Boca Neighborhoods

Boca Raton con­tains many dif­fer­ent neigh­bor­hoods with many dif­fer­ent fea­tures.  Whether they are gated or open, a golf com­mu­nity or not, or on the water, most peo­ple are able to find a neigh­bor­hood that suits their needs.

His­tory of Boca Raton

Gen­eral Infor­ma­tion — City of Boca Raton

The esti­mated pop­u­la­tion, in 2010, was 86,396.

The Mean­ing of Boca Raton

(for­merly Boca De Ratones)

The mean­ing of the name Boca Raton has always aroused curios­ity. Many peo­ple wrongly assume the name is sim­ply Rat’s Mouth Boca (or mouth) often describes an inlet, while raton can mean a ‘cow­ardly thief’ in old Span­ish terms. Thus, a pos­si­ble trans­la­tion ‘thieves’ inlet’ could be explained by leg­ends that describe Lake Boca Raton as a haven for pirates.

But sto­ries of pirates in this area are merely roman­tic leg­ends; the inlet was not deep enough to allow the pas­sage of ships until it was dredged in the 1930’s.

The prob­a­ble ori­gin of our City’s name is ‘Boca Ratones’ an ancient Span­ish, geo­graph­i­cal term for an inlet filled with jagged rocks or coral. Such an inlet existed in Miami’s Bis­cayne Bay area. In 1823 a map maker was copy­ing a Miami area map and con­fused the (more north­ern) inlet with the one in Bis­cayne Bay, thus mis­tak­enly label­ing this area a ‘Boca Ratones’. The name Boca Raton is pro­nounced Rah-tone.

Time Line of Boca Raton

In just 100 years, the pio­neer­ing efforts of our early set­tlers, and the dreams of archi­tects and devel­op­ers led to Boca Raton’s meta­mor­pho­sis from a farm­ing vil­lage to the allur­ing, inter­na­tional com­mu­nity of today. The Boca Raton His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety has worked dili­gently for the past twenty-six years to col­lect and pre­serve the rich sto­ries that have shaped our community.

1895

Henry Flagler’s F.E.C. rail­road arrives in Boca Raton and later Miami, open­ing South Florida to development.

Thomas Rickards, sur­veyor and engi­neer, builds the first house on the north shore of Lake Boca Raton. He clears and plats the area for Flagler’s Model Land Company.

1904

Japan­ese colonists arrive in Boca Raton to farm pineap­ples on land pur­chased from Fla­gler. The Yam­ato Colony is formed. The colony num­bers 40 by 1908. Later that year a blight destroys the pineap­ple crop. By the 1920s most of the colony has left Florida seek­ing other prospects.

1905

Boca Raton’s first wood-plank bridge is built across the Hills­bor­ough River (today’s El Rio Canal) to reach land west of town.

1908

George Long’s pack­ing house serves as Boca’s first class­room until a one-room school­house is con­structed by the end of the year.

1913

Harley and Har­riet Gates arrive in Boca Raton and pur­chase five acres along the canal (today’s Intra­coastal), nam­ing it Pal­metto Park Plan­ta­tion. The home­stead gives its name to the prin­ci­pal east-west road.

1915

Pearl City, Boca Raton’s his­toric African-American com­mu­nity, is plat­ted. Alex Hughes, pio­neer and com­mu­nity activist, becomes its first resident.

A tele­phone line, the Board of Trade, and the Power and Light Com­pany bring Boca Raton out of the pio­neer era.

1917

A man­u­ally oper­ated jaw­bridge on Pal­metto Park Road makes the beach eas­ily reached.

1920

Boca Raton’s masonry ele­men­tary school opens. Farm­ing is the area’s main industry.

1923

Alex Hughes helps open a school for the chil­dren of Pearl City.

J. C. and Floy Mitchell move to Boca Raton and become suc­cess­ful in real estate dur­ing the land boom. J. C. is Mayor from 1939–1949. Later they lead a drive to build a com­mu­nity church on land donated by Floy’s father.

The first bridge at the Boca Raton Inlet is a fixed wooden span.

1925

The town of Boca Raton is incorporated.

Palm Beach archi­tect, Addi­son Mizner, arrives in Boca Raton. He hopes to cre­ate an entire city with his Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion. He plans to develop a 1600-acre tract of Mediter­ranean style struc­tures for com­mer­cial and res­i­den­tial use.

1926

The Boca Raton Cham­ber of Com­merce is orga­nized. J. C. Mitchell is elected pres­i­dent and H. D. Gates is Vice President.

Mizner’s Clois­ter Inn opens as a Ritz-Carlton Invest­ment Cor­po­ra­tion project. Though his Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion failed within two years, the open­ing of his hotel sparked a pro­mo­tional build up that ulti­mately turned Boca Raton from a sleepy vil­lage into a resort community.

1927

Town Hall, orig­i­nally designed by Mizner, is not com­pleted as the archi­tect goes bank­rupt. Instead, it is scaled down and fin­ished by Del­ray Beach archi­tect, William Alsmeyer. It houses the vol­un­teer Fire Depart­ment and its first engine, “Old Betsy.”

Clarence Geist buys the Clois­ter Inn for $71,000 at a cour­t­house door sale assum­ing $7 mil­lion of the Mizner Devel­op­ment Corporation’s debt.

1930

The first rail­road pas­sen­ger sta­tion in Boca Raton is con­structed at Geist’s request at Camino Real and Dixie High­way. Enlarg­ing the Clois­ter Inn, Geist cre­ates the pri­vate Boca Raton Club. He builds the Cabana Club, south of the inlet, offer­ing 200 pri­vate beach cabanas, infor­mal din­ing rooms, and card lounges. The Boca Raton Inlet is dredged for clear passage.

1936

Boca Raton’s first air­port is a New Deal WPA project obtained through the efforts of Clarence Geist.

1942

The U.S. enters WWII. Boca Raton’s air­port and coastal locale make it ideal for an Army Base. The Army takes over the Boca Raton Club for offices, class­rooms, and bar­racks. The U.S. Gov­ern­ment acquires 5,860 acres from more than 100 prop­erty own­ers to con­struct an air base. The Boca Raton Army Air­field is the air corp’s only radar train­ing school in the U.S. dur­ing the war.

1944

J. Myer Schine buys the Boca Raton Club and the Span­ish River Land Com­pany from Geist’s estate. The Club reopens as the Boca Raton Hotel and Club in 1945.

1949

The City buys 2,404 acres of the for­mer air­field. In a con­tract with the Fed­eral Gov­ern­ment the City agrees to oper­ate a civil­ian air­port west of the El Rio Canal.

1950

The Art Guild of Boca Raton is estab­lished. The group dis­plays art exhibits at the old Town Hall and the Boca Raton Hotel and Club.

1953

Africa U.S.A., a 177-acre park with free-roaming, African ani­mals opens. It closes by 1961 due to an infes­ta­tion of African red tick. Today it is the Camino Gar­dens neighborhood.

1956

Arthur Vin­ing Davis, founder of the Alu­minum Com­pany of Amer­ica, pur­chases the Boca Raton Hotel and Club. He cre­ates Arvida Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion and sets aes­thetic prece­dence for future com­mer­cial and res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment in Boca Raton.

1958

J. C. Mitchell Ele­men­tary School opens as the fourth school in Boca Raton.

1960

The State Cab­i­net approves the con­struc­tion of the fifth state uni­ver­sity, Florida Atlantic Uni­ver­sity, in Boca Raton.

1961

Saint Andrew’s School, founded by the Epis­co­pal School Foun­da­tion, opens.

1962

Royal Palm Plaza opens as the town’s first shop­ping cen­ter. It is affec­tion­ately known as “The Pink Plaza.”

1963

The F.E.C. Rail­way stops pas­sen­ger ser­vice at the train depot. Boca Raton High School opens. Up to now, stu­dents have trav­eled to Seacrest High School in Del­ray Beach. Mary­mount Col­lege opens as a two-year women’s college.

1964

Florida Atlantic Uni­ver­sity opens and is ded­i­cated by Pres­i­dent Lyn­don B. John­son. The efforts to estab­lish this school by local res­i­dent, Thomas F. Flem­ing, are rec­og­nized with the University’s first Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice Award.

1966

The Inter­na­tional Busi­ness Machine Cor­po­ra­tion (IBM) buys 550 acres of land from Arvida. In 1967, con­struc­tion begins on a novel Mar­cel Brever-Robert Gatje designed facil­ity sur­round­ing a large cir­cu­lar man-made lake. Boca Raton is the birth­place of the IBM PC and home of OS/2 Warp.

1967

Boca Raton Com­mu­nity Hos­pi­tal is ded­i­cated. It was built entirely by com­mu­nity money, raised through spe­cial events such as the annual Fiesta de Boca Raton.

1969

Arvida builds the twenty-six story tower at the Boca Raton Hotel.

1971

Mary­mount Col­lege is renamed the Col­lege of Boca Raton.

1972

The Boca Raton His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety (BRHS) is founded as a project of the Junior Ser­vice League.

Con­cerned vot­ers pass a ref­er­en­dum impos­ing a 40,000 dwelling-unit “growth cap” to curb the City’s expan­sion. The cap is struck down in Palm Beach County Cir­cuit Court in 1976 when a judge rules it an arbi­trary fig­ure. How­ever, the judge allows the cap to remain until all legal appeals are exhausted.

1979

The City adopts a land-use plan plac­ing den­sity ceil­ings on all prop­er­ties. The plan achieves the goals of the growth cap while the issue is pend­ing in higher courts. In 1980, after spend­ing over $1,000,000 in appeals to the Florida and U.S. Supreme Courts, the City admits defeat on the growth cap issue.

1980

The City Coun­cil cre­ates the Com­mu­nity Rede­vel­op­ment Agency to return eco­nomic vital­ity to the down­town. Its first project is the beau­ti­fi­ca­tion of San­born Square.

1982

City offi­cials lease Town Hall to the BRHS and autho­rize its restora­tion. Through state grants and pri­vate fund­ing the build­ing is restored by 1984. It is listed on the National Reg­is­ter of His­toric Places.

1985

BRHS pur­chases the F.E.C. Rail­way Sta­tion and begins its restora­tion, com­pleted in 1988. The sta­tion is named the Count de Hoernle Pavil­ion in recog­ni­tion of a gen­er­ous dona­tion from the Count and Count­ess de Hoernle. It is listed on the National Reg­is­ter of His­toric Places.

The BRHS receives the Florida Trust for His­toric Preser­va­tion Out­stand­ing Achieve­ment Award in the Field of Preser­va­tion for the restora­tion of Town Hall.

1986

The Art Guild changes its name to the Boca Raton Museum of Art.

1989

The BRHS receives the Florida Trust for His­toric Preser­va­tion Out­stand­ing Achieve­ment Award in the Field of Preser­va­tion for the restora­tion of the F.E.C. Rail­way Station.

1990

Old Flo­resta, site of twenty-nine Mizner designed homes, becomes the city’s first his­toric district.

1991

Mizner Park opens. Its con­cept is alter­na­tive land use for coastal, urban areas. It includes a con­cert pavil­ion, park, apart­ments, busi­ness offices, shop, and restaurants.

After acquir­ing Uni­ver­sity sta­tus, the Col­lege of Boca Raton becomes Lynn Uni­ver­sity, in honor of its major benefactor.

After 126 years in New York, W.R. Grace & Co. moves to Boca Raton. The firm relo­cates 250 employ­ees and their fam­i­lies to the City.

1992

The Inter­na­tional Museum of Car­toon Art moves to Mizner Park.

1995

The state of Florida cel­e­brates its Sesquicentennial.

1996

The BRHS begins the Great Train Restora­tion. Four his­toric rail cars, located at the Train Depot, undergo major exte­rior restorations.

1997

Palm Beach County Com­mis­sion­ers vote to des­ig­nate Camino Real, the Camino Real Bridge, and the Porte Cochere at South Inlet Park as his­toric sites.

The Boca Raton His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety cel­e­brates its 25th anniver­sary at the grand open­ing cel­e­bra­tion of the Boca Raton Resort & Club’s Mizner Center.

1998

Boca Com­mu­nity Hos­pi­tal expands again, becom­ing one of the best in south­east Florida.

1999

The Count and Count­ess de Hoernle Memo­r­ial Room opens at BRHS.

2000

Florida Atlantic Uni­ver­sity announces plans to field a foot­ball team, called ‘The Owls,’ in 2001.

The city con­tracts to pur­chase 310 acres from the for­mer IBM site (a.k.a. T-Rex or Blue Lake), one of the most sig­nif­i­cant land aqui­si­tions in terms of size and impact in city history.

2001

The Boca Raton Museum of Art opens its new 44,000 square foot facil­ity in Mizner Park. The Boca Raton Resort & Club cel­e­brates its 75th anniver­sary. FAU plays its first foot­ball sea­son at Pro Play Stadium.

The Amer­i­can Media Inc. build­ing in Boca Raton is one of four sites in the United States infected with the anthrax virus by means of the U.S. mail in the days fol­low­ing the Sep­tem­ber 11th ter­ror­ist attacks.

2002

The Inter­na­tional Museum of Car­toon Art closes its doors at Mizner Park.

Pearl City, Boca Raton’s his­toric black neigh­bor­hood first plat­ted in 1915, is des­ig­nated as the city’s sec­ond offi­cial His­toric District.

Despite community-wide preser­va­tion efforts, the ca. 1939 Boca Raton Ele­men­tary School gym­na­sium, long time com­mu­nity cen­ter and site of many his­toric local events, is demol­ished by the county school board.

2003

Scan­dal rocks FAU’s fund rais­ing arm, the FAU Foun­da­tion, over the gift of a Corvette to depart­ing pres­i­dent Anthony Cantanese.

BRHS, in asso­ci­a­tion with Boca Raton mag­a­zine, DCOTA, and DuPont-O’Neil and Asso­ciates cel­e­brates the com­ple­tion of the restora­tion of two 1947 stream­liner rail cars at the F.E.C. Rail­way Sta­tion, Count de Hoernle Pavilion.

2004

Boca sur­vives two Sep­tem­ber hur­ri­canes, Frances and Jeanne, the worst storms to hit the areas since the 1960s. Exten­sive prop­erty and land­scap­ing dam­age and extended power out­ages cause many busi­nesses and res­i­dents seri­ous finan­cial losses.