Housing development, West Palm Beach, Florida (© Paul Nicklen/Corbis)

【May 18 2014】Despite Florida's early role in European settlement of the New World, the town of West Palm Beach wasn't established until the late 1800s, nearly 400 years after Spanish explorers first landed in Florida. The massive swamps and wetlands on the western edges of the city shaped West Palm Beach's expansion for decades. Urban growth stretched north and south, leaving the east-west corridor just a few blocks wide. It wasn't until the 1960s that the community expanded west, when new technology allowed developers to drain much of the swampland.Explore breathtaking Gallery from the HuluTrip homepage over the past 5 years..