South Florida is at its core a place of transience. Native Americans migrated from the Great Plains. Seminoles run off of their land, claimed the sawgrass as their home. Runaway slaves joined them. Migrants from the islands came to work the dark rich soil of the swamp. All came to make a living, make a home here from someplace else. In so many ways, this is the Casablanca of the Caribbean.
The history that surrounds transient Floridians every day is lost even as it stares them in the face. They drive by it on their way to work hoping that they will make enough money to go back “North” someday. Many times that history has been paved over to make way for the newest wave of migrants. Sometimes it lies buried under an open field, sometimes under a museum and occasionally under a playground.
Growing up I had heard of these places that contained the victims of a disastrous hurricane but no one ever seemed to know any of the details. So I packed up the car and went looking for them…I didn't have to go far.
Growing up I had heard of these places that contained the victims of a disastrous hurricane but no one ever seemed to know any of the details. So I packed up the car and went looking for them…I didn't have to go far.
In September of 1928, the reports started to come in from the Leeward islands that a storm was coming. It devastated the island of Guadalupe on September 12th and plowed through Puerto Rico on the 13th killing approximately 1000 people. It passed over the Bahamas on the 14 – 15th. On September 16th at 6:15pm, the center of this storm slammed into the Florida peninsula just south of the Jupiter inlet as a Cat. 4 storm with winds estimated at 140 -150 mph. The winds rammed into the lighthouse at the inlet with such force that the tower was moved 17 inches off its base and the mortar between the bricks squeezed out like toothpaste.
At the time, the city of West Palm Beach was filled with residents that worked in the wealthy homes that lined Palm Beach island. Further inland, along the shores of lake Okeechobee, farming communities dotted it's shore line. The memory of the 1926 Miami hurricane was fresh in their minds. They evacuated. However, when the storm didn't arrive inland on schedule, they went home. At 1am a 13.5 ft storm surge breached the levee on the south side of Lake Okeechobee. As the storm passed over the lake, the winds swung around and caused a breech on the north side of the lake as well. Some hid under their kitchen tables to escape damage caused to their homes by the winds, some climbed to the attic to escape the water. A small boy and his father escaped through a hole in their attic and spent the rest of the night in a tree. They never saw the rest of their family again.
When the sun came up on September 17th 1928, the towns of Belle Glade, Pahokee and South Bay were under water. Entire families were washed out into the Glades overnight. Some people were found wandering in the swamp days later, confused and disoriented. Other were simply swallowed up by the muck never to be seen again. It took the water days to seep back into the swamp. It took weeks to collect the dead.
When the sun came up on September 17th 1928, the towns of Belle Glade, Pahokee and South Bay were under water. Entire families were washed out into the Glades overnight. Some people were found wandering in the swamp days later, confused and disoriented. Other were simply swallowed up by the muck never to be seen again. It took the water days to seep back into the swamp. It took weeks to collect the dead.
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| State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/27848 |
Coffins stacked along the bank of a canal, after the hurricane of 1928 - Belle Glade, Florida
South Florida, from Lake Okeechobee to the Keys, was home to about 50,000 people at the time. Between 2500-3000 of them died that night. No one knows the exact number for sure. In many cases, there was no one left to identify the remains. There weren't enough caskets for them and they had to be buried quickly. Palm Beach was a segregated society both by color and class. Approximately 674 African American victims were dumped in an open field and the site was known afterwards on maps as Paupers Cemetery. It’s located at Tamarind Ave and 25th Street in West Palm Beach. This was the empty field I had heard of that no one wanted to build on. I found it. I found them. But I suspect the lack of interest in developing this plot had little to do with respect for the dead and everything to do with its location in the middle of an extremely impoverished area of town. There was a memorial service held for them at the time of their burial but the site was all but forgotten for decades until 1991 when a Nigerian religious ceremony was held there. The city, responding to public interest, finally acquired this land in 2000 and it was only in 2003 that this field received an appropriate memorial.
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| Marker added to Tamarind Site in 2003 |
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| Serenity Garden added to Tamarind site in 2003 |
The white victims, about 68 of them from “downtown”, were laid to rest in the Woodlawn Cemetery, which is still a functioning cemetery near the city center.
Burial of victims of the 1928 hurricane - West Palm Beach, Florida
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| State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/30741 |
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| Current marker at Woodlawn Cemetery |
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A majority of the victims, approximately 1600, drowned when the muck levee broke on Lake Okeechobee. Many of them were black migrants with no one left to identify them. An empty plot of land was selected and in the ground they went. Perhaps because it was a close knit farming community, this location was treated with care. The property became the Port Mayaca Cemetery. It was maintained by a trust fund set up by Belle Glade, Pahokee, and South Bay. Today it is solely maintained by the City of Pahokee and remains a functioning cemetery.
The city of Belle Glade finally memorialized them in 1976.
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| State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/108968 |
While looking for my forgotten field, I discovered that Palm Beach has a continuing tendency for being careless with their dead...
Across from the Woodlawn Cemetery is the Norton Art Museum Ralph Hubbard Norton, former head of Acme Steel Co., retired to the area with his wife in 1939. He wanted to donate his sizable art collect to his new adopted home in order "to preserve for the future the beautiful things of the past". The city selected the perfect plot of land near the water for The Norton Gallery and School of Art. The catch...this property was already occupied, but approximately 100 people who had been buried there in what was the Lakeside Cemetery. An attempt was made to contact families in order to get their permission to move the bodies across the street to the south end of Woodlawn. However, they weren't able to find all of their next of kin. Some simply refused to agree to have their relatives relocated. So the city built the museum on top of them and in 1941 they opened its doors. Pioneer Memorial Park (I'm guessing "park" must be a relative term in West Palm Beach) is the equivalent of a strip of landscaped lawn in front of the museum with a historical marker. It gives the appearance that the museum was built around the cemetery. But in 1985, three graves were found in a crawl space beneath the museum's auditorium. Danse Macabre anyone?
How many people pass this place everyday? How many transplants to South Florida attend gala openings and step over the Pioneers in this strip of land? History in this area is almost always hidden in plain site.
A few blocks south of Woodlawn and the Museum is Flamingo park. It is a shady bit of cool green space on the south side of the city. A nice place to walk your tea cup poodle and watch your nanny play with your kids play on the swing set. But if you happen to notice in the corner of the park, there is yet another historical marker....
This site was designated as the "Colored Cemetery" and development on it was attempted several times. But unlike the museum, this site was preserved (sort of) for the nearly 100 people who are buried here.
I went in search of an open field - to find the history of an un-named storm and the lives it devastated. The people in this area are transient and as a result take the history of the place for granted. But what I found was worse than that...this history is shoved aside, pushed out of the way and bulldozed to make room for the future, for the new and shiny.
I will not walk around this town (or any place) oblivious to the history around me. I will at least read every historical marker I come across. It's there. It's always there if you look for it.
I've passed the museum and Flamingo park many times. I never stopped to notice what was under the grass, never suspected what was under the playground. I will never look at an open field in quite the same way again.
Across from the Woodlawn Cemetery is the Norton Art Museum Ralph Hubbard Norton, former head of Acme Steel Co., retired to the area with his wife in 1939. He wanted to donate his sizable art collect to his new adopted home in order "to preserve for the future the beautiful things of the past". The city selected the perfect plot of land near the water for The Norton Gallery and School of Art. The catch...this property was already occupied, but approximately 100 people who had been buried there in what was the Lakeside Cemetery. An attempt was made to contact families in order to get their permission to move the bodies across the street to the south end of Woodlawn. However, they weren't able to find all of their next of kin. Some simply refused to agree to have their relatives relocated. So the city built the museum on top of them and in 1941 they opened its doors. Pioneer Memorial Park (I'm guessing "park" must be a relative term in West Palm Beach) is the equivalent of a strip of landscaped lawn in front of the museum with a historical marker. It gives the appearance that the museum was built around the cemetery. But in 1985, three graves were found in a crawl space beneath the museum's auditorium. Danse Macabre anyone?
How many people pass this place everyday? How many transplants to South Florida attend gala openings and step over the Pioneers in this strip of land? History in this area is almost always hidden in plain site.
A few blocks south of Woodlawn and the Museum is Flamingo park. It is a shady bit of cool green space on the south side of the city. A nice place to walk your tea cup poodle and watch your nanny play with your kids play on the swing set. But if you happen to notice in the corner of the park, there is yet another historical marker....
This site was designated as the "Colored Cemetery" and development on it was attempted several times. But unlike the museum, this site was preserved (sort of) for the nearly 100 people who are buried here.
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| "Flamingo Park" |
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| Flamingo Park Playground |
I went in search of an open field - to find the history of an un-named storm and the lives it devastated. The people in this area are transient and as a result take the history of the place for granted. But what I found was worse than that...this history is shoved aside, pushed out of the way and bulldozed to make room for the future, for the new and shiny.
I will not walk around this town (or any place) oblivious to the history around me. I will at least read every historical marker I come across. It's there. It's always there if you look for it.
I've passed the museum and Flamingo park many times. I never stopped to notice what was under the grass, never suspected what was under the playground. I will never look at an open field in quite the same way again.
I am so glad that I did not have time to read this this morning before I went to the Norton. It might have prompted me to try and find the crawl spaces.
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