VINTAGE SURFBOARDS DISPLAYED
Florida Surfing Museum moves to Lake Park location.
LAKE PARK — A collection of vintage surfboards and iconic photos that document the rich history of surfing in Palm Beach County has found a new home.
The Florida Surfing Museum has moved from Delray Beach to 738 Park Ave. in Lake Park in the same plaza as the Kelsey Theater and The Brewhouse Gallery.
The nonprofit continues to have an exhibit at the Sandoway House Nature Center in Delray.
“We wanted to preserve surfing history from the dust bin of time,” Fred Salmon, trustee for the Palm Beach County Surfing History Project, explained as he gave a tour of the museum’s new home.
The Surfing History Project started in 2008 as an effort to preserve 5,000 photos that M.E. Gruber — informally known as the barefoot mailman — took on the fair beaches of Palm Beach County from 1965 to 1972, Salmon said. After Gruber died, Salmon became the curator of his collection and needed help digitizing the slides.
The collection has grown to include at least 20 surfboards that are important to the sport’s evolution but not sought after by collectors. In other words, without the museum, they would disappear.
The museum’s collec tion includes the longboard Jupiter’s Kristy Murphy used when she became Palm Beach Count y’s first World Professional Surfing Champion in 2004 at Ocean Beach in San Diego, vintage Nomad surfboards made in Briny Breezes, the first Sidewinder sold by Holmesy Surfboards in Juno Beach, and one of the first 84 boards Hobi Alter shaped and “glassed” in his garage. Alter’s board that dates to 1953 is made of balsa wood.
The Surfing History Project in 2014 acquired the “Surfing Florida: A Photographic History” exhibit that had belonged to Florida Atlantic University.
T-shirts with the logos of surf clubs that were once active are for sale. A $5 donation is requested of museum visitors. Hours are noon to 5 p.m. Thursday through Saturday or by appointment.