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Brevard County, Florida : A Short History to 1955
by John M. Eriksen                                     
Format: Amazon Kindle, Tablet, Smartphone, PC

This is an awesome 242-page history of Brevard County, home of NASA's Kennedy Space Center and launch complex for the Space Shuttle.		== View Excerpts of the Book
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    Would you like to go back in time when life was more in tune with the natural surroundings? Within these pages you'll be transported to a pristine land filled with opportunity and meet those who sought a new life in a far-away place called Indian River Country. These pages capture the original beauty and abundance of raw nature so starkly contrasted by today's development, and how that raw beauty was developed for a growing population. Original research from special collection libraries and rare papers conveys the early struggles and fights among factions within a vast polictical area of nearly 7000 square miles--old Brevard county.

  Thoroughly documented with 320 end notes which cover 1000 sources.

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"... a well-researched account of Brevard's emergence from prehistory into the space age offers many lessons to those who hope to shape a bright future for a unique community."   -- former U.S. Congressman Jim Bacchus

"Brevard County, Florida: A Short History to 1955 enhances existing scholarship, is more detailed in its information...Eriksen's book is extremely well documented and utilizes a large number of primary sources such as manuscript collections, oral histories, and public documents. His list of secondary sources is equally exhaustive."   -- Melissa Williford Euziere, from a Master of Arts Thesis submitted to      The Florida State University College of Arts and Sciences

"Very interesting. It's good to see people doing detailed research like this on parts of our country. We can learn a lot from history, especially when it's so well presented as this."   -- Ronald W. Hull       Author of The Kaleidoscope Effect, War's End, American Mole: The Vespers, and Alone?

                
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Table of Contents
 

  FIRST LAND/ FIRST LIFE p.11
  THE FIRST SPANISH PERIOD p.16
    LOS MOSQUITOS IN THE 14th COLONY (1763—1783) p.24
    THE TERRITORIAL PERIOD (1821—1844) p.30
    EAST CENTRAL FLORIDA IN THE 27TH STATE (1845—860) Part One p.43
    BREVARD COUNTY IN THE CONFEDERATE STATES p.48
    A WILDERNESS INVADED The Indian River Country and Beyond (1865—1879) p.51
    GROWING FAME OF INDIAN RIVER COUNTRY (1880—1892) p.69
    THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN BREVARD (1893—1905) p.90
    MODERN BREVARD (1906—1920) Mechanized Development p.104
    THE BOOM YEARS (1920—1930) p.117
    THE BUST AND THE NEW DEAL (1931—1938) p.128
    THE EFFECTS OF WAR Preparation and Support of the Mission (1939—1945) p.137
    THE SPACE AGE AND THE POST WAR BOOM (1950—1955) p.152

    Endnotes (320 numbered notes)

    Manuscript Collections

    Newspapers

    Public Documents

    Interviews and letters

    Secondary Materials (Bibliography)

    List of Maps

                                                                                                                  

Highlights

  Treasure fleets and sunken treasures of gold and silver
  Fishing and hunting at its best
  Old towns, roads and trails
  The roots of Florida’s Indian River Citrus industry
  The nation’s first wildlife sanctuary
  The famous “real McCoy” brothers
  The nation’s first multi-stage rocket launch
  The Cape’s first commander (USAF Colonel) spots UFOs
  Approx. 1000 sources within 320 numbered end notes
   Bibliography of 150 source books
   Many maps, photos and sketches
   Easy to read layout in Kindle, tablet, or smartphone formats

   Synopsis of the Book

Chapter 1 - Geologic history - 12,000 BC - First people arrive on peninsula - Archaeologist find bones of prehistoric beast and early man in areas of early drainage and road   building projects - Windover people discovered south of Titusville (DNA preserved from 5500 BC) - Indian River Lagoon Begins to form about 8000 BC - Indian mounds: refuse middens and burial mounds - First people on Florida's east coast: Timucua, Ais, Jeaga, Tekesta - 1605 Spanish map of Indian River Lagoon Chapter 2 - Spanish slave hunts - Juan Ponce de Leon makes first continental landfall at Melbourne Beach, Naming of La Florida - Florida's first transportation route: the Gulf Stream. Cape Canaveral and Turtle Mound's importance   to the Gulf Stream route - Ribaut and Menendez and the first east coast settlements - Intermittent inlets: a short overview - Story of Jonathan Dickinson (namesake of J.D. State Park near Jupiter) - The famous 1715 fleet shipwrecks Chapter 3 - East Florida was Britain's 14th colony - The Bartrams explore Florida's first inland transportation route: the St. Johns River - The largest single colonization effort in early pre-U.S. history: Turnbull's colony of New Smyrna - The first crackers, Seminoles, runaways - The purchase of Florida from Spain - 1837 Williams map of East Florida (early place names, inlets) - Seminole war map, first road: 1838 Hernandez Trail - 1856 Ives map showing Hernandez Trail Chapter 4 - 1824 Mosquito County - the bulk of east Florida  - Douglas Dummett - father of the famous Indian River citrus industry - 2nd Seminole war, first steamboats on Indian River & St. Johns, creation of Hernandez Trail, Plans    for Haulover canal and opening of the Intracoastal waterway - Indian River Colony of 1842: the first U.S. colony below St. Augustine - Mills Olcutt Burnham, first career lighthouse keeper - 1844 map of Indian River Inlet, early entrance to Indian River - Map of original Brevard County 1855 Chapter 5 - Family history of the Brevards - Early Manatee hunters / wildlife depletion - Civil War: salt making Chapter 6 - Gov. Gleason's travels by boat -  - Henry Titus, founder of Titusville, early route to Sand Point - Gleason's early canal projects - Dr. Hawks: description of early boat routes, Merritt's Island, Indian River - Courthouse history - The developing Indian River Country: The lure for steamboats, tourists, and agriculture - Early map of original Haulover Canal - Early map of Indian River showing original homesteaders of 1880s Chapter 7 - 1880 descriptions of Wildlife and scenery of today's Kennedy Space Center terrain - The first steamboats on the Indian River - Oleander Point: Annual meeting place for east coast settlers - First train: Jacksonville, Tampa, & Key West RR - First attempt at man-made inlets, 1880s - Descriptions of the early days and communities by settlers - Nation's first wildlife refuge  - 1890 Canaveral Club built on land at the exact location of today's pad 39A  - 1883 geodetic charts of the Indian River Chapter 8 - Flagler and his Florida East Coast RR - Inlet development - Shell roads: 1899 - first state-financed projects to use the old Ais Indian shell mounds for road     building material - Early mosquito control Chapter 9 - Automobiles - 1901-1905 - George Hopkins & Jane Green cypress - The Dixie Highway Association, AKA the Montreal-Miami Highway - Inlets, fishing, lagoon's health Chapter 10 - The Florida Boom. Dixie Highway paved and then rerouted - 1930s map of Brevard Chapter 11 - The Depression. Roosevelt's New Deal projects in Brevard county. Chapter 12 - The development of the Banana River Naval Air Station - First experiments with DDT to control mosquitoes - Development of launch pad and first missile launch from the Cape Chapter 13 - Permanent mosquito control, dredging and impounding wetlands - Missile development - Fight to move the courthouse - Integration - Zora Neale Hurston - UFOs Top of page

 

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