Mango Promenade Historic District

About this property

The Mango Promenade Historic District is a U.S. historic district (designated as such on July 8, 1999) located in West Palm Beach, Florida. The district is bounded by South Dixie Highway, Austin Lane, Coconut Lane, and Cranesnest Way. It contains 125 historic buildings. In 1875, Benjamin Lanehart became one of the first non-indigenous residents along the western shore of the Lake Worth Lagoon, settling near the north end of the present-day El Cid Historic District. Lanehart's homestead, primary used for producing pineapples, extended from modern-day Okeechobee Boulevard southward to Belvedere Road by the following year. This land encompassed the Mango Promenade Historic District. However, local pioneer pineapple growers went out of business by the early 20th century due to pineapple diseases and increasing competition from Cuba. The oldest contributing and surviving structure – 318 Cranesnest Way – dates back to approximately 1910. Several other surviving homes in the district were built later in the 1910s. The initial platting of the Mango Promenade Historic District occurred in 1913, at which time "the area began to change from a collection of large parcels into a pedestrian oriented neighborhood of single-family homes.", according to the district's National Register of Historic Places (NRPH) nomination form. Bror J. Carlberg, a West Palm Beach Chamber of Commerce charter member, filed that plat on November 18, 1913, in an area stretching from Poinsettia Street (South Dixie Highway) and Olive Street (South Olive Avenue) along Vallette Way. Carlberg extended the plat on March 31, 1914, adding Wildermere Road, and again on August 31 of that year, expanding Vallette Way east of Olive Street. Frederick M. Delavan, Minnie Josephine Anderson, and Bertha Falkenstein followed suit on October 2, 1914, filing a plat that included Sophia Drive and Victoria Road. Another plat was filed on February 27, 1917 by William Kuehner and F. L. Crane and encompassed the vicinity of Cranesnest Way. Palm Beach Realty Service, Inc. filed a plat on October 29, 1919, which included Croton Way. Another plat was filed by the Matthams Park Corporation on May 15, 1924, which led to the development of Austin Lane and Tuxedo Lane, as well as a pedestrian walkway referred to as Orange Court. By 1926, about 89% of homes within the Mango Promenade Historic District had been built. Thereafter, the Great Depression almost completely halted further local construction, until President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved the Banking Act and Homeowners Refinancing Act. The Baldwin-Nichols Subdivision – Queens Court – became the final plat filed in the district in July 1936.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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