Celebrating Our History: Delray history buff’s legacy to bring marker to Boynton Inlet - The Coastal Star

Nice article in the Coastal Star about a gentleman who sought to honor history and create markers so that others would know what came before. Click title for link. Here is some important history from the article:

Why a historical marker at the Boynton Inlet?
    To remind people that it wasn’t always there, and its arrival changed the area immeasurably.
    The inlet we commonly call the Palm Beach Inlet was dug at the northern end of that island in the mid-19th century and stabilized by 1917. But by the early 1920s, a second was needed to improve water quality and circulation to the south, where both West Palm Beach and Lake Worth dumped sewage into the lake.
    The South Lake Worth Inlet District was formed in 1923 and $225,000 appropriated for the work.
    Dredging began that September, and in August 1924 a concrete bridge was completed to accommodate traffic along State Road A1A while the work continued below.
    And then, at 11:18 p.m. on March 16, 1927, with dozens of spectators watching from the bridge, the Atlantic Ocean met the Lake Worth Lagoon, and Boynton Beach hasn’t been the same since.
    “The coastal tomato and strawberry farms were dying out,” says Ginger Pedersen, the historical society’s vice president. “Saltwater from the Palm Beach Inlet spoiled the farmland, but this inlet gave the area a whole new purpose. We got the whole Boynton Beach fishing village. A lot of men made their living with commercial fishing.”
    And, of course, also the charter boat industry, ferrying tourists in and out of the inlet for day trips.
    “The wives and children would stand on the bridge and wave to their husbands and fathers as they came back through with the day’s catch,” DeVries adds.