| Woodlawn Cemetery | |
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| Details | |
| Established | 1904 |
| Location | 1301 South Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach, Florida |
| Size | 17 acres (6.9 ha) |
| No. of interments | 10,085 |
| Find a Grave | Woodlawn Cemetery |
Woodlawn Cemetery is located at 1301 South Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach, Florida. It consists of three cemeteries: Woodlawn Cemetery, the Jewish Cemetery, and Woodlawn Cemetery North.
Henry Flagler created the cemetery on 17 acres (6.9 ha) of pineapple fields in 1904. "By 1904, there was 'no more attractive cemetery in Florida' than Woodlawn, most likely inspired in name and design by New York’s Woodlawn Cemetery that had also utilized a spacious Landscape Lawn." [1] "As was his custom, Flagler spared no expense and the cemetery soon became a tourist attraction. The St. Augustine Tatler newspaper of January 1905 reported that socialites would spend the afternoon there admiring its rock roads and "rows of oleanders, Australian pines, and crotons." [2] In 1914, the Woodlawn Cemetery Association deeded the cemetery to the City of West Palm Beach. [3]
The Cemetery holds 10,085 burials, from January 1905 through December 1994. [2] It originally had an iron gateway, with the words in bronze letters, "That Which Is So Universal As Death Must Be A Blessing”. [4] With the widening of Dixie Highway in 1925 an acre was lost and the iron gate had to be removed. A year later it was replaced with the present cement archway, with the same words inscribed. [2]
Because Woodlawn was nearly full by 1927, the Australian pines were removed to make room for 422 additional lots. In later years more burial spaces were made available by the closing of most of the east–west roads dividing the blocks. [2]
Southern cemeteries of the time period were segregated, and Woodlawn Cemetery only accepted white, Christian burials. Just inside the entrance gate there was from 1941 to 2017 a prominent stone monument with the following text, underneath a Confederate flag:
Forever now, among the immortal dead,
whose dust belongs to glory's dreamland,
sleeps the fair Confederacy.
Right principles can never die. No
cause for which the brave have
bled in virtue's name, for which the
true have kept the faith,
for which the dead have died in holy
martyrdom, is ever lost!
In memory of
our Confederate soldiers,
erected by
United Daughters of the Confederacy
A.D. 1941
Amid the wave of Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials after the Dylann Roof shooting of 2015, the monument was defaced in August, 2017, with the words "Antifa Nazis & KKK", with arrows pointing at the Confederate flag. [5] This was not the first instance of vandalism to it (vandalism throughout the cemetery has been a problem). [2] It was removed in 2017.
In 1922, a group of Jewish merchants of West Palm Beach formed the Jewish Community Center, an unincorporated association, which bought seven blocks of previously unplatted land on the western edge of Woodlawn Cemetery. The Jewish Cemetery was platted in June 1923 and by 1952, all the lots had been sold. [2]
Woodlawn Cemetery increased in size in 1975 with the city's acquisition of slightly more than two acres adjoining the north border. This addition is known as Woodlawn North Cemetery. [2]
Palm Beach County is a county in the southeastern part of Florida, located in the Miami metropolitan area. It is Florida's third-most populous county after Miami-Dade County and Broward County and the 26th-most populous in the United States, with 1,492,191 residents as of the 2020 census. Its county seat and largest city is West Palm Beach, which had a population of 117,415 as of 2020. Named after one of its oldest settlements, Palm Beach, the county was established in 1909, after being split from Miami-Dade County. The county's modern-day boundaries were established in 1963.
Dixie Highway was a United States auto trail first planned in 1914 to connect the Midwest with the South. It was part of a system and was expanded from an earlier Miami to Montreal highway. The final system is better understood as a network of connected paved roads, rather than one single highway. It was constructed and expanded from 1915 to 1929.
Henry Morrison Flagler was an American industrialist and a founder of Standard Oil, which was first based in Ohio. He was also a key figure in the development of the Atlantic coast of Florida and founder of the Florida East Coast Railway. He is also known as a co-founder and major investor of the cities of Miami and Palm Beach, Florida.
The Florida East Coast Railway is a Class II railroad operating in the U.S. state of Florida, currently owned by Grupo México.
Juno was a town in Palm Beach County, Florida. Settlement in Juno dated back to at least early 1889, when residents of Dade County, which then stretched from modern-day Martin County to Miami-Dade County, voted for the area to become the county seat. Located at the north end of the Lake Worth Lagoon, Juno soon became the southern terminus of the Jupiter and Lake Worth Railway, which is often referred to as the Celestial Railroad due to its stations at Juno, Mars, Venus, and Jupiter. Juno's status as the seat of Dade County attracted people and businesses to the town, including The Tropical Sun, which became the first newspaper in South Florida.
The barefoot mailman is an iconic Florida symbol. It refers to the carriers on the first U.S. Mail route (1885–1892) between Palm Beach and the settlements around Lake Worth on the north, and Miami, Coconut Grove, and Lemon City to the south. The mailmen had to walk and travel by boat because there was no road connecting the 68-mile route from Palm Beach to Miami. Approximately 28 miles of the one way trip was by rowing different boats, and the rest by walking along the firmer sand along the beach. The route was a Star Route, with the carriers contracting with the Post Office. The route was originally called the "barefoot route" and the carriers were called "beach walkists" or "beach walkers". It was not until around 1940 that the term "barefoot mailman" came into use.
The Royal Poinciana Hotel was a Gilded Age hotel in Palm Beach, Florida, United States. Developed by Standard Oil founder Henry Flagler and approximately 1,000 workers, the hotel opened on February 11, 1894. As Flagler's first structure in South Florida, the Royal Poinciana Hotel played a significant role in the region's history, transforming the previously desolate area into a winter tourist destination and accelerating the development of Palm Beach and West Palm Beach. Two months later, Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway reached West Palm Beach, while a railroad bridge built across the Lake Worth Lagoon in 1895 allowed guests direct access to the hotel. In 1896, Flagler opened a second hotel nearby, The Breakers. The success of both hotels led to expansions of the Royal Poinciana Hotel in 1899 and 1901. By then, the building had reportedly become both the largest hotel and largest wooden structure in the world at the time.
Flagler Memorial Island is an uninhabited artificial island of South Beach in the city of Miami Beach in Biscayne Bay, Florida. A 110-foot (34 m) high obelisk with allegorical sculptures at its base stands as a monument to Miami pioneer Henry M. Flagler, and was built in the center of the freshly constructed island in memory of Flagler, who died in 1913.
The Riddle House is an old Edwardian house located in Palm Beach County, Florida. The house was built in West Palm Beach, Florida in 1905 by some of Henry Flagler's hotel construction workers. Originally known as "Gatekeeper's Cottage", the house was home to the groundskeeper of Woodlawn Cemetery. By 1920, the house became privately owned by Karl Riddle, a city manager and superintendent of West Palm Beach. He is the namesake of the house. The house was eventually dismantled and moved to Yesteryear Village in 1995, a historical park within the South Florida Fairgrounds. The building was featured in an episode of Ghost Adventures in 2008.
The Mango Promenade Historic District is a U.S. historic district located in West Palm Beach, Florida. The district is bounded by South Dixie Highway, Austin Lane, Coconut Lane, and Cranesnest Way. It contains 125 historic buildings.
The Hurricane of 1928 African-American Mass Burial Site is a pauper's cemetery and mass grave in West Palm Beach, Florida. It is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The cemetery is situated near the junction of 25th Street and Tamarind Avenue between I-95 and U.S. Route 1. The site is the location in which 674 bodies of African Americans or those of an unknown race were buried following the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane, while most of the white victims of the storm received a proper burial at Woodlawn Cemetery due to segregation laws.
The Brelsford House was a historic home in Palm Beach, Florida, United States, located at 1 Lake Trail. Built between 1888 and 1903, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 3, 1974. The Neoclassical house was destroyed in August of the following year, but it remains on the Register.
Confederate monuments and memorials in the United States include public displays and symbols of the Confederate States of America (CSA), Confederate leaders, or Confederate soldiers of the American Civil War. Many monuments and memorials have been or will be removed under great controversy. Part of the commemoration of the American Civil War, these symbols include monuments and statues, flags, holidays and other observances, and the names of schools, roads, parks, bridges, buildings, counties, cities, lakes, dams, military bases, and other public structures. In a December 2018 special report, Smithsonian Magazine stated, "over the past ten years, taxpayers have directed at least $40 million to Confederate monuments—statues, homes, parks, museums, libraries, and cemeteries—and to Confederate heritage organizations."
The history of West Palm Beach, Florida, began more than 5,000 years ago with the arrival of the first aboriginal natives. Native American tribes such as the Jaegas inhabited the area. Though control of Florida changed among Spain, England, the United States, and the Confederate States of America, the area remained largely undeveloped until the 20th century. By the 1870s and 1880s, non-Native American settlers had inhabited areas in the vicinity of West Palm Beach and referred to the settlement as "Lake Worth Country". However, the population remained very small until the arrival of Henry Flagler in the 1890s. Flagler constructed hotels and resorts in Palm Beach to create a travel destination for affluent tourists, who could travel there via his railroad beginning in 1894.
Charles William Pierce was one of South Florida's most important pioneer citizens. Arriving in 1872, Pierce was a community leader in banking, seamanship, the postal service, and author of the sentinel book on early South Florida life.
There are more than 160 monuments and memorials to the Confederate States of America and associated figures that have been removed from public spaces in the United States, all but five of which have been since 2015. Some have been removed by state and local governments; others have been torn down by protestors.
Elisha Newton "Cap" Dimick was an American politician and pioneer of modern-day Palm Beach County, Florida. Born in Michigan in 1849, the Dimick family moved to the area now known as Palm Beach, Florida, in 1876. Dimick built his residence there in the late 1870s, and in 1880, converted it to the Cocoanut Grove House, then the only hotel between Key West and Titusville. He became a politician in the 1890s, serving one term in the Florida House of Representatives and later four terms in the Florida Senate as a member of the Democratic Party. Dimick also co-founded the Lake Worth region's first bank in 1893, the Dade County State Bank, which assisted Henry Flagler in providing compensation to workers constructing the Royal Poinciana Hotel and The Breakers. Today, the bank building is considered the oldest surviving commercial structure in Palm Beach County.
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