Brevard County Florida Since 1848
The mainland citrus belt, the Indian River Lagoon, the barrier-island beaches, and the space program built the place we now call the Space Coast.
We cover the regional history that ties the eight cities together: the Ais the Spanish met on the Indian River, the first railroad reaching Titusville in 1885, the freezes of 1894-95, Bumper 8 at Cape Canaveral in 1950, the space boom, and the lagoon's 2011 superbloom.
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Eight cities. One county.
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About
What Old Space Coast means
What this site covers: the history of Brevard County that crosses town lines, from the Ais and Mosquito County through the railroads, the freeze, the Moores and the space boom, to the lagoon.
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County history
Why Titusville Is the County Seat (and Not Cocoa or Melbourne)
Brevard's county seat has been in Titusville since 1879, when voters chose it over Eau Gallie and Rockledge after Brevard annexed the town from Volusia County. Cocoa was never on the ballot, and Melbourne's piece of the story is Eau Gallie.
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County history
Mosquito County, 1824 to 1845, and the lagoon that kept the name
Florida's territorial council created Mosquito County on December 29, 1824. Its southern part became St. Lucie County in 1844, renamed Brevard in 1855; the rest became Orange County on January 30, 1845. The Mosquito Lagoon kept the old name.
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Civil rights
Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore, killed in Mims, Christmas 1951
On December 25, 1951, a bomb under their Mims home killed Harry T. Moore, Florida's NAACP leader, and his wife Harriette, who died nine days later. Nobody was charged. In 2006 Florida's attorney general named four Klansmen, all dead, as the likely bombers.
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Civil rights
Black history in Brevard County: what the state's records hold
St. James Colored Missionary Baptist Church in Mims, organized in 1894; the Mims Colored Cemetery, bought in 1913; the Brevard NAACP, founded in 1934; John Gilbert's 1938 equal-pay suit, the first in the South; and the 1951 bombing that killed Harry and Harriette Moore.
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Transportation
The Intracoastal Waterway through the Indian River: from toll canal to federal channel
The waterway that runs through Brevard's lagoons began as a private toll canal conceived in 1881. A 1920 federal survey called for a channel 8 feet deep and 70 feet wide; Congress authorized it in 1927, and the Florida Inland Navigation District was created that year to buy the old canal and sponsor the new one.
The eight cities
Each city has its own publication.
Seven city sites cover what happened inside their boundaries. This hub covers everything that crosses them.
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Old Cape Canaveral
The lighthouse, the cape and its keepers before the rockets.
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Old Cocoa
Steamboats, citrus and the river town across from Merritt Island.
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Old Cocoa Beach
The barrier-island town beside the Cape: the pier, the motels, the surf.
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Old Melbourne
Crane Creek, Eau Gallie and the south end of the county's river towns.
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Old Palm Bay
Turkey Creek and the town that became Brevard's largest city.
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Old Rockledge
One of the premier winter resorts on Florida's east coast in the 1880s.
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Old Titusville
The county seat since 1879, the railroad's first Indian River terminus, the Moores of Mims.
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Common questions about Space Coast history
- Where does the name "Space Coast" come from?
It came from advertising, not an official act. According to the State Archives of Florida, by the mid-1960s realtors and advertisers were widely using "space coast" for the Atlantic coast from roughly Daytona Beach to Fort Pierce. Before that the towns had slogans of their own: a brochure from about 1958 calls Titusville "the Missile City," Eau Gallie used "Gateway to the Space Program" and Cocoa Beach "Free World Space Center, U.S.A."
- What was the first rocket launched from Cape Canaveral?
Bumper 8, on July 24, 1950. It was a two-stage rocket: a captured German V-2 as the first stage and an American WAC Corporal as the second. According to NASA, the V-2 lifted off normally but heeled over to 10 degrees instead of the planned 22, and the WAC Corporal separated but failed to ignite. Bumper 7 flew five days later, on July 29, and its upper stage reached more than 3,200 miles an hour.
- Who is Brevard County named after?
Theodore Washington Brevard, a North Carolinian who was Florida's comptroller from 1853 to 1861. The county already existed when it got his name: it was created on March 14, 1844, as St. Lucie County, from the southern part of Mosquito County, and the legislature renamed it Brevard in 1855, according to the National Park Service's history of Titusville.
- How did the 1894-95 Great Freeze affect Brevard?
Two freezes six weeks apart killed Florida's orange groves. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recorded 18°F at Titusville on December 29, 1894, and 19°F on February 8, 1895, after a January warm spell had pushed the trees into new growth. In Rockledge most owners of small groves were ruined and the population fell from about 400 to about 272 by 1900, but by 1900 Brevard was again one of Florida's leading citrus counties as growers from North Florida moved south.