; the stone duck in Lake Worth; Ritta and Torry islands; the streets in Westgate; June’s Ice Cream in Lake Worth; and Lillian Road, Steiner Road, Phillips Point, Lake Wyman and Seminole-Pratt
Whitney Road. And here’s one more:
Q: In Boca, running between Federal Highway and Dixie Highway north of Yamato, there is a series of streets whose names are identical to British cities, in alphabetical order. The only ones that come to mind now are
Coventry and Manchester. What is the story behind this?
– Kevin Warner,
Delray Beach
A: Sue Gillis, archivist at the Boca Raton Historical Society, and Donald Curl, retired Florida Atlantic University professor and local historian, believe the original developers of the area simply went with a British theme.
Readers: We still need your help on these!
Tags: place names, unanswered questions
Readers: Post Time is now starting its eighth year. The first column was Jan. 19, 2000; this is segment number 363. In honor of this anniversary, we’re repeating some of the questions that still have us stumped.
The most infuriating one: the origin of Congress Avenue. We know it had the name at least as far back as World War II, and it might have a link to the Morrison Field military operation at what is now Palm Beach International Airport.
And a more recent one:
Q: Do you have any clue as to why there are three streets in a row in east Lantana named Mayfield, Euclid and Prospect? Mayfield and Euclid are both major streets and cities in suburban Cleveland, and Prospect also is a main street in Cleveland. What’s the connection?
- Art Brooks, Lantana,
formerly of suburban Cleveland
For this, I turned to Jack Carpenter, a founder of the Lantana Historical Society. He diligently researched the question, but struck out.
And, one more time, two special pleas: The Tropical Sun is a predecessor to The Palm Beach Post. Several local libraries have partial collections of the newspaper. But issues from June 30 to Dec. 31, 1915, can’t be found. Also, The Palm Beach Times for the entire month of September 1928 is missing from our microfilms.
Readers: can you help?
Next week: More stumpers.
Tags: place names, unanswered questions
