The Wesleyan preacher James Vowles arrived in Port Antonio as a Christian missionary and died from a fever a few months later.
Port Antonio was a sleepy coastal town until the 1880s, when Lorenzo Dow Baker started the banana trade in Jamaica and successfully promoted Port Antonio as a destination for wealthy American travelers. "Portie" became a "boom town". The banana trade, and the tourists who came in the banana boats, was once so large that at one time, weekly sailing from Port Antonio was greater than weekly sailing from the great English port of Liverpool.
The island was glamorized by Hollywood movies such as Club Paradise and Cocktail. The movie star Errol Flynn Zaca washed ashore in Jamaica after a tropical storm. He subsequently bought nearby Navy Island, part of British historic Fort George in Port Antonio as well as hundreds of acres of farmland along the Portland coast.
Many members of royal families, movie stars, great musicians, and well-known politicians have visited Port Antonio
