Palm Beach County has Florida’s third-largest population, 1,320,134 in 2010, up from 348,753 in 1970. It stretches from Lake Okeechobee to the Atlantic Ocean.
Most of the population is along the ocean.
One of Florida’s wealthiest counties, it has communities named Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, North Palm Beach, South Palm Beach, Royal Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, and Palm Springs.
The Breakers hotel (1925), Palm Beach
The county seat, and largest city, is West Palm Beach (pop. 99,919). It’s the oldest municipality in the South Florida metropolitan area – incorporated in 1894, two years before Miami.
The old courthouse (1916) is now a history museum.
West Palm Beach is on the 71-mile Tri-Rail commuter rail system, which runs south to Miami. It opened in 1989.
Tri-Rail and Amtrak station (1925)
On Peanut Island in West Palm Beach, tours are now available of President John F. Kennedy’s once-secret bomb shelter – located near the Kennedy family’s “Winter White House” in Palm Beach.
It could have sheltered 30 people for a month.
The town of Palm Beach (pop. 8,426) is on a barrier island, across the Intracoastal Waterway from West Palm Beach.
Palm Beach at right, West Palm Beach at left
The Flagler Museum is a 55-room mansion in Palm Beach, built by Henry Flagler in 1901 and now open to the public.
Flagler was the “Father of Palm Beach.”
The city of Boca Raton (pop. 85,196) – which does not allow billboards along its roads – is the home of Florida Atlantic University, a public university founded in 1961.
About 30,000 students
The Palm Beach Gardens branch of Nova Southeastern University has an 18-foot Mako shark statue bursting out of the plaza.
The school’s teams are known as the Sharks.
The town of Jupiter (pop. 55,434) is the spring training home of the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals. Both teams play at Roger Dean Stadium (1998).
Four minor league teams also play there.
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