Charles A. Woodruff, born in Madison, Tennessee, near Nashville, came to Florida in 1888. He settled in Juno at the north end of Lake Worth. Before long, he traveled to Birmingham, Alabama, where he married Florence 0. Robinson and brought her back to Juno.
Charley was well liked and respected in the community of Juno, the county seat of Dade County from 1889 to 1899. He built a general store and post office in 1891 and became the postmaster. The building was at Juno Inlet where little Lake Worth and big Lake Worth meet.
Charley homesteaded 47 acres on the ridge by the Celestial Railroad, just north of the future Seminole Golf Club clubhouse. Florence planted coconut trees and had a garden, and Charley kept bees.
When Henry M. Flagler bypassed Juno with his Florida East Coast railroad, people began moving south to West Palm Beach, and so did the Woodruffs. Charley moved his store building on a barge, pulled by a steamboat, down the lake. He located the building on the southeast corner of Banyan Street and Olive Avenue, across the street from the railroad depot, and opened for business. In 1905, he moved the building again, this time to First Street and Dixie Highway. He took on a line of fertilizers and, in 1920, sold the business to Hector Supply Company.
Charley and Florence had seven children, the first two born in Juno and the last five in West Palm Beach. They were: Mabel Woodruff Shore (Mrs. Fred), Charles H. Woodruff, Myrtle A. Woodruff Mahathey (Mrs. George), E.D. Woodruff, Gladys Woodruff Curtis (Mrs. Louis), E.N. Woodruff and Alvin L. Woodruff. They lived in a house near the northwest corner of First Street and Dixie Highway, across from the store.
Charley died in 1935 and Florence in 1946.
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