History · Wellington

Wellington’s history is
mostly unwritten

The public archives hold no old photos of Wellington. The rest are in attics, shoeboxes and the historical society. Help start the collection.

1972established
0old images & papers
30recent photos

The story

from WikipediaRead it all ↗

In the 1950s, Charles Oliver Wellington, an accountant from Massachusetts, purchased about 18,000 acres (73 km2) of central Palm Beach County swampland located south of Florida State Road 80 (locally known as Southern Boulevard) and west of U.S. Route 441. Wellington named the property Flying Cow Ranch, due to his other occupation as an aviator and his initials spelling the word "cow". The ranch became protected against floodwaters from the Everglades after the United States Army Corps of Engineers constructed a levee to the south of the property between 1952 and 1953. Following his death in 1959, his son Roger inherited the property. The family sold 1,200 acres (4.9 km2) at $300 per acre to Arthur William "Bink" Glisson, Charles' agent. Glisson sold the land for $1,000 per acre within the following several months. Many other farmers began purchasing or leasing portions of the Flying Co…

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

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The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Wellington’s history is told.

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National Register of Historic Places

Nothing in Wellington is on the National Register yet

That’s true of most small towns. It doesn’t mean Wellington has no history, only that no one has written up a nomination. The closest listed place is Vedado Historic District in West Palm Beach, 12.7 miles away.

How a place gets listed

1Talk to the stateEvery nomination goes through the State Historic Preservation Office. Owners, towns and historical societies can start one.
2Try a local or state list firstMany states keep their own register with a shorter form, a common first step for old barns, halls and schoolhouses.
3Write it upA nomination covers the history, photos and a map. Vedado Historic District’s page links to a real one.
Know an old place in Wellington?A mill, a schoolhouse, a cellar hole, a church: add a photo of it to Wellington’s story, or a memory of it.
📷 Add a photo of an old place
National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places · photos from Wikimedia Commons

Then & now

When neighbors add old photos, retakes from the same spot appear here side by side.

From Wikimedia Commons (30). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.

The coffee’s on

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Boundary source: https://tigerweb.geo.census.gov/arcgis/rest/services/TIGERweb/Places_CouSub_ConCity_SubMCD/MapServer/18 · 2025-01-01