PONCE DE LEON
Juan Ponce de Leon made his initial landfall on April 3, probably south of St. Augustine. Later that year he visited the Jupiter Inlet and named it Río de la Cruz (River of the Cross). Somewhere along the shore, he erected a cross (location unknown). Ponce fought Indians on Jupiter Island. He also encountered friendly natives at Abacoa, a village near Lake Worth.
JONATHAN DICKINSON
Jonathan Dickinson was an Englishman and wealthy merchant in 1696 was shipwrecked with his party five miles north of Jupiter Inlet. His subsequent memoir became a widely read book, it describes in detail his bried sojourn in the inlet. He was relatively well treated by the Jobe tribe, who helped him salvage goods from the wreck.
STEAMBOATS
With no paved roads in the 1880's the first settlers arrived by paddlewheel steamboats. The first steamer was probably the St Lucia which came down from the Mississippi River (3,000 miles!). So big was the boat that is had to be constantly pulled off the sandbars. Soon smaller steamboats crowded the river. Their demise was brought by the railroad.
RAILROADS
The first railroad arrived in 1885, a seven mile freight service between Jupiter and Lake Worth. In 1890 the first passenger service started along the 'Celestial Railroad'. So called because it connected the towns of Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Juno.
The profitable little railroad was put out of business by being bypassed by the much larger Florida East Coast Railroad.
THE OLDEST RESIDENCE
The Tindall House is an historic, cracker-style house built in 1892, and is considered the oldest existing home in Palm Beach County.
The house was built by George Tindall, a Georgia farmer who homesteaded on Palm Point (off Center street in Jupiter).
In 1995, Anna Minear donated the house to the Loxahatchee River Historical Museum.