Follow
This project is for those who were born, lived or died in Brevard County, Florida.
Official Website
The county is named for Theodorus Washington Brevard. It is located on the central east coast of Florida, and is known as the Space Coast due to the large presence of The Kennedy Space Center.
History
During the 19th century, the state of Florida was constantly changing the names and borders of counties. St. Lucie County was split off from Mosquito County in 1844. St. Lucie County was renamed Brevard County in 1855 after Theodore Washington Brevard, who served as Florida Comptroller from 1854 to 1860. This "Brevard County" contained very little of present-day Brevard County. Most of present-day Brevard north of Melbourne was part of either Volusia or Orange counties. Brevard County in 1856 extended as far west as Polk County and as far south as coastal Dade County. Complicating the discussion of Brevard County in the 19th century is that the boundaries have shifted such that the southernmost parts of present-day Brevard, were originally the northernmost parts. The original county seat was located at Susannah, an early name for present day Fort Pierce. Later the southern part of Brevard split off to form a new county, St. Lucie County in 1905. Gradually, the borders of Brevard County were shifted northward while the county got "pinched" eastward.[9] The portions of Brevard County in present-day Broward and Palm Beach counties were given to Dade County, western areas of the county were given to Polk and Osceola County, and parts of Volusia and Orange Counties were given to Brevard including the eventual county seat of Titusville. Later, the southern portion of the county was cut off to form St. Lucie County, which in turn spawned Martin and Indian River County.
The first permanent settlement in present-day Brevard was established near Cape Canaveral in 1848. After the establishment of a lighthouse, a few families moved in and a small, but stable settlement was born. Gradually, as the threat of Seminole Indian attacks became increasingly unlikely, European Americans began to move into the area around the Indian River. In the 1850s a small community developed at Sand Point, which eventually became the city of Titusville. Unlike other areas of Florida, the American Civil War had little effect on Brevard County, other than perhaps to slow the movement of settlers to the area.
In 1864, the county seat was moved to Bassvile, an area presently in Osceola County on the southeast shore of Lake Tohopekaliga. In 1874, the county seat was moved to Eau Gallie. Then in 1875 the seat was moved to Lake View.
In 1870, the Barber–Mizell feud erupted due to resentment over Reconstruction, a boundary dispute with Orange County, and cattle taxation.
By the 1880s, the cities along the Indian River included Melbourne, Eau Gallie, Titusville, Rockledge, and Cocoa. Unlike cities further inland in Florida, these cities did not have to rely as heavily on roads. The primary way of transversing the county was by water. In 1877 commercial steamboat transportation became a reality as the steamboat Pioneer was brought to the area.
The first real boom to the area occurred with the extension of Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast Railroad into the area. The railroad reached Titusville in 1886 and Melbourne in 1894. With the railroad came increased settlement and the first tourists.
In 1895, the first library in Brevard County was established in Cocoa as a community effort undertaken by the women of Cocoa. In 1959, after five libraries had been established in Brevard County, Florida Statute 150 was put into effect to provide public funding to these libraries in recognition that they would serve all residents in Brevard County. In the 1960s, the number of libraries in the county increased to 9. Further funding was secured for the Brevard County Library System in 1972 through a public vote establishing a Library Tax District. As the area's population grew, the number of libraries in the county nearly doubled in the following 50 years.
The advent of the automobile age brought accelerated growth to Brevard County as resorts and hotels were developed all around the county. As the automobile became increasingly important as a means of transportation, roads were built connecting Brevard County to the rest of Florida, and ultimately the rest of the nation. Ferries provided the first connections across the rivers, and were replaced by wooden bridges in the early 20th century. They had gates to allow the passage of boats through the waterways.
The first major land boom began in the 1920s after the end of World War I. People flooded into the state of Florida, both tourists from northern winters and new full-time residents, and land prices soared. The Great Depression temporarily stopped growth in Florida. Before the start of World War II, the largest industries in Brevard were commercial fishing, citrus, and tourism.
In 1926, ten white men lynched a black man in Eau Gallie. This was the last person lynched in the county. The perpetrators were never brought to justice.
In 1940, the government built Naval Air Station Banana River (now Patrick Space Force Base). This military installation was the first of major federal investment in projects to aid the development of Brevard County. The federal government also funded construction of what is now Florida State Road A1A, paralleling the ocean and providing vehicle access to the NAS. It funded the replacement of the three wooden bridges connecting the mainland to the barrier island with concrete ones. The wooden bridges had still accommodated both horses and wagons, and automobiles. The Melbourne-Eau Gallie airport was given $5 million in upgrades to become a major regional airport.
In 1941, wartime forced blackouts along the coast. Submarines were using lights from shore to outline targeted ships.
As in the rest of the state and most of the South, blacks in the county were largely disenfranchised and oppressed by Jim Crow conditions, but beginning to organize to restore their constitutional rights. Beginning in the 1930s, Harry T. Moore was a civil rights leader, teacher, and founder of the Brevard County NAACP. After the war he became president of the state NAACP. After the Supreme Court had ruled in 1944 that white primaries were unconstitutional, he conducted voter registration drives and succeeded in registering 31% of black voters in Florida, a higher percentage than in any other southern state. The white establishment resisted, firing both him and his wife Harriette in 1946 from their teaching positions as economic blackmail against them because of their activism. On Christmas night, 1951, a bomb exploded under their home, in Mims, fatally injuring both of them. The murders were racially motivated and believed committed by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Four separate investigations were conducted, including the first by the FBI in 1951–1952, and the last in 2005 by the state. No one was ever prosecuted.
In the late 1950s, the government opened the Long Range Proving Ground. This later became the Kennedy Space Center. This helped stimulate development in the county; where Brevard had once been considered a "backwoods" area of Florida, it attracted more educated workers and scientists associated with the program. What had once been a primarily low-tech farmer/fisherman economy was transformed into a high-tech engineering and computer economy.
New residents in the 1960s found local retailing unappealing and drove to nearby Orlando to shop. Locals were concerned that the construction of malls would draw off business and lead to the disintegration of the Cocoa, Melbourne and Titusville downtowns. This did happen, but the downtown areas have been revived in the 21st century based on their historic assets and pedestrian scale.
While the county was technically habitable, it was overrun by mosquitoes much of the year in the wet areas covering a great portion of its territory. Mosquitoes were controlled in 1950 by widespread use of the insecticide, DDT, which was banned in the late 20th century because of its adverse environmental effects. Reducing mosquitoes resulted in more residents being attracted to the county. When DDT became illegal, more environmentally-friendly insecticides and other mosquito-control methods were used.
In 1982, Windover Archaeological Site was discovered. Windover is a muck pond where skeletal remains of 168 individuals were found buried in the peat at the bottom of the pond. The skeletons were well preserved because of the peat. In addition, remarkably well-preserved brain tissue has been recovered from many skulls from the site. DNA from the brain tissue has been sequenced. The collection of human skeletal remains and artifacts recovered from Windover Pond represent among the largest finds of each type from the Archaic Period. It is considered one of the most important archeological sites ever excavated.
As the county is long, rather than wide, people in the southern, more populous side of the county complained about being so distant from the county seat. The county seat of Titusville was 50 miles from Palm Bay, the most populous city in the county. Residents in the southern end of the county talked of creating a new county to serve them. The county decided to build a new county administration complex at Viera, near the geographical center of the county. This complex was started in 1989. Residents in the north also threatened secession. Their proposal to form a new county, to be called Playalinda, had some momentum in the early 1990s. The county made a few concessions to the people in the northern part of the county, and agreed not to officially move the county seat. Since construction of the new center, Viera has been for all intents and purposes the de facto seat of Brevard County.
During the summer of 1998, some of the worst brush fires on record broke out and could not be controlled.70,000 acres (110 sq mi) were burned. Prior to property managers instituting controlled burns, the county forests and pastures had burned for months during the dry season.
But, from the 1940s to the 1970s, the state assumed control of burning in order to prevent uncontrolled fires. It also developed a policy of controlled burns based on more understanding of fire's role in the state's environment. In 2006, the state burned a record 72,065 acres (112.602 sq mi) in the county. Because of Florida's dry winters and lush vegetation, the fire threat is always high. Only California surpasses Florida in the number of fires fought by the state Forest Service, and none set so many controlled fires.
Adjacent Counties
Cities, Towns & Communities
Angel City | Aurantia | Barefoot Bay | Bellwood | Canaveral Groves | Cape Canaveral | Cocoa | Cocoa Beach | Cocoa West | Courtenay | Eau Gallie | Floridana Beach | Georgiana | Grant | Indialantic | Indian Harbor Beach | Indianola | June Park | Kennedy Space Center | Lotus | Malabar | Melbourne | Melbourne Beach | Melbourne Shores | Melbourne Village | Merritt Island | Micco | Mims | Palm Bay | Palm Shores | Patrick AFB | Pineda | Port St. John | Rockledge | Satellite Beach | Scottsmoor | Sharpes | Shiloh | South Cocoa Beach | South Patrick Shores | Suntree | Titusville (County Seat) | Tropic | Valkaria | Viera | West Melbourne
Links
American Police Hall of Fame & Museum
American Space Museum & Walk of Fame
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
Central Instrumentation Facility
Kennedy Space Center Headquarters
Genealogy Resources
Brevard County Genealogical Society
North Brevard Genealogical Society
Genealogy Society of South Brevard
Central Florida Genealogical Society
Television & Movies filmed in Brevard County
Matinee (1993)
Apollo 13 (1995)
Contact (1997)
Armageddon (1998)
Moonraker (1979)
Marvin's Room (1996)
Nightmare (1981)
A Night in Heaven (1983)
Things Behind the Sun (2001)
Space Cowboys (2000)
Jaws 3-D (1983)
The Number 23 (2007)
I'll Believe You (2006)
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
The Cape (TV: 1996-1997)
From the Earth To the Moon (TV: 1998)
I Dream of Jeannie (TV: 1965-1970)
