Louis D. Hilihouse had settled on the shores of the lake called Lake Worth by 1886. He was a clerk in Breisford Brothers’ store, and was probably renting a room from them.
Hillhouse homesteaded land on the west side of the lake, opposite the store, going to work by boat. His neighbors on the north were Capt. and Mrs. O.S. Porter, who later gave him 30/100th acre off the edge of their land for his use as a roadway. Of his original homestead of 160 acres, he sold 49 acres to W.S. Clow in 1892 for $2,450.
Hillhouse was listed as an 1891 taxpayer in Dade County, which at that time extended from St. Lucie Inlet on the north to Biscayne Bay on the south. He was one of the contributors to the building of the first church in Dade County, Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church.
In 1893, Hillhouse sold his land to Henry M. Flagler for $10,000. His neighbor, Porter, sold his too, and these two properties formed the beginning site of the town of West Palm Beach.
Louis D. Hillhouse married Tessie Harrison of Benton Harbor, Michigan, in 1894. He died 9 February 1909 at Colorado Springs, Colorado, at age fifty.
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