Middletown transcript., 1895-02-16

4 and then from the Everglades to sella lid
turkey or saddle of venison, a telegraph
wire had just reached there, and a sojourn.
er on the shores of beautiful Lake Worth
felt an influence of calm, quiet and don't
care-a-dashfulness that was hard to find
elsewhere. There was mail now and then
that got through from the North in week
or ten days, if everything went along
smoothly en- route, and when the little
steamer came down the lake from Juno "a
town that contained a county clerk, an
editor, lawyer and several other people)
and blew three blasts of her whistle to tell
US she had mail from the North, we all
rushed to the post office feeling an excite
ment that was positively invigorating.
There was pleasant hotel where pleasant
people to the number of a hundred or more
wore their clothes of the previous summer,
and, like big family of congenial spirits,
had good time sailing, fishing, bathing
and dreaming under the cocoanuts.
You who have not seen Lake Worth and
Palm Beach since that season, less than two
years ago, would hardly know it now. for
Mr. Flagler, the Standard Oil man whom
Governor Hogg of Texas is painfully anx-
ious to see, has come here with a railroad
boom town and hotel that seems to
as We used to know it, and is intended 20
accommodate thousand people without
having them feel crowded. The rates al
this hotel are 81 day and upward they
are mostly upward. Possibly the 81 rooms
are up somewhere between Palm Beach
and the sky or over somewhere toward the
ocean, within a quarter or third of mile
of the main entrance.
l am not sure, as l am not stopping at
| this hotel. am considerably more modest
i'll my taste since have grown older anu
less rash than used to be. The 500, $4u.
$50 day and other upward rooms, art
| nearer in to the front.
Here are congregated imitation English
| men with sawed-off trousers; bond holders
with naughty cast of countenance and "a
wart ON their chin people who have
acquired wealth from pork and lard, aid
look it; swells and swellesses, and all the
rest of the curiosities and freaks of an ultra
fashionable and high-priced winter hotel
Even the Seminoles are afraid to cross the
lake to the East side, where the hotel
stands, since have come these men with
English whiskers, single-barreled eye-glass
and vacant idiotic stare.
Oh g.
satisfaction, the candid and unvarnished
estimate held by the white man by BILLY
Bowlegs" chief of the Seminoles, since the
big hotel has been opened.
West Palm Beach is Mr.. Flagler's town
1t is over the lake, opposite the hotel. The
town is intended for the Common herd"as
it were 1t has been built a little more than
"a year, and has population of 500 or 60U
people. During its brisk growth quite
number of people who have grown up
with it." as they say out West have con-
siderably increased their assets. They tell
of one man who came here in the begin
ming with only quart of whiskey in va
lise (it was dry" county then) and now
owns one of the best business blocks in
town and has an income of four hundred
dollars month. If this be true, it proves
that energy and perseverance will "gel
there" even during panic.
There is every convenience-almost
everything one can need now at West Palm
Beach, where there was but solitary house |
a year and half ago. There are water
works. an ice factory, daily train to and |
from Jacksonville, bakers, grocers, provis- |
dealers, hardware merchants, furniture
dealers, two newspapers, several lawyers,
hotel, bar-rooms, doctors, drugstore, ali |
undertaken and graveyard. Itused to be |
so inconvenient to bury man down there |
that no one thought of dying. unless he |
fell in the lake and could mt swim, but it is /
SO different now. All the new diseases |
with 1895 names have come, and the under
taker keeps your size of case ON hand, and |
will line it wLile you wait
But, if Lake Worth has lost much of its
charm for quiet, modest and Nature loving
folks, it has gained attractions for those
who like to be in the social swim" as we'll
as for the fellows who are eternally nosing
around for a chance for speculation. Land
has increased in value an hundred fold in
two years. and, in places. is no longer rated
by the acre but by the front foot.
The winter climate remains, too, the
greatest of all the charms of South Florida,
and now that its fame has gone about so
far and wide few will think of visiting
Florida without seeing Lake Worth.
And the way to reach it and enjoy the
going is by way of the Indian River Steam
ers from Titusville. A trip by rail only
gives one now and then a passing glance of
that unique waterway, the Indian river,
famous for its natural scenery and luscious
pine apples. The steamers of the Indian
River Steamboat Company take you for
$50 miles on the bosom of Its waters, un-
rolling all the whlie a most pleasing pana-
rama OF its shores, now palm clothed, now
dense with mangroyes, now showing a
modern cottage OH crest sorrcunded by
cres of pine-appies, now growing village
with its hotels, stores, docks aud pretty
cottages.
One never grows weary of this trip on
this long, placid lagoon that extends along
the Eastern Coast of Florida for more than
$50 miles. and for much of the distance is
within hearing of the breakers of the At
lantic. The trip is made from Jacksonville
(via ]. 7. & K. w. Railroad to Titusviile,
thence by steamer to Jupiter) in less than
thirty hours, and to my mind, is the most
delightful trip that can be made in Florida.
The steamers are roomy. comfortable, conf
manded by gentlemanly officers. and fur.
nish meals equalled by few hotels in the
South.
The most interesting feature of the trip