Whatever its official name, this century-old passage
has a sea of personal stories to tell
1925: When the bridge over the Boynton Inlet was first under construction, it included arches on either side of State Road A1A. The arches were eliminated when the bridge was replaced decades later. Then as now, the man-made channel's official name was the South Lake Worth Inlet. Photo provided by Boynton Beach City Library Local History Archives
By Ron Hayes
We regret to inform you that the Boynton Inlet is not the Boynton Inlet.
Officially, it’s the “South Lake Worth Inlet,” a noble title that, alas, gets very little respect.
This 130-foot-wide, man-made channel between the Atlantic Ocean and the Lake Worth Lagoon is bordered on the north by the town of Manalapan, but do we fish at the Manalapan Inlet?
We do not.
It is bordered on the south by the town of Ocean Ridge, but do we picnic at the Ocean Ridge Inlet?
No.
2025: The Sea Mist III has been using the inlet for decades to take out drift boat anglers. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
We fish and picnic at the Boynton Inlet.
Janet Naughton is a professor of U.S. history at Palm Beach State College and the author of a dozen books about Palm Beach County history. But for her January appearance before a full house at the Boynton Beach City Library’s Brown Bag Lecture Series, even she titled her slide show, “History of the South Lake Worth (Boynton) Inlet.”
“They could both be right,” Naughton says. “The inlet is halfway between Lantana and Boynton Beach, and directly across from the Boynton Beach boat ramp.”
Just when and how the official “South Lake Worth Inlet” became popularized as simply the Boynton Inlet is anyone’s guess. In the 1920s, newspaper accounts of the inlet’s dredging and bridge construction are consistent. It’s the South Lake Worth Inlet.
But by the early 1960s, charter boat fleets were advertising themselves as at “Boynton Inlet.” Somewhere along the way, the voice of the people took control. And let’s face it, “Boynton Inlet” is a lot quicker and easier to say.
Either way, as Naughton made clear in her Brown Bag lecture and a longer chat later, the South Lake Worth (Boynton) Inlet is a picnic of social, economic, environmental, legal and recreational history.
•
So, where’s the North Lake Worth Inlet, you ask?
That’s the inlet with Palm Beach to the south, Palm Beach Shores to the north, and Peanut Island straight ahead.
Officially, it’s the “Lake Worth Inlet,” so naturally everyone calls it the Palm Beach Inlet.
Created in 1866, that inlet merged the Atlantic Ocean’s salt water with the freshwater Lake Worth, and by 1913 the waters were brackish from both the ocean and growing development around the lake.
Gee, people said, maybe we should have another inlet at the south end of the lake to let that polluted water out.
But the bridge came first.
•
The South Lake Worth Inlet was still being dug when the bridge that would carry motorists over it opened on Sept. 2, 1926.
“New South Lake Worth Span Opens Tomorrow
“This beautiful bridge, which is of the rainbow arch type, is entirely of concrete with a wide roadway flanked on either side by walkways for pedestrians.” — The Palm Beach Post
•
The inlet arrived a year later, on Wednesday, March 16, 1927.
“Waters Of Atlantic And Lake Worth Mingle At South Inlet:
“Waters from the Atlantic Ocean glided in from a tiny cut, shoveled in the sand, and mingled with the waters of Lake Worth for the first time at this point.
“Dozens of spectators lined the bridge and at 11:18 p.m. the waters ‘glided’ in from the Atlantic and ‘mingled with the waters of Lake Worth.’ Dozens watched from the bridge in the glare of large searchlights.”
— The Palm Beach Post
•
And then came the lawsuit.
Col. Robert R. McCormick, owner of The Chicago Tribune, was a staunch conservative who compared FDR’s New Deal to communism and opposed America’s entry into World War II.
He was also a very rich man.
On Thursday, Oct. 30, 1930, McCormick paid $650,000 cash for a 4,916-foot stretch of ocean-to-lake property, with the northern boundary just 780 feet south of the South Lake Worth Inlet. It was the largest real estate deal in Palm Beach County at the time.
Five years later, in June 1935, he sued in an attempt to shut down the inlet.
The southward drift of the ocean was causing sand to accumulate along the inlet’s north jetty and causing erosion by McCormick’s property.
He sued in federal court in Miami asking that the inlet be closed and the jetties removed.
He did not succeed, but two years later, a sand transfer plant — the first anywhere —was installed by the north jetty to pump sand beyond the inlet to the south.
The first sand transfer plant in the country was installed in 1937 at the inlet to keep up the flow of sand along the beach. Photo provided
•
In January 1941, a beach club with an almost world-famous name opened just south of the inlet.
No, not that Mar-a-Lago.
This was the one without an “A.”
The Mar Lago Beach Club was built by Leon A. Robbins, an Ohio native who arrived in Ocean Ridge in 1926.
In 1946, he was elected mayor of Ocean Ridge and served for five years. The Mar Lago was torn down in 1974 to make way for the county’s Ocean Inlet Park.
The Mar Lago Beach Club stood for a few decades before it was demolished and replaced with Ocean Inlet Park. Photo provided
•
Surf’s up. Maybe.
On Wednesday, Nov. 15, 1967, Ocean Ridge commissioners passed an ordinance banning surfing “except in authorized areas.”
No areas were authorized, but surfers had always ridden waves by the inlet without any trouble.
Tom Warnke, a senior at Seacrest High School (and now archive coordinator for the Delray Beach Historical Society), fought back. He and his fellow surfers formed the Cripple Creek Surf Club, and Warnke designed the club’s logo, which featured the inlet bridge.
The club sponsored a beach cleanup by the inlet to convince the politicians that surfers were not responsible for all those beer cans on that small island in the lake just north of the inlet.
Wild parties, underage drinking and worse were alleged to be going on there — so much so that the former Pine Island had become known as Beercan Island.
Not us, the surfers said, and apparently the politicians agreed.
Surfing survived at the inlet.
“It was great when we won,” he says now. “It motivated me all my life to protect the image of surfers.”
Warnke is 76 now, and executive director of the Surfing Florida Museum.
Beercan Island is now Bird Island, a privately owned wildlife sanctuary.
•
The inlet’s bridge, that beautiful bridge with the rainbow arches, lived for 48 years and died on April 1, 1974, of old age and increasing costs.
The inlet remained open to boats, but for nearly a year traffic was diverted across the Lantana and Boynton Beach bridges while a new inlet bridge was constructed.
The new span opened 11 months later, on March 1, 1975, without those rainbow arches.
A visual hazard, the authorities said. But there had been rumors that motorcyclists enamored of the famed daredevil Evel Knievel would speed their bikes over the arches.
This has not been confirmed.
Maintenance is a constant where the ocean meets the land. In a major 2010 project the north jetty and sea wall inside the inlet were repaired. Coastal Star file
•
In 2013, Janet Naughton wrote an application to have the South Lake Worth Inlet named a Florida Heritage Site. The historic marker stands in Ocean Inlet Park with text by Naughton.
So, call it the Boynton Inlet if you want, but officially it’s the South Lake Worth Inlet. End of story.
Or is it?
There is one more high authority we should consult.
Type “South Lake Worth Inlet” into Google Maps and you’ll be told: “Google Maps can’t find South Lake Worth Inlet.”
Now try typing in “Boynton Inlet.”
Case closed.
Comments