Readers: Imagine building a bold new city, with great enthusiasm and hope, only to suffer, just two years in, two devastating fires just weeks apart.
On the day after New Year s Day 1896, a fire would burn down half of the downtown business section.
It broke out about 2 p.m. at what then was the center of town, around Narcissus and Banyan streets.
The corner sported a lunch room, a cigar and candy emporium, and saloons, as well as the drug store operated by Palm Beach pioneer Elisha Newton Cap Dimick.
An overheated gasoline stove exploded in the Midway Plaisance Saloon, a large wood building on the south side of Banyan Street. Soon the fire had spread to Narcissus Street, where developer and bottler George Zapf who would serve on the inaugural city commission had opened the Seminole Hotel in 1894.