Mangrove Walk

The Mangrove Walk, located at the northern end of the pond, is an elevated boardwalk winding through a natural mangrove hammock. This undisturbed section of Florida’s natural habitat illustrates the harsh conditions encountered by the first settlers.

The earliest recorded property owner in the Boynton Beach area is Captain James A. Armour, the head lighthouse keeper in Jupiter, who filed a claim for beachfront land in 1875. The claim encompasses the present Boynton Municipal Beach. Another early settler was Hannibal Dillingham Pierce who brought his wife Margretta and his son Charles from Chicago in 1871. By 1872, Pierce had become the assistant lighthouse keeper at Jupiter.

In 1877, Dexter Hubel, a lumberman from Michigan, cleared a beachfront site for a home on land adjacent to the southern boundary of Armour’s claim. When Hubel and his family arrived they spent their first night at the Orange Grove House of Refuge which lay four miles south of their property. At that time, Orange Grove was operated by H.D. Pierce and his family1.

The walk provides views of the Intracoastal Waterway, a shipping route stretching from Norfolk, Virginia to Key West, Florida. When first built, the Florida section of the canal, then known as the Florida East Coast Canal, was privately owned and operated. Tolls were charged for its use at six points, one of which was located in Boynton Beach near the bridge at Ocean Avenue. The amount of the toll was based on the type and length of the vessel. In 1920, tolls for passage through the Boynton Beach chain generated revenue of $2,021.542. In 1929, the Federal Government took ownership of the canal and the toll fees were removed.

Mangrove Walk Pond

The Mangrove Walk Pond, which was completed in 2000, is an important element of the city’s green program as it collects and treats water runoff from the downtown area prior to its discharge into the Intracoastal Waterway. The treatment process is aided by littoral plants (an aquatic plant on the shoreline) that filter water and attract wildlife. The windmills on the opposite side of the pond power the fountains and aerate the water.

• 1. Research Atlantica, Inc. City of Boynton Beach, Florida, Historic Sites Survey. Coral Springs: 1996, p.11-12
• 2. Crawford W.G., A History of Florida’s East Coast Canal, Broward Legacy: Summer/Fall, 1997, p.18