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| Welcome to Boca Raton Florida Homes Condos and Town Houses, your guide to places to live in the City of Boca Raton and neighboring communities ... your source for information you might want to know if you are thinking about buying, selling, vacationing or relocating to a house, single-family home, townhouse or condo in Boca Raton, Palm Beach County Florida. . For more information about Boca Raton's housing and real estate markets go to: Boca Raton Real Estate Market Snapshot Boca Raton. No… it doesn’t really mean Rat’s Mouth, even though that’s a literal reading of the name. Boca also means inlet or cove. And Raton can mean "sneak thief." Boca Ratones – or Thieves’ Inlet, or Pirate’s Cove – once refered to an inlet in Key Biscayne Bay. Later, Boca Raton designated Lake Boca Raton, even though the inlet was closed. Earliest Boca Raton inhabitants were the Tequestas, who lived near the ocean from 1000 A.D. until the eighteenth century. Construction of the Florida Intracoastal and the Florida East Coast Railway in the 1890s made the area accessible to settlers who organized a small farming community specializing in pineapple. This community included a group of Japanese immigrants who settled along what is now Yamato Road. The Morikami Museum and Japanese Garden in nearby Delray Beach is a spectacular tribute to the influence of this community on south Florida agriculture and history. The Town of Boca Raton was incorporated in 1925 at the height of the Florida land boom. The town council commissioned architect Addison Mizner to plan a world-class resort community. Mizner is best known as the founder and inspiration for the Spanish and Mediterranean Revival style. His hotel, the Cloister Inn, today houses a landmark resort. Although the Mizner city plan for early Boca Raton did not survive the crash of 1929, some of his buildings stand today and his architectural style continues to influence Boca Raton and south Florida. One Mizner project was the Boca Raton City Hall. Completed in 1927 Delray architect William Alsmeyer, Old Town Hall stands at 71 North Federal Highway. True to the Mizner footprint for the building, Boca Raton City Hall was constructed using ironwork, tile, and woodwork supplied by Mizner Industries. Today the restored Town Hall is home to the Boca Raton Historical Society. At the outset of World War II, the Army Air Corps established a radar training school on the site of today's Boca Raton Airport. The school brought thousands of servicemen, along with their families and civilian employees, to Boca Raton, which had a pre-war population of less than 800. During the South Florida land boom of between 1960 and 1970, Florida Atlantic University located at the Army Corps airbase, and IBM built a computer facility in Boca Raton, where the first IBM PC was designed. During the 1980s and 1990s, the city focused its attention on downtown redevelopment, the City of Boca Raton approved a master plan under the authority of Boca Raton's Community Redevelopment Agency. The Agency's master plans for roads, landscaping and infrastructure, marked the Boca Raton downtown as an attractive destination for residents and tourists. At the same time, historical sites including the town hall and F.E.C. Railway Station were restored and opened to the public, while the Boca Raton Museum of Art and other cultural facilities were established. Subsequently, a public-private partnership developed Mizner Park, a mixed use residential, commercial and cultural center, and a magnet for downtown visitors. The Mizner Park grounds are landscaped with decorative walkways and fountains. In addition to restaurants and theaters, Mizner Park’s amphitheater anchors the development and draws traffic with free year-round concerts and family oriented events. Also, improvements on Palmetto Park Road created a pedestrian-friendly promenade with paved sidewalks, tree-lined walkways, and benches.
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