Elisha Newton "Cap" Dimick (April 24, 1849 – January 6, 1919) was an American politician and pioneer of modern-day Palm Beach County, Florida.

Dimick built his residence there in the late 1870s, and in 1880, converted it to the Cocoanut Grove House, then the only hotel between Key West and Titusville.

Although many of the Dimicks and Geers began farming in the state to support themselves, they sought a climate more favorable to a year-round production of crops.

In September 1876, the Dimicks and Geers arrived at the shores of the Lake Worth Lagoon, where they quickly cleared land and constructed a home within three weeks.

[6] Although the early settling families in the Lake Worth Lagoon region produced sufficient amounts of bananas, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes, among other crops, by 1878,[5]: 15  shipping fruits and vegetables to other markets in the United States proved difficult and less profitable than expected due to the area's primitive infrastructure.

Consequently, Dimick sought other sources of income,[5]: 2–3  while his brother, Frank, sister-in-law, Anna, and their children relocated to North Carolina in 1880.

[8] Early on, the Cocoanut Grove House became a center of social activity for the fledgling community, such as hosting a Christmas picnic starting in 1880 and several fundraisers for churches and schools.

[5]: 26  An advertisement in the Florida Star newspaper in the early 1880s noted the Cocoanut Grove House charged a fee of $1.50 per night, while weekly and monthly rates were negotiable.

However, in late 1893, a fire burned down the hotel,[7] which Palm Beach County circuit judge James R. Knott later recalled started because a construction foreman smoked while in bed.

Due to a lack of indoor plumbing, each room included a chamber pot and pitchers, although eventually an exterior bathhouse was built.

[11] By the 1900s decade, George Potter, formerly a county surveyor who mapped and surveyed the original 48 blocks of West Palm Beach in 1893, became president of the bank,[13] which moved into a different building around 1903.

In 2018, city commissioners approved a proposal to add the structure to the West Palm Beach Registry of Historic Buildings.

By then, Dimick and his nephew, Harvey Geer, began developing land from just north of modern-day Royal Poinciana Way to just south of the present-day Worth Avenue.

[5]: 72  The Royal Park subdivision also included a shopping area where the Palm Beach Town Hall stands today.

[5]: 76 However, the company experienced challenges with transporting equipment and materials across the Lake Worth Lagoon, as the only structure spanning the waterway, Flagler's railroad bridge, required special permission for vehicular use.

Mizner went on to become one of the most notable architects in Palm Beach, designing many structures, starting in 1918 with a hospital for World War I soldiers that later became the Everglades Club.

[5]: 75–76  Within three years of hiring Green, the Palm Beach Improvement Company sold all of its lots in the Royal Park Addition.

[18] Dimick returned to political office in 1896 after being elected to the Florida Senate's 13th district, located within the contemporary boundaries of Brevard and Dade counties.

[5]: 62  A bill making insanity a legal justification for divorce was approved by the legislature and Governor William Sherman Jennings in 1901 and Flagler soon re-married to Mary Lily Kenan.

[24] During his final term as state senator, Dimick along with Thomas Tipton "T. T." Reese, Harry Redifer, and Enoch Root sought improvements to the allegedly unsanitary and unsightly area known as the Styx, a section of Palm Beach reserved for black workers at Flagler's hotels.

They first discussed the matter with the West Palm Beach Board of Trade in January 1904, while Dimick later spoke with the state health officer.

This eventually led to local officials demolishing the Styx by 1912, with many of the residents relocating to the West Palm Beach neighborhoods of Northwest and Pleasant City.

[5]: 68 A 1910 profile on Dimick in The Tampa Tribune stated that his knowledge of "subjects of greatest import qualifies him to exchange views with the most cultured and intelligent".

[27] Consequently, members of the Property Owners Association of Palm Beach relayed this information to Louis Semple Clarke and Dimick, the organization's president, and urged them to seek an attorney to draft incorporation papers.

Starting with no money in the treasury, the town borrowed $100 from the Property Owners Association of Palm Beach and officials quickly levied taxes, with an increasing millage rate at least through 1914.

[3] Throughout 1918, Dimick's health deteriorated, and on December 26, medical staff at Johns Hopkins University diagnosed him with oral cancer.

Harold Stirling Vanderbilt convinced residents to donate land on the north side of the town hall, while Palm Beach Daily News publisher Oscar G. Davies solicited contributions totaling about $29,000.