City: Lake Worth Beach   County: Palm Beach   Year: 2023
Location: 1724 12th Avenue South

When the City of Lake Worth incorporated in June 1913, it consisted of a post office, several stores, a church, bank, school, a newspaper, and around seven hundred residents, but no designated cemetery. Burials had to be conducted in the neighboring City of West Palm Beach or on private lots. In 1915, the city commission appointed a committee to find a suitable location for a municipal cemetery. The city acquired a 9.2-acre site immediately west of A Street between 9th Avenue South and 12th Avenue South for $920 later that year. The first recorded burial in the new cemetery occurred in July 1923. A month later, the city held a naming contest, choosing the name Pine Crest. In 1935, the American Legion requested the city designate Section 1 as a memorial plot for servicemen. The municipal cemetery was enlarged in 1949 and again in 1971. A cemetery office was built in 1955 and a maintenance shop was added in 1963. The cemetery allowed only white residents to be buried until its desegregation in 1970. Since then, burials have not been restricted based on race. A time capsule, buried on the grounds in 1976 by the Lake Worth Centennial Committee and the Lake Worth Civic Council, will be opened July 4, 2076.