Timeline Stories

The town of Boca Raton officially becomes a city. This marked a significant shift from its earlier status as a small town and was the beginning of its transformation into a more urbanized area. 

The Boca Raton News publishes its inaugural paper. Initially a weekly publication, it later began daily operation. The Boca Raton Historical Society maintains a searchable digital archive of issues of The News from 1970 through 1995. 

Africa U.S.A., a wild animal nature park, opens in what is now the Camino Gardens neighborhood. It closed in 1961, reportedly from an infestation of disease-carrying African red ticks that was found on the animals.

J. C. Morris builds a post office and commercial building on East Boca Raton Road. The street becomes Boca Raton’s “downtown” retail business district. 

With WPA funds, the town builds the Boca Raton airport. Six years later, the airport transformed into the Boca Raton Army Airfield. After the war, its ownership was transferred from the military to the town of Boca Raton for public aviation purposes. 

Boca Raton is growing! Federal Highway and The Seaboard Air Line (today the Amtrak tracks) connect Boca Raton with South Florida, and the Town Hall is completed, which now houses the Schmidt Boca Raton History Museum and the Boca Raton Visitor Information Center. The Ritz Carlton Golf Course also opens at the future site of…

Florida Power and Light brings electricity to Boca Raton and soon after, Mizner’s Cloister Inn, now the Boca Raton Resort & Club, opens on February 6th.   That fall on September 18 the Hurricane of 1926, South Florida’s “Hurricane Katrina,” strikes the area, sounding the death knell of the land boom. The Depression comes early…

On May 26th, the Town of Boca Raton is incorporated, becoming an official town in Florida. As the town approaches its centennial in 2025, this event will be commemorated as a key milestone in its history.     Soon after the incorporation, Architect Addison Mizner’s Mizner Development Corporation initiates the “Boca Raton” development project to be…

Pearl City, a community for African American residents, is established between Dixie and Federal Highways just south of present-day Glades Road. The name was derived from the Hawaiian Pearl pineapple and packing sheds that formerly existed in this location. 

Joe Sakai establishes the Yamato Colony to serve as both a farmland and a settlement for Japanese immigrants. “Yamato” means “Great Peace” in Japanese. The Yamato Colony is remembered today in Yamato Road, a major street in Boca Raton, and in Morikami Park as well as  the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens which can be…