IN EARLY 1900’s JUPITER KIDS RODE A SCHOOLBUS BOAT

Posted by zzz - Lorea Thomson

| Realtor

Updated on August 14th, 2014

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Published in Communities

The population of the Jupiter area was 145. In 1905 Reverend Dr. Charles P. Jackson started an elementary school for the children of Neptune (Jupiter).  Neptune was the designation for the area and the post office along the Florida East Coast Railroad.   Lighthouse keeper, James Armour, opened the Jupiter Post Office during 1884.  After three years of inactivity, Mary Moore Carlin reopened the Post Office in 1887 at the Jupiter Lifesaving Station, where her husband, Charles Carlin was the keeper.

The good people of this area converted a lifeboat from the battleship U.S.S. Maine and it served as a “school bus” for the children.  Later a ferry service across the Loxahatchee River transported the children until a bridge replaced it in 1911 when a two-story school added grades seven through ten.  West Palm Beach was the closet town for students to complete high school for many years to come.  

Local children are heading back to school.  Please keep your eyes open for children in the crosswalks!