by Amanda Capote, Assistant Curator
To commemorate the centennial of the 1926 hurricane, this month’s Tales looks back at how the storm affected Boca Raton and its young community. On September 18, 1926, South Florida was struck by a Category 4 storm that signaled the end of the Land Boom and ushered in the start of the Great Depression in the region. Although most of the media coverage focused on the tremendous damage to Miami and the cities of Broward County, Boca Raton, still young at the time, was also affected by the storm. Unlike Hurricane Andrew, which was relatively small and powerful, hurricane-force winds were felt from the Upper Keys to West Palm Beach. The towns around Lake Okeechobee were also severely affected by storm surge. Moore Haven was completely flooded, and many of the storm deaths occurred there, two years before the devastating 1928 hurricane.
Although the 1926 storm’s death toll was much lower, at about 250 people, the property damage was tremendous. Hurricane Katrina caused approximately $81 billion in damage in 2005. The 1926 hurricane caused an estimated $2 billion in damage, but if the same storm struck South Florida today, its estimated cost would be over $100 billion, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Boca Raton was fortunate, saved once again from the storm surge by the high bluff at the ocean’s edge. Raging ocean waters reached the top of the bluff, which was much higher than it is now, on the day of the storm. But the small town suffered extensive damage from high winds and rainfall.
Nancy Guggenheim, whose family lived in what is now Spanish Village during the 1920s, recalled the storm:
“The rain and wind were a totally new experience and the four of us huddled together in our small house. Electricity gone, mother made coffee and cocoa on the kerosene stove and from the kitchen window saw the roof blow off the [Mizner work] barracks. Flying debris broke a living room window and my father nailed an old wood card table over the hole. Alex Ballard and two others from the now disintegrating barracks drove to our house in a Dodge touring car. I went with them to look at the ocean. When flood water prevented our proceeding east on Palmetto Park Road, we headed south on Dixie, across the canal into Deerfield where a sand track through the woods ended at the bootlegger’s abode on the beach, to which fallen trees barred the way; anticipating danger, we went home.”
Floy Mitchell and her husband, J.C., had just completed the Mitchell Arcade on Dixie Highway in September 1926. Like so many newcomers to the region, they had no idea what to expect from a hurricane. Floy recounted:
“I have never been so frightened in my life! We didn’t know that all windows should be covered in a hurricane. I watched freight cars blown off the tracks in that one hundred fifty mile an hour wind and telegraph poles snap like toothpicks. The building was a wreck—most of the windows broken, much of the roof was blown off; and the water damage was terrific.”
Another witness to the storm was pioneer farmer Frank Chesebro. He wrote in his diary:
“A hurricane sneaked up in the night—the worst that ever was. Blew down garage, windmill, etc. etc.”
In the days after the storm, residents opened their arms to their less fortunate neighbors to the south. The brand-new Cloister Inn, outfitted for guests from high society, instead served as a shelter for “evacuees” from the Everglades town of Davie, which was almost completely inundated by the storm. Boca Raton’s newly acquired fire engine, known as “Old Betsy,” was sent to Hollywood to join other trucks in pumping drinking water and wastewater in the absence of pumps there.
Realizing the condition of their neighbors to the south, the Mitchells loaded their car with jugs of fresh water and other supplies from Brenk’s store. They placed a sign on the front saying, “Supplies from the Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce,” a new entity at the time. They were thus able to reach Floy Mitchell’s parents’ home in Miami despite many blocked roads and assist in the cleanup.
Even worse than the property damage was the bad publicity. The Famous Florida Land Boom had already slowed to a crawl due to a variety of factors, and investors and developers like the Mizner Development Corporation were feeling the effects. Fort Lauderdale pioneer businessman Tom Bryan spent the storm in Philadelphia, but this was no comfort when the local newspaper headline read “Southeastern Florida Wiped Out.” Survivors from many counties left in droves. But, like New Orleans, South Florida would rebuild and survive the harsh times of the Depression. Former Fort Lauderdale mayor Thomas Manuel recalled, “…we knew as long as we had the sun and the ocean that people were going to come here…and they did.”
