The Postcards of Lake Worth, Florida, and its iconic, historic Gulf Stream Hotel

The series in the Coastal Observer on the history of Lake Worth's Gulf Stream Hotel is immensely popular with readers, both the newspaper and the excerpts I've used on this blog to promote the series. The publisher is being contacted daily for back issues of the series and the fourth installment will be in this week's paper I'm told.

It's a near miracle the Gulf Stream Hotel is still standing. The vast majority of structures that would be part of our historic scene today, including hotels, that were constructed along Henry Flagler's trek to the Florida Keys are long gone. Either they succumbed to storms, neglect, or were simply torn down before communities and governments understood their historic significance and put the processes and rules in place to try and save them.

This process is playing out in Boynton Beach right now and soon we'll know the future of that structure: either it will be saved or torn down. From reports on the condition of the historic high school it's future looks grim but we'll know soon enough.

Below is a YouTube video I produced in 2008 titled, "Historic Postcards from Lake Worth, Florida" and there are postcards of the Gulf Stream Hotel included. Hope you enjoy this collection of postcards to the music "Over the Rainbow" by Sarah Vaughan, a classic if there ever was one: