Deerfield Beach’s history dates to 1890 when a small settlement named Hillsborough was developed along the Hillsboro River. As the population grew to 20 by 1898, the settlement was now served by its own post office and the town was named Deerfield for the deer that grazed along the river.

        When the first non-native glimpsed at the swamps, dense vines, saw palmetto, wild fig trees, cabbage palms, and pine groves along Hillsboro River which empties into the Atlantic. To the south, Key West and Miami were flourishing villages. To the north, Palm Beach was gaining renown as a fashionable winter resort. By 1890, a few houses appeared along the meandering Hillsboro River, which was named after the Earl of Hillsborough who was granted this land by King George III of England in the late eighteenth century. By the spring of 1896, Henry M. Flagler had extended his Florida East Coast Railroad down the coastline into Miami. The railroad opened up the tropical wilderness, pressing parallel against the Atlantic shore, which until then had been inhabited primarily by local fauna and Seminole Indians who lived inland.