IBM's Old Headquarters in Boca Raton, FL

In the late 1960s, Boca Raton became the southern home to the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). In 1965, well before the extension of I-95 into Southern Florida, IBM purchased several-hundred acres of real estate just west of the CSX rail line and northwest of Florida Atlantic University.Construction of IBM's main complex began in 1967, and the mammoth manufacturing and office complex was dedicated in March 1970. The campus was designed with self-sufficiency in mind, and to that end sported its own electrical substation, water pumping station, and rail-spur. Among other very noteworthy IT accomplishments, such as the mass manufacture of the System/360 and development of the Series/1 mainframe computers, IBM's main complex was the birthplace of the IBM PC, which later evolved into the IBM Personal System/2, developed in nearby Delray Beach. Starting in 1987, IBM relocated their manufacturing for what became the IBM PC division to Research Triangle Park in Raleigh, North Carolina, and converted the cavernous manufacturing facilities into offices and laboratories, later producing ground-breaking products such as the OS/2 operating system and VoiceType Dictation, known today as ViaVoice voice-recognition software.IBM maintained its facilities in the South Florida area until 1996, when the facility was closed and sold to Blue Lake Real Estate, who in turn sold it to the T-REX Management Consortium. Today, T-REX has revitalized the facility and its surrounding real estate into a highly-successful and landscaped business/research park.

What used to be IBM's Building 051, an annex separated from the former main IBM campus by Spanish River Boulevard was donated to the Palm Beach County School District and converted into Don Estridge High Tech Middle School. It is named for Don Estridge, whose team was responsible for developing the IBM PC. Estridge and wife Mary Ann were killed when the plane they were traveling on, Delta Air Lines Flight 191, crashed at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on August 2, 1985.

A very special thanks to Frank Taylor of Hollywood, FL for taking a road trip and the time to take these photos!

Vintage IBM 5150 is a division of skyline computers and is licensed in Anaconda,MT. Vintage IBM 5150 is in no way affiliated with IBM. All material copyright/trademark of there respectful owner. IBM is a copyright/trademark of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States