On the agenda at this year’s CNU Florida Summit: The Cottages of Lake Worth Beach take center stage!

The City of Lake Worth Beach will be featured by the Congress of New Urbanism (CNU) at this year’s summit to be held on October 6th–8th.

Later in this blog post is a link for more information and to get registered.

The CNU, “is the nation’s most innovative and influential organization promoting the building and revitalization of great urban places. We are a multi-disciplinary organization comprised of architects, urban planners, developers, investors, engineers, academics, elected and career governmental officials, and citizen advocates.”

On Friday, October 8th the CNU summiteers will be visiting Lake Worth Beach. On the agenda is a walking tour of our historic cottages:

Click on image to enlarge:

Lake Worth Beach Mayor Betty Resch will be the day’s Special Guest. Wes Blackman will conduct the walking tour of the cottages.

For more information and to get registered for this year’s CNU Florida Summit click on this link.

Interested in learning more about the City of Lake Worth Beach and its historic cottages? The Cottages hardcover book will be available for purchase during the upcoming walking tour.

The front cover:

To learn more about the book use this link. The first edition was published in 2016; the second in 2017. Worth noting is another historic event in this City’s history in March 2019: By voter referendum the City changed its name to become Lake Worth Beach!

“We take a look back at the road that created Florida”, Post reporter Barbara Marshall wrote.

“100 years ago, Dixie Highway began winding through Palm Beach County, spawning today’s tourism industry.”

Dixie Highway is a historic highway in Lake Worth Beach.

Click on image to enlarge:

Does this lot look familiar? This is now the Gonz Auto Collision Center at 1401 N. Dixie Hwy.

And here is Gonz in the modern era getting with

the theme Lake Worth Beach!

Here is The Hulk in a Gonz Auto Club Car! Gonz has a newly updated website including new services.

Now back to the origin of Dixie Hwy.

Barbara Marshall at The Palm Beach Post published an article about the origins of Dixie Hwy. back in early 2016. It is easy to forget that the development of Florida is a relatively recent phenomenon. First came the trains, ushered in by Henry Flagler on the east coast and Henry Plant on the west coast of Florida. With the advent and mass production of the automobile in the early part of the 20th century the burgeoning middle class needed more and more roads for travel and leisure. That was the genesis of Dixie Hwy. — what we know as U.S. 1 — that goes right through the center of this City. The article details some of the old routes that made up the original road and where you can find other sections in Palm Beach County.

It’s true. Once upon a time this City had its
very own Chamber of Commerce.

This sign was at the corner of Dixie Hwy. and
Lake Ave., outside City Hall:

Further up north on Dixie Hwy. ‘back in the day’ was a popular restaurant called Christine’s. The structure survived. Most recently it was the Blue Front BBQ, an excellent example of roadside architecture from the “Mom & Pop” era when motels, small businesses, and restaurants lined Dixie Hwy.

Dixie Hwy. meant opportunity for the communities that lined it. Lake Worth (prior to the Beach) took advantage of that by having many motels, restaurants and attractions (including signs over the highway pointing travelers to the Beach, the Casino building, and the Gulfstream Hotel), all in the hopes of snagging dollars from tourists and create a local economy that could sustain the resident population. As you have read on this blog many, many times before, all that changed as the main source of vehicle travel switched to I-95 in the 1970s. Since then Lake Worth, and other cities to a lesser extent, have been trying to re-carve its niche in the “new” economy of the 21st century.

There are very few communities that celebrate their old historic roads that continue to exist and how crucial they were to early development. As a redevelopment effort and focus this City could consider designating a portion of the road as a Historic Highway. This might help attract tourists and visitors, classic car enthusiasts, history “buffs” and others just as Route 66 and now U.S. 27 in the State of Michigan are historic attractions.

The Palm Beach Transportation Planning Agency (TPA), to name one organization, could be the catalyst for this type of redevelopment and marketing effort. It has worked in other locations and we are already an attractive tourist destination. This would be another way to put us “on the map”.