Juno was a town inPalm Beach County,Florida. Settlement in Juno dated back to at least early 1889, when residents of Dade County, which then stretched from modern-dayMartin County toMiami-Dade County, voted for the area to become the county seat. Located at the north end of theLake Worth Lagoon, Juno soon became the southern terminus of theJupiter and Lake Worth Railway, which is often referred to as the Celestial Railroad due to its stations at Juno, Mars, Venus, andJupiter. Juno's status as the seat of Dade County attracted people and businesses to the town, includingThe Tropical Sun, which became the first newspaper in South Florida.
Described as a small but thriving town in its first few years, growth in the community did not last afterHenry Flagler refused to purchase the Jupiter and Lake Worth Railway in the mid-1890s while extending hisFlorida East Coast Railway (FEC) southward, bypassing Juno. The FEC not only drove the Jupiter and Lake Worth Railway out of business but also shifted economic and population increases to the fledgling communities ofPalm Beach andWest Palm Beach. Additionally, the Dade County seat returned toMiami in 1899. Juno effectively became abandoned following a 1907 fire that destroyed many buildings and the former townsite is now partially located in present-dayNorth Palm Beach andPalm Beach Gardens.
By 1888, people residing in the Lake Worth Lagoon region, including local politicians such asElisha Newton Dimick, Alan E. Heyser, George W. Lainhart, and George W. Potter, began petitioning to move the county seat to the area from the settlements alongBiscayne Bay.[1]: 20 With a larger population than the Biscayne Bay Country communities,[2] residents of the Lake Worth Lagoon region won the special election in February 1889 to move the county seat.[3] Dade County covered a vast section of southeast Florida at the time, including modern-dayMiami-Dade,Broward,Palm Beach,Martin, and parts ofOkeechobee counties,[4] but a small population of 995 people and just 224 dwellings according to the1890 census.[5]: 335 While many people in the Biscayne Bay Country accepted the results, others threatened violence, causing the Lake Worth Lagoon delegation who arrived to retrieve county records to canoe through the Everglades overnight up to theNew River.[2] Juno, then unnamed, likely became the county seat due to its location at the northern terminus of the Lake Worth Transportation Company steamship line.[3] Sometime between March 1889 and January 1890, residents selected the nameJuno, the wife of the Roman god Jupiter.[1]: 28–29
Newly-elected Dade County clerk A. F. Quimby stored the public records at the home of county commissioner Albert M. Fields until a courthouse could be constructed.[2] Fields agreed to donate 1 acre (0.40 ha) of land for the courthouse, which was located near where the Oakbrook Square shopping center stands today.[3] C. C. Haight received the contract to build the courthouse at a cost of $1,495.[5]: 335 Upon opening in the summer of 1890, the courthouse building featured offices for county clerk, judge, and sheriff on the first floor and a full-sized courtroom on the second floor, which could be repurposed for social functions such as dances or church or fraternal organization meetings.[2] The county constructed a jailhouse nearby in 1892, spending about $350 on the building but another $850 for jail cells made of iron.[5]: 336
In 1891, Guy Metcalf moved theIndian River News to Juno fromMelbourne and renamed the publicationThe Tropical Sun, which became the first newspaper in South Florida. Martin County historians Greg and Alice L. Luckhardt described Juno as including "a post office, train station, saloon, hotel, Guy Metcalf'sTropical Sun newspaper, lawyer Charles C. Chillingworth's office located in the new courthouse, and abundant pineapple fields."[6] Chillingworth recalled in 1932 that Juno featured "at various times about seven dwelling houses, two boarding houses, one newspaper building and one very small railroad station and a small store building on the dock near the water's edge." and did not have any banks, churches, medical practices, or schools, until a small one-room schoolhouse opened near the end of its time as the county seat.[7]
Construction ofHenry Flagler'sRoyal Poinciana Hotel inPalm Beach began on May 1, 1893.[8] Residents of Juno assumed that Flagler would purchase the Jupiter and Lake Worth Railway to avoid the flatwoods area to the west, which frequently flooded. Flagler indeed attempted to buy the railroad, but the high price compelled him to decide to continue hisFlorida East Coast Railway through the flatwoods.[7] InThe Florida Historical Quarterly, Nathan D. Shappee described Flagler spurning Juno as "a blow from which the county seat and the Celestial Railroad never recovered."[5]: 345 Metcalf movedThe Tropical Sun to West Palm Beach in January 1895.[5]: 336
Juno's jailhouse briefly heldSam Lewis, who shot and killed three people inLemon City in 1895, includingRhett McGregor, considered the first law enforcement officer in Dade County to be murdered while on duty. A posse arrived at the jailhouse on August 17 to abduct Lewis. Although they successfully removed Lewis, the scuffle led to the death of the jailer. Thereafter, the mob hanged Lewis from a telephone pole,[9] an incident considered the first lynching in South Florida.[10] The 1896-1897 edition of the Business Directory, Guide and History of Dade County, Fla. estimated that approximately 100 people lived in Juno and predicted that the community would unlikely ever be more than a farming town with a post office.[5]: 349 By March 1899, 500 registered voters in Dade County signed a petition for another county seat referendum, scheduled to occur on May 10.[11] The referendum led to the county seat being relocated to Miami,[2] lessening interesting in Juno even further.[3] Juno had been mostly abandoned by 1907. A forest fire on April 12 of that year burned down all remaining buildings and dwellings, most of which were unoccupied.[12]
Former residents and local pioneers erected a monument in the 1930s where the southern terminus of the Jupiter and Lake Worth Railway once stood upon request by Chillingworth, by then a county judge. Several years later, vandals defaced the monument and machinery later damaged it during a re-surfacing ofU.S. Route 1.[5] Today, a marker stands inPalm Beach Gardens along U.S. Route 1 just north ofFlorida State Road 786 (PGA Boulevard), which notes that theDaughters of the American Revolution's (DAR) Seminole chapter first constructed it in 1938.[13]
The present-day town ofJuno Beach, incorporated in 1953,[14] is located a few miles north of the former community of Juno.[9]Juno Ridge, acensus-designated place, is located near the DAR's historical marker.[15] According to the Historical Society of Palm Beach County, a brickcistern has been preserved inside modern-dayNorth Palm Beach's Twelve Oaks subdivision, where the town dock once stood.[3]
Ivy Julia Cromartie Stranahan, a philanthropist and advocate for theSeminole tribe, noted in an autobiography that she and her family lived in Juno for several years during her childhood, before moving to Lemon City by 1899.[16]
Municipalities and communities ofPalm Beach County, Florida,United States | ||
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