About this publication
The Space Coast got its name from the rockets. The citrus groves came first.
Before the rockets, Brevard County lived on fish and fruit from a 156-mile lagoon. Before the groves, the Spanish found the Ais on the Indian River. This publication covers that history, and the space age that came after it.
Old Space Coast is a regional history network for Brevard County, Florida. Eight sites, one county. This hub covers the region as a whole. Seven city-specific publications go deeper: Old Cape Canaveral, Old Cocoa, Old Cocoa Beach, Old Melbourne, Old Palm Bay, Old Rockledge, and Old Titusville. Each article names, in its text, the records it draws on.
What you'll find here
Accounts of things that happened and why. The two freezes of 1894-95, when Titusville recorded 18°F and 19°F and the groves died to the ground. The railroad from Enterprise that made Titusville the gateway to the Indian River in 1885. Bumper 8, the first rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, in July 1950. The decade the county doubled, from 111,435 people in 1960 to 230,006 in 1970, and the 1970s, when its boom towns barely grew.
What you won't find
AI summaries of other people's reporting. "10 things you didn't know" formats. Unnamed experts. Press releases restated as history. Sponsored content. Any article that couldn't tell you what archive it came from.
Corrections are welcome. If a date is wrong, a name is misspelled, or a source no longer says what we claim, write to us.
The eight cities
Each city has its own publication.
This hub covers what crosses city lines. The city sites cover what happened inside them.
- Old Cape Canaveral The lighthouse, the cape and its keepers before the rockets, and the launches that came after.
- Old Cocoa Steamboats, citrus and the river town across from Merritt Island.
- Old Cocoa Beach The barrier-island town beside the Cape: the pier, the motels, the surf.
- Old Melbourne Crane Creek, Eau Gallie and the south end of the county's river towns.
- Old Palm Bay Turkey Creek and the town that became Brevard's largest city.
- Old Rockledge One of the premier winter resorts on Florida's east coast in the 1880s, and its river-bluff hotels.
- Old Titusville County seat since 1879. The railroad's first Indian River terminus in 1885. The Moores of Mims.
- Old Space Coast this site The regional hub. Everything that crosses city lines: the lagoon, the FEC Railroad, the freezes, the Apollo era, the ecological collapse.