Morikami Museum & Japanese Gardens

Visitors are often intrigued to learn of a unique century-old connection between Japan and South Florida. In the early 1900s, a group of young Japanese farmers sought to transform Florida’s agricultural landscape by establishing a pioneering community.

In 1904, Jo Sakai, a recent graduate of New York University, returned to his hometown of Miyazu, Japan, where he recruited fellow visionaries to join him in America. With the support of the Model Land Company—a subsidiary of Henry Flagler’s East Coast Railroad—the settlers established a farming colony in what is now northern Boca Raton. They named it Yamato, an ancient poetic term for Japan.

Despite their ambition, the colony faced many challenges. Experimental crops yielded limited success, and by the 1920s the community never grew beyond 30 to 35 residents. Gradually, families moved away—some to other parts of the United States, others back to Japan—bringing the Yamato Colony’s bold dream to a quiet close.