Florida Historical Markers Programs - Marker Detail

Description: The Stub Canal Turning Basin represents an important link between West Palm Beach and the agricultural communities adjacent to Lake Okeechobee. In the late 19th century, Florida began draining the Everglades/Lake Okeechobee basin to provide water transportation routes and to create farmland from swamps. When the Board of Drainage Commissioners authorized the construction of a canal network in 1905, a connection to West Palm Beach was not included. In 1911, local businessman George Currie, on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce, petitioned Governor Albert Waller Gilchrist (1858-1926) for a canal from Lake Okeechobee to Lake Worth. Known as the West Palm Beach Canal, the forty-mile channel was authorized in 1913, and completed in 1917. By 1918, an extension, or stub, was constructed to bring the canal directly into the West Palm Beach business district. The City built shipping facilities and this Turning Basin. The Stub Canal served as a dependable route for passenger travel and for the shipment of produce from, and provisions to, the western agricultural communities until 1925, when improved railroad and highway connections provided other means of transportation.