The town of Lake Clarke Shores was named after John Newton Clarke, a general store grocer and postmaster at the post office in Lake Worth (now known as Lake Worth Beach) who filed a homestead claim in 1897 for an area of land on the eastern shore of a lake situated just west of West Palm Beach. Clarke would later name the lake after himself. He also purchased of land in West Palm Beach near where Hillcrest Cemetery and Parker Avenue stand today. Attempting to capitalize on the promising pineapple growing business, Clarke used the property for growing pineapples and operating a packinghouse. However, the thriving pineapple business in South Florida suffered extensive loses in 1910 and the completion Henry Flagler's railway to Key West in 1912 allowed pineapples from Cuba to be shipped to the northern United States more cost-effectively than from Florida. Clarke and many others in South Florida abandoned the pineapple industry by 1915. Thereafter, Clarke used the land as a fishing retreat. However, Lake Clarke, which had stretched from State Road 84 (Southern Boulevard) to the city of Lake Worth, was reduced to a marsh and fell about in height in 1917 upon completion of the West Palm Beach Canal.