From May 2011 |
We found a parking place across the street from the Richard and Pat Johnson Palm Beach County History Museum which is housed in the 1916 Palm Beach County Courthouse.
From 1916 Palm Beach County Courthouse |
Inside the museum, which is free, we were given a brief history of the restoration of the courthouse. The first exhibit we saw was called "Feather Wars: Surviving Fashion 1870-1920". This is a temporary exhibit that documents how a world-wide trend in women's hats caused near devastation of birds such as the Snowy Egret. Any one with a gun could hunt the birds for their plumage and the plumage of the Snowy Egret brought the same price-per-ounce as gold.
From 1916 Palm Beach County Courthouse |
Our next stop was an exhibit about The People of Palm Beach County from the Pre-Columbian inhabitants, Seminole Indians, the early pioneers and to modern business and community leaders. Here we watched a 7 minute film narrated by George Hamilton about the people who helped make Palm Beach County what it is today.
We saw an exhibit about the Barefoot Mailmen. These men walked the 68 miles from West Palm Beach to Miami because there was no road and about 28 miles had to be taken by using several different boats. The Barefoot Mailmen walked that route from 1885 to 1892 when a rock road was built.
From 1916 Palm Beach County Courthouse |
The next exhibit was about The Place which explored the environment and animals and the different communities that make up Palm Beach County.
After leaving the museum, we went across the street to the current Courthouse
From May 2011 |
and then one block over to the City Hall to do some genealogical research on Mike's family. By then we were starving and stopped at the Subway near the City Hall.
We made a brief stop at Woodlawn Cemetery to take photos of my family's gravestones and located one for the Neale family and took a photo of the gravestone.
Our next stop was at Ragtops on S. Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach. Ragtops is located in the old Twin City Chevrolet building where my father, brother and sister-in-law worked in the 1950's. We went into Ragtops and found out that they were preparing for a special dinner event and that a lot of the cars in the museum weren't on display. We were still able to look around at the cars they did have on display.
From Ragtops |
Before heading back to the RV we drove south on Dixie Highway to Lake Worth. We drove by the houses that Mike & I grew up in and then we went downtown and stopped at the Lake Worth Post Office to take a photo of the mural in there.
From John Prince Park & Lake Worth |
When we returned to John Prince Park, we stopped by to see Paul & Diane who came in today to attend the 50th class reunion. Then this evening after dinner Paul & Diane came over for a visit. There was a nice breeze coming across Lake Osborne and we sat outside and caught up on each other's lives.
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