The Rise and Fall of the Boynton Beach Mall and the Congress Avenue Corridor. What happens next?

“MAYBERRY BY THE SEA”

Boynton Ocean Avenue Business Area, 1950s

GROWING PAINS

Once a sleepy little village by the sea, Boynton Beach’s population doubled between 1970 and 1980 (18,000 to 36,000).

The area experienced tremendous growth due to technological changes in transportation & communication and this shifted the economy from family-operated businesses to commercial enterprises. These gradual changes stripped away the rustic serenity and charm that was small-town Boynton Beach. 

INTERSTATE 95

In December 1975 the final portion of Interstate 95 was completed through Boynton Beach.

While the highway advanced transportation in South Florida, this event led to the death of downtown Boynton Beach and its thriving business district. The expressway cut off access to Ocean Avenue, which was Boynton’s main drag through the commercial business district as well as the road to Alternate A1A and Boynton’s Oceanfront Park.

The expressway not only divided Boynton, but tourists also bypassed U.S. 1 and family-run restaurants, motor courts, surf, shell, and specialty shops, insurance and real estate agencies, and roadside attractions. Nearly 50 years later, some of this land has become housing (hi-density condos & apartments), but many worn-out old buildings and lots remain lifeless and vacant.

Aerial view of Congress Avenue looking south from Hypoluxo Road. Melear Dairy is on the right, 1962



MOTOROLA

Cows grazed on all four corners of Old Boynton Road and Congress until 1983 or so, a change factored by Motorola opening its 70,000 square foot Paging Division plant on a former cow pasture on the SE corner of Congress and 22nd Avenue. The new pager industry hired nearly 4,000 factory workers, engineers, and executives, many of whom moved with their families to the then still-rural Boynton.

Motorola Plant, Congress Avenue and Gateway Blvd., 1983

A building boom frenzy brought dozens of new housing developments including Sky Lake, Boynton Lakes, Country Fair, Rainbow Lakes, Sun Valley, The Meadows, and Banyan Creek along Congress Avenue, Military Trail, Boynton Beach Blvd and Old Boynton Road.

SkyLake 3 & 4 bedroom homes 79-88K, 1984, The Palm Beach Post

Until then, Congress was a two-lane road and the Melear Dairy had cow passes (small wooden bridges) so that the cows could graze and avoid traffic. Boynton had the most dairy farms in Palm Beach County.

North Congress Avenue 4-laned for Motorola and the Boynton Mall, 1982 Palm Beach Post

BOYNTON BEACH MALL

In the mid-1970s, Edward J. Bartolo, owner of at least 40 shopping malls (including the Palm Beach Mall) and the San Francisco 49ers football team envisioned a $20-million, 1 million-square-foot regional shopping Mall on 100 acres at Congress and Old Boynton Road. In exchange for city utility services (including fire, police, and sanitary service), the City of Boynton invited the corporation annexation.

In 1975, Vice-Mayor Joe DeLong announced that the city could gain $575,000 in property taxes if the shopping center was annexed.

Boynton Mall takes shape, 1985, The Miami Herald

Originally set to open in August 1977, the mall didn’t open until 1985, and then it opened in stages, store by store.

Boynton Mall walkers, 1986


The popular indoor mall with its food court, national department store anchors, stores, services, and specialty shops further eroded what was downtown Boynton Beach. Strip malls, out parcels, medical buildings, and a sea of chain restaurants lined Congress Avenue, Boynton Beach Blvd., and even the old Military Trail, which was considered “The Boonies.”

WESTWARD EXPANSION

Westward expansion’s tidal wave surged for the next 40 years until it hit the Florida Everglades. So many communities were planted over former family farms that developers came up with pretentious, and often ridiculous names for their planned mega-communities. Someone suggested that they must spin a wheel to find ill-fitting names like “Journey’s End,” and “The Canyons.”

DOWNTOWN REDEVELOPMENT


Meanwhile, the Boynton Beach CRA (Community Redevelopment Agency) has worked to improve downtown Boynton and incentivize businesses to open in their districts. The City of Boynton Beach has opened new state-of-the-art Fire and Police headquarters and City Hall/Library. The Boynton Beach Historical Society saved the 1913 schoolhouse that now serves as a Children’s Museum and Learning Center. The Historical Society and the Historic Resources Preservation Board saved the 1926 high school and the city restored it into a vibrant Cultural Arts Center.

Children’s Museum & Learning Center housed in the restored 1913 school


DEATH OF THE MALL

In juxtaposition, the Boynton Mall attendance declined over the years. The run-down mall has been sold, and another layer of Boynton history will be paved over. What would have benefited the community and the taxpayers the most?

A swimming pool, a history museum, a nature center, a small concert center, a canopied bike and walking trail? No doubt some type of housing is in its future.

After all, people still want to live in beautiful Boynton Beach, and pushing farther westward is not an option.

Some of the original Boynton Beach Mall entities (from occupational licensing information)

Feel free to add your memories and comments

Jo Ann Fabrics No. 913, Room 511, Fabri-Centers of America, Inc.
Video Concepts, Tandy Corp.
Things Remembered, Space 741, Cole National Corp.
Ritz Camera, Ritz Camera Centers, Inc. Lane Bryant, Inc., Room 161, Lane Bryant, Inc.
Gordon’s Jewelers No. 10545, Gordon’s-Guayama, Inc.
Chick-Fil-A, Cathy S. Truett
Pearle Vision Center, Room 309, Ronald Rzaca Optician
Walgreens, Walgreens, Co.
Manchu Wok, M.W. Boynton, Inc.
Girard Jewelers, Room 879, Lou Ellen Girard
Foxmoor Specialty Stores Corp., Foxmoor
Victoria’s Secret, Victoria’s Secret Stores, Inc.
Today’s Woman, No. 36, Today’s Woman of Florida, Inc.
The Limited Stores, Inc., The Limited Stores, Inc.
Limited Express, The Limited Stores
Camelot Music, No. 187, Room 943, Camelot Music, Inc.
Waldenbooks, Walden Book Co. Inc.
Lord and Taylor Division of Associated Dry Goods, Lord and Taylor
Taco Viva, Space 677, Taco Viva, Inc.
Sunshine Treasures, Inc., Room 111, Susan and Don Bennett
Contempo Casuals, Bernard Zertner
August Max No. 522, The United States Shoe Corp.
Caren Charles No. 1823, The United States Shoe Corp.
Petit Sophisticate No. 1633, The United States Shoe Corp.
Ups ‘n’ Downs No. 1294, The United States Shoe Corp.
Casual Corner, The United States Shoe Corp.
Morrow’s Nut House
Sbarro’s Italian Eatery
Pinch or Pound
General Nutrition Center
Dentaland, Jeffrey P. Feingold
Harry’s Kidsworld
Burdine’s Travel
JCPenney
Boardman’s, H.C. Boardman

The Orange Blossom Express

Excitement filled the air in the newly chartered Town of Boynton by the sea. The long awaited Orange Blossom Express had completed its extension to Miami, and was scheduled to stop in Boynton. This monumental event embodied even more prosperity for south Florida. The last few years saw dizzying growth. Folks who used to live in, visit, or pass through Boynton didn’t recognize the place any longer.

Boynton townsfolk awaiting the Orange Blossom Express

 

 

 

The great land boom had greatly altered the landscape of the frontier settlement. New schools, churches, hotels, office buildings, and elaborate residences were under construction.

 

It seemed that with each passing day another developer set up big tents, and their agents took down payments for lots or houses not yet built. A six-story Spanish style hotel under construction on Ocean Avenue was the talk of the town.

 

 

 

 

On Saturday, January 8, 1927 in picture-perfect 72 degree weather, over 500 residents waving flags gathered at the Seaboard Air Line railroad station. Everyone was excited to meet the inaugural train car carrying Seaboard president Solomon Davies Warfield and Florida governor John Wellborn Martin.

Seaboard Air Line President Solomon Davies Warfield

Florida Governor John W. Martin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Boynton band welcomed the sleek green, yellow and orange train filled with over 600 “titans of industry” who were interested in investing in Florida land.

Orange Blossom Express

The prominent men who had traveled from New York to south Florida peered out the windows at the assembly.

Train with Mr. Warfield and Governor Martin

Boynton mayor Roy O. Myers had issued a special proclamation ordering all business houses to close from 8 am to 10 am and urged everyone to the Seaboard Air Line station to greet the train and dignitaries. Nearly the whole town turned out for the monumental event.

Decorated Seaboard Air Line station

 

 

 

Chamber of Commerce president Albert Edward Parker and the Boynton Boosters had decorated the Seaboard station in red, white, and blue, and small coconut palms greeted the spectators.  Men wearing suits with suspenders waved their hats, and farmers in overalls and work pants looked around curiously, Women carrying babies waved handkerchiefs, and schoolchildren stood on tiptoe or their father’s shoulders to view the extravaganza.

 

 

Boynton townsfolk greet the Orange Blossom Express

Two young women presented a flower bouquet to Mr. Warfield. He was also given a small wooden chest containing the key to the Town of Boynton. In a few minutes the gala was over, and the train raced south where similar events played out in Delray, Deerfield and Pompano.

Welcome at Boynton (09 Jan 1927, The Palm Beach Post).

Lake Worth Herald

Historical Society Officers Conduct Award Winning Historic Moonlight Cemetery Tours

Woodlawn Cemetery Tours

For more information and to register please call the City of West Palm Beach at 561-804-4900

Woodlawn Cemetery - Palm Beach's oldest gated community

2023 Tours

Friday, February 3, 6:30 p.m.

Friday, March 3, 6:30 p.m

Thursday, April 6, 6:30 p.m

Sponsored by the City of West Palm Beach – Historic Preservation Program & Parks and Recreation Division

Moonlight Cemetery Tours of Woodlawn Cemetery conducted by Boynton Beach Historical Society officers Janet DeVries and Ginger Pedersen, Palm Beach County historians and authors of “Pioneering Palm Beach: The Deweys and the South Florida Frontier,” and “The Collected Works of Byrd Spilman Dewey.”

Look for more cemetery tours for Delray, Boynton Boca Raton & Lantana cemeteries coming soon!

Woodlawn Cemetery at dusk.

Woodlawn Cemetery at dusk.

These award-winning history tours are limited to 50 guests, and a $5.00 donation is appreciated and will be used to help restore this historic cemetery. The tour will cover some of the most prominent pioneer families who arrived in the area more than 100 years ago.

chillingworthAlong with a couple dozen other interesting pioneers, Charlie Pierce, Florida’s famous barefoot mailman and Boynton’s first postmaster is featured along with Anna and Albert Parker, Maj. Nathan S. Boynton’s daughter and son-in-law. Mr. Parker managed the Boynton Hotel.

 

Several of South Florida's barefoot mailmen. Charles "Charlie" Pierce on the right.

Several of South Florida’s barefoot mailmen. Charles “Charlie” Pierce on the right.

 

PLEASE BRING: A flashlight, bug repellent, water (there are no facilities on-site).

PLEASE WEAR: Closed-toed shoes such as sneakers.

LOCATION: 1500 South Dixie Highway, across from the Norton Gallery. Parking is available on-site inside cemetery gates.

ALL TOURS BEGIN AT 6:30 PM or 7:30 PM dependent upon daylight savings time. PLEASE ARRIVE AT LEAST 15 MINUTES EARLY FOR CHECK-IN.

Rain Policy: If heavy rain occurs on the night scheduled, the tour will be held the following evening. If it rains on the next night also, the tours is suspended for that month.

Boynton’s Post Office History

Transportation advances opened South Florida to settlers in the 1890s. Before then, only the few pioneer families who took advantage of the 1862 Florida Homestead Act, indigenous tribe members, and African Americans were living in today’s Palm Beach County.

 

Those demographics changed with the advent of Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway. Whistlestops and railroad stations popped up along the route. Before the tracks extended through to Boynton in 1896, mail was brought down the Florida East Coast Canal from the Hypoluxo post office located in Hannibal Pierce’s store at the end of the Porter’s Dock by early settlers F.S. Dewey, U.D. Hendrickson, M.B. Lyman, C.W. Pierce, and F.C. Voss.

 

Boynton’s first official United States post office opened in April 1896 in Lyman’s store on Ocean Avenue with William H. Cox as the first postmaster. Cox filed the Boynton Post Office paperwork on January 31, 1896. In his application he stated that the nearest post offices were Hypoluxo and Lantana (three and four miles north) and Linton (five miles due south). He noted the

1896 Boynton Post Office application by William H. Cox postmaster

Florida East Coast Canal ¼ mile east, and that the Boynton post office would be located 100 yards east of the new FEC railway station. The train stop was called Boynton after civil war major Nathan Boynton who had plans to build a resort hotel. At this time, mail chiefly consisted of letters, penny postcards, newspapers, magazines, catalogs, seeds, packages, home furnishings and even livestock delivered to the station. Post offices sold money orders, stamps, postcards, and envelopes. Since the Boynton settlers were cut off from most of the world and were hungry for news from their families and hometowns, mail delivery was important to rural life.

Several Boyntonites held the postmaster title over the next decade including H.B. Murray, J.P. Harper, and C.W. Pierce. Pierce, a former Star Mail Route (aka barefoot) carrier served in this capacity the longest. He was postmaster from 1901 to 1903 and notably from 1908 until his death in 1939 when his wife, assistant postmaster Ethel Sims Pierce assumed the position.

Boynton Post Office (left) built 1911, Ocean Avenue

In 1911, Charlie Pierce managed the first stand-alone post office on Ocean Avenue. The wooden structure, reportedly constructed with lumber from the 1909 Coquimbo shipwreck, served as a community focal point. Pierce curated the settlement’s first lending library with select titles sent down from the state library supplemented with titles from his own collection and books donated by Byrd Spilman Dewey as well as those left behind by Boynton Hotel guests.

The 1920s Florida land boom transformed the remote Boynton farming community into a bustling town. Developers purchased land and platted luxurious subdivisions like Boynton Hills and Lake Boynton Estates. A cut was made through the barrier islands connecting the inland canal with the Atlantic Ocean. The George Harvey company started work on the fashionable 12-story Hotel Cassandra on Ocean Avenue. By 1926 the tiny post office was overrun with customers purchasing money orders and sending and receiving items. Postmaster Pierce reported that receipts for the first quarter surpassed the second half of the previous year. The gigantic land bubble began to deflate in 1927 after two powerful hurricanes hit South Florida causing infrastructure damage and delaying shipments. Food and basic supply shipments took priority over construction materials.

Boynton Post Office, 1943.


In May 1928 a new post office opened next to the old wooden post office. Pierce’s official government report indicated that the new building was located 365 feet east of the Florida East Coast Railway. A deadly September 1928 hurricane slammed Palm Beach County damaging and destroying many Boynton buildings and claiming several thousand lives in western Palm Beach County. The grandiose building plans for Boynton halted. Skeletons of buildings and ghost developments haunted the once vibrant town. The Bank of Boynton closed its doors in 1929, and many people left town to avoid paying taxes and to pursue other opportunities.

The Town of Boynton incorporated as the City of Boynton Beach in 1941 with postmaster Ethel Pierce filing the post office name change. In 1946 receipts exceeded $10,000 making Boynton eligible for a new post office building.

The post office moved to the Puritin Building (also on Ocean) in 1949. Mail delivery began in 1956 after Mrs. Pierce convinced town officials to number all residences and businesses. Mail carriers rode bicycles or drove cars on their routes. Mrs. Pierce retired after this big change, with Richard Monahan succeeding her long tenure.

Boynton Post Office 1963

 

A modern, air-conditioned fire-proof post office at the corner of Seacrest and Boynton Beach Blvd. opened in 1963. The large new facility had automatic lights, improved mail processing capacity and 17 off-street parking spots for customers, with a separate parking lot for employees. It had vending machines for dispensing stamps and self-service post office box rentals. This post office has served as the downtown post office for six decades, and the familiar building still looks much the same as it did when it was new.

 

Postal employees moving packages, 1964

Girl mailing a letter at the Boynton Post Office 1963

 

Boynton Post Office Employee 1963

Boynton Post Office clerk 1963

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photographs courtesy of the Boynton Beach City Library Local History Archives

Boynton Beach’s Poinciana School History

POINCIANA STEM ELEMENTARY SCHOOL HISTORY

 THE MAJESTIC ROYAL POINCIANA TREE

May and June are the months when royal poinciana trees bloom the brightest. Their red, flame-colored flowers add brilliant color to the South Florida landscape. A commenter on the Historic Boynton Beach Facebook page declared that the late spring signature flowers are Florida’s version of leaves changing color in the fall.

Royal Poinciana Tree in bloom

WHAT’S IN A NAME? 

Boynton’s Poinciana STEM Elementary School is named after the massive umbrella-shaped royal poinciana tree. The name alone evokes Florida’s lush, tropical beauty. David Fairchild brought the first of these Madagascar natives to South Florida when his wife planted one in their Miami front yard in 1917.  The trees thrive from Key West north to West Palm Beach and it’s likely that Boynton Garden Club members beautified Boynton by planting royal poinciana seeds here in the 1930s or 1940s. According to the University of Florida, the trees bear flowers between four and 12 years after planting. 

LET’S BUILD A SCHOOLHOUSE

Typical 1900s Black School (courtesy NYPL)

Many people don’t realize that Boynton Beach’s Poinciana Elementary School had its humble beginnings as an informal school operated by African Methodist Episcopal church members. St. Paul’s AME Church, constituted in 1900, is Boynton’s oldest church.

The school received government funding after 1907 when the black community petitioned the school board to furnish a teacher, but the residents were to provide a building. The petition was accompanied by a letter of support from farmer and fruit shipper Cullen Pence, a community builder who donated land to the city for a ball field and helped with many town improvements.

1907 Board of Public Instruction of Dade County minutes

Pence & King’s Addition 1908

 

The one-room wooden schoolhouse was situated on Pence & King’s Addition (Federal Hwy. north of Boynton Beach Blvd.), a tract laid out by Pence and black pioneer resident  L. A. King  in 1908. This suggests that Mr. Pence furnished the land and wooden school building and the school board paid for a teacher.  Newspaper accounts and school board records show that by 1909, when Palm Beach County separated from Dade County, the school’s official name became Boynton Negro School.

 

Let’s look back at how the fledgling school, like the brilliant tree it’s named for, took root, and blossomed.

 

 

 

SEPARATE AND UNEQUAL

Under the “separate but equal” doctrine of the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, segregated schools were expected to provide a comparable education and experience for black and white students. On the contrary, black students received second-rate treatment; the buildings were substandard; teachers were paid substantially less than white teachers; supplies were meager, and schools often received desks, books and slates discarded from white schools. The school year too, was shortened for Florida’s black students so the children could work in the fields during winter harvest.

THE TOWN GROWS

Picking Beans (Broward County Library Digital Archives)

 

By 1910, the unincorporated town of Boynton had grown to over 600 residents. The Board of Public Instruction paid to erect an opulent new two-story concrete block school in the 100 block of Ocean Avenue for Boynton’s white students. The modern school had indoor plumbing, gleaming blackboards, and spacious classrooms with large windows and door transoms for ventilation and natural light. In juxtaposition to the overcrowded one-room Negro School, the new Boynton School for white students had a fancy bell-tower and six classrooms. When the school opened on September 8, 1913  it enrolled 81 pupils between grades one and twelve.

 

Boynton School (for white students) 1913

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND JULIUS ROSENWALD

In the 1910s, an unlikely pair helped improve education for black children in the rural south. Boynton, a farming community, was indeed rural.  In 1912, Tuskegee Institute founder Booker T. Washington invited Jewish-American philanthropist Julius Rosenwald (then president of Sears, Roebuck & Co.) to serve on the Tuskegee board of directors to help black education, where segregated southern schools suffered from inadequate facilities, books and other resources. Rosenwald’s 1917 school building fund encouraged local collaboration between blacks and whites by providing seed money and requiring communities to raise matching funds. Between 1917 and 1932, Rosenwald funded 5,357 community schools and industrial shops in 15 southern states.

Julius Rosenwald & Booker T. Washington in 1915 (Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library)

ORDINANCES 37 and 136

The Town of Boynton imposed segregation in 1924 with Ordinance 37. This forced black residents, businesses, churches, and the school to move west. Ordinance 136 passed in 1933  stipulated that black residents stay in the designated “colored town” from sundown to sunup.

JULIUS ROSENWALD SCHOOL BUILDING FUND

The Rosenwald funded Boynton School after the 1928 Hurricane (State Archives of Florida)

 

The Boynton Negro School located on the west side of Green Street (now Seacrest Blvd.) and today’s NE 12th Ave. was the first Rosenwald funded school in Palm Beach County. In 1925, at the height of Florida’s great 1920s land boom, the Rosenwald Fund contributed $900 in seed money toward a new four-room, three teacher Boynton Colored School. The fund also provided architectural plans and specifications for the schoolhouse.

 

THREE TEACHER COMMUNITY SCHOOL

Building Plans, Three Teacher Community School, 1924

Three Teacher Community School Interior Plans 1924

Building Plans, Three Teacher Community School, 1924

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Tuskegee architect approved community school design included a porch, three classrooms and an industrial room, running water, and indoor toilets. Black community members raised $100 and the white community donated $4,000 with the Palm Beach County Board of Public Instruction paying the last $12,000. Its four rooms served grades one through eight until 1952 when the building was no longer big enough to handle the number of students. Six further classrooms were built to the west.

Ten other Rosenwald-funded schools followed in Palm Beach County. After the devastating September 1928 hurricane left the Boynton school intact, the damaged or leveled most other Palm Beach County schools. School Superintendent Joe Youngblood petitioned the Rosenwald Fund for emergency monies. By 1931 Rosenwald schools and industrial trade shops were operating in Jupiter, Boca Raton, Delray Beach (shop), West Palm Beach (school, shop), Pahokee, Belle Glade, South Bay, Kelsey City, and Canal Point (school, library). 

Boynton Negro Elementary School, 1950. Teacher Blanche Hearst Girtman (Boynton Beach City Library Local History Archives)

 

OVERCROWDING

Boynton Negro School Basketball Team members, 1942 (Boynton Beach City Library Local History Archives)

 

 

In the mid-1940s, rural black schools consolidated. The Lake Worth Osborne Colored School that had operated out of a church combined with the Boynton School.

In the area west of Boynton/Hypoluxo/Lantana, the Rangeline School on Rte. 441 taught children of farmers and migrant workers in a World War II Quonset Hut.  

 

 

 

Students entering Poinciana School, teacher Blanche Hearst Girtman

In reaction to the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, school leaders decided to rename “colored” schools after local points of interest. In June 1954, the Boynton Colored School became Poinciana School. The 1950s were a time of rapid growth in Palm Beach County. The district added a Poinciana Annex building with six additional classrooms located at 121 NE 12th Ave. next door to the original school in 1952.

By the 1960s overcrowding (over 700 students in 18 classrooms) forced double sessions with some classes held outdoors and in hot, cramped portable classrooms that Fire Chief Jack Tuite called “death traps.”

Fumes Evacuate Poinciana Portables (The Palm Beach Post, 16 Dec. 1960)

DESEGREGATION

In March 1962, the school board approved a land purchase of more than a half-acre for a Poinciana School addition to accommodate a junior high school. That same year Rev. Randolph Lee of St. John Missionary Baptist Church led efforts to establish a high school for black students. The closest high school for black students was Carver Industrial High School in Delray Beach. Students who wanted an education had to bus there from all over the region.

A $362,000 new school was planned for 1963, about the same time that Palm Beach County Schools began integration. The district had difficulty getting the site owner to sell as originally agreed. Furthermore, the school district had a large list of new school projects and improvements. In October 1963 the district was trying to prioritize the multiple projects, including a proposed $572,000 new Poinciana elementary and middle school that would include 13 classrooms, science rooms, industrial and home economics shops, a library, cafetorium [cafeteria/auditorium], locker rooms, and an administrative suite.

School System Needs $29 Million (10 Oct 1963, Fort Lauderdale News)

Meanwhile, school integration did not go smoothly. It turned out that most black families and white families wanted their children to stay in the neighborhood and not be bussed across town. A May 1965 Miami Herald article about school desegregation reported that the boundary lines for Poinciana School in Boynton Beach had been precisely drawn to encompass the negro residential section.

Poinciana Elementary School 1962 (Boynton Beach City Library Local History Archives)

Head Start (Boynton Beach Star 17 Jun 1965)

 

Poinciana became a site for the federally funded Head Start program for children not enrolled in private kindergarten in 1967.Sarah Costin and Lena Rahming incorporated the Boynton Beach Childcare Center about that time and worked with community leaders to build a separate building for preschool and kindergarten aged children.

By 1969, school officials agreed to remove grades 7-8 from Poinciana School, a decision that  forced 42 students to integrate into Boynton Junior High (now Galaxy Elementary School). Integration was so much stress for students and families of both black and white students that some students enrolled in private school and other  students simply dropped out of school.

NEW MAGNET SCHOOL 

The dilapidated school building saw its last days in late 1995, when it was razed for a larger, modern school. The Palm Beach County School Board built a brand new, closed campus Poinciana Elementary School that opened as a Math/Science/Technology magnet school in August 1996. With over 97,000 square feet and a Planetarium, the school occupies 8.7 acres, backing up to the Carolyn Sims Recreational Center. 

Poinciana STEM Elementary School

Today Poinciana STEM Elementary School attracts K-5 students across Palm Beach County for its robust science, technology, engineering, and mathematics curriculum. The 572 Poinciana Panthers are a diverse student body, approximately half of its students are black, 22% white, 13% Hispanic, 8% Asian or Pacific Islander, and at 6 % or more identifying as 2 or more races.

Sources

  • The Boynton Beach City Library Local History Archives
  • The Boynton Beach News
  • The Boynton Beach Star
  • The Broward County Library Digital Archives
  • Fisk University Special Collections & Archives
  • The Florida Department of Public Instruction
  • The Ft. Lauderdale News
  • The Historical Society of Palm Beach County
  • The Lake Worth Herald
  • The New York Public Library Photographic Collection
  • The Palm Beach County Property Appraiser
  • The Palm Beach Post
  • The School District of Palm Beach County
  • Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library
  • The State Archives of Florida
  • The Sun-Sentinel
  • The University of Florida

Special thanks to Georgen Charnes and Ginger Pedersen for their contributions to this research.

If you have any photos, comments, additions, or clarifications regarding Poinciana School and its history, please email boyntonhistory@gmail.com. We’d love to hear from you.