How a Ship of Drunken Sailors Gave Palm Beach It's Name
The Palm Beach area of Florida got its name from the thousands of coconut palm trees that grew in the area.
Now how the trees got here is another story.
It all began on January 9th 1878, with the 175 ton square-rigged, Spanish brigantine (two-masted sailing vessel) the Providencia, bound from Trinidad, to Havana Cuba, to Cadiz Spain with a cargo of logs, Cuban rum and cigars, animal hides, beans, salt pork, garlic, wine and Trinidadian coconuts.
After leaving Cuba they somehow got lost and ran aground at what was then known as the Lake Worth Country, which is where the Mar-A-Lago Club is located today.
It turned out the sailors had dipped into the grog a bit during the voyage, so when the ship grounded on the coast, the tipsy crew thought it had landed in Mexico.
Once they realized where they were, they decided the ship could not go on with it’s cargo.
The few areas settlers in the 1870s, just ten men lived between Jupiter and Hypoluxo, all rushed down to the beach.
“I was greeted by the mate of the vessel, with a bottle of wine and a box of cigars, as sort of an olive branch”, Pioneer William Lainhart wrote. “There were 20,000 coconuts and they seemed like a godsend to the people for several weeks, everyone was eating coconuts and drinking wine.”
Lainhart who bought the ship from the insurance company for $20.80, began selling the coconuts for two and a half cents each. Several area homesteads planted hundreds of coconuts, but after selling only 1,100 of the 20,000 coconuts many were given away and planted on the island.
In less than a decade the area was inundated with towering coconut palm trees. Today the tallest coconut palm trees are found along the shores of Palm Beach.
It is interesting to note that there are a dozen palm trees native to Florida, but the iconic coconut palm tree is not one of them.
On January 15th, 1887 a post office was established for Palm City, but the settlers soon learned that another post office 40 miles north had already claimed the name, so the island was renamed Palm Beach.
The first Palm Beach hotel, the Coconut Grove House opened in 1880 to accommodate tourists from the north who got wind of the areas beauty and majestic coconut palm trees.
Pioneer R.R. McCormick proclaimed “truly this is a paradise. You have made the wilderness to blossom”.
Now you might be wondering how these coconuts turned into trees.
The coconut itself is the seed.
You plant the coconut on its side with only half of the nut covered with soil. When kept warm and moist, a coconut will germinate in three to four months.
One last tip: if you plan on growing your own coconut palm tree, make sure to select a coconut that sounds like it has plenty of water inside when you shake it.
So that’s how a ship’s crew of drunken sailors put the “Palm” in Palm Beach.
Paula Garland FL Palm Beach May 15, 2025 Beaches History
May 15, 2025
SHARE
