Pahokee is a city located on the shore of Lake Okeechobee in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. The population was 5,524 in the 2020 census. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, 57% of the residents of Pahokee were African American and 33% were Hispanic or Latino. In 2018, the Mayor, Kenneth W. Babb, as well as the four members of the City Commission were all African American. History Pahokee was incorporated in 1922. The name "Pahokee" means "grassy waters" in the Creek language. Local residents refer to Pahokee as "The Muck", which signifies the mineral-rich dark soil in which sugar cane, citrus fruits, and corn are grown by agribusinesses. In the 1930s, it was known as the "Winter Vegetable Capital of the World". The city was severely affected, as were the other communities to the south of the lake, by the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane. Hurricane Wilma, in 2005, destroyed a newly built marina. Economy Pahokee was founded on the produce grown in the muck, the fertile bottom of the Everglades after part of it was drained in the early 20th century. In 1939, the Federal Writers' Project guide said of Pahokee: "From Christmas until April, Pahokee is a 24-hour town; long trains of refrigerated cars roll out for northern markets day and night." "The streets are noisy and crowded; bars, restaurants and gambling places are never closed." In 1963, with access to Cuban sugar restricted, a sugar plant was built, and agriculture shifted to the mechanized crop of sugar cane. The plant closed in 2009. As a result, it is one of two Palm Beach County cities—the other is South Bay—on a list of 13 Florida municipalities in "a state of financial emergency." Records suggest it has been on the list continually since 1994. Unemployment exceeds 25%. Taxable property values dropped from about $99 million in 2007 to $66 million in 2014. A fifth of the population has migrated in the past 15 years. Dissolution of the city has been proposed. On November 15, 1996, the old Pahokee High School building, built in 1928, was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Everglades Regional Medical Center Everglades Regional Medical Center, at 200 S. Barfield Highway was founded in 1936 as Everglades General Hospital; the current building opened in 1950. The 63-bed general hospital, financially nonviable, closed in 1998 after years of contention, a change from public to