Flamingo Park is a 2 acre open green space in the Flamingo Park neighborhood of Palm Beach. The park has a small swing sweet, benches, and majestic banyan trees. What most people don't know about the park is that it is also a cemetery. Approximately 100 bodies lie beneath the grass. No one knows how many exactly because people who could not afford a formal burial would come here in the middle of the night to bury their dead.
The land the park sits on was once owned by the Lakeside Cemetery Association who purchased the property from the city in 1902. They then used it as an African-American cemetery while white people were buried in Pioneer Memorial Park on land where the Norton Museum of Art now resides. In 1913 the city wanted the land back so they could sell it for development but they were blocked by the Supreme Court. Burials were stopped and five years later the land was donated to the city who turned it into a park named Dixie Playground and later the name changed to Flamingo Park, the same as the historic neighborhood that surrounds it. The city didn't give up on selling the land first in 1966 for houses and in 1991 as an exotic car shoot room. Neighborhood protest blocked both projects.
The city seems to be resigned to having a park here now and they have made improvements including a walkway and benches. A statue called Girl With a Shawl was added to act as a memorial to the people who are buried here but whose names have been lost to time. You can read about the history of the park on a historical marker that has been placed in the park.
The park is now mainly used by homeless people but the centuries old banyan trees will sometimes attract people posing for a picture. This park is a piece of the history of Palm Beach. Thanks to community activists we still have it to enjoy today. read more