Melbourne, Florida

Melbourne (/ˈmɛlbərn/) is a city in Brevard County, Florida, United States. It is located 72 miles (116 km) southeast of Orlando and 175 miles (282 km) northwest of Miami. As of the 2020 Decennial Census, there was a population of 84,678.[6] The municipality is the second-largest in the county by both size and population.[7] Melbourne is a principal city of the Palm Bay – Melbourne – Titusville, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. In 1969, the city was expanded by merging with nearby Eau Gallie.

History

Early human occupation

Main article: Melbourne Bone Bed

Evidence for the presence of Paleo-Indians in the Melbourne area during the late Pleistocene epoch was uncovered during the 1920s. C. P. Singleton, a Harvard University zoologist, discovered the bones of a mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) on his property along Crane Creek, 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from Melbourne, and brought in Amherst College paleontologist Frederick B. Loomis to excavate the skeleton. Loomis found a second elephant, with a "large rough flint instrument" among fragments of the elephant's ribs. Loomis found in the same stratum mammoth, mastodon, horse, ground sloth, tapir, peccary, camel, and saber-tooth cat bones, all extinct in Florida since the end of the Pleistocene 10,000–8,000 BCE. At a nearby site a human rib and charcoal were found in association with Mylodon, Megalonyx, and Chlamytherium (ground sloth) teeth. A finely worked spear point found with these items may have been displaced from a later stratum. In 1925 attention shifted to the Melbourne golf course.

A crushed human skull with finger, arm, and leg bones was found in association with a horse tooth. A piece of ivory that appeared to have been modified by humans was found at the bottom of the stratum containing bones. Other finds included a spear point near a mastodon bone and a turtle-back scraper and blade found with bear, camel, mastodon, horse, and tapir bones. Similar human remains, Pleistocene animals and Paleo-Indian artifacts were found in Vero Beach, 30 miles (48 km) south of Melbourne, and similar Paleo-Indian artifacts were found at the Helen Blazes archaeological site, 10 miles (16 km) southwest of Melbourne.

Settlement

The Hotel Carleton c. 1907

The first settlers arrived after 1877. They included Richard W. Goode, his father John Goode, Cornthwaite John Hector, Captain Peter Wright, Balaam Allen, Wright Brothers, and Thomas Mason. Three of these men, Wright, Allen, and Brothers were black freedmen.

The city, formerly called "Crane Creek", was named Melbourne in honor of its first postmaster, Cornthwaite John Hector, an Englishman who had spent much of his life in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (which was in turn named after the British Prime Minister William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne). He is buried in the Melbourne Cemetery, along with many early residents in the area. The first school in Melbourne was built in 1883 and is on permanent exhibit on the campus of Florida Institute of Technology. By 1885, the town had 70 people. The Greater Allen Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in 1885 and is still active.

In the late 1890s, the Brownlie-Maxwell Funeral Home opened and it is still in business. The oldest black-owned business in the county is Tucker's Cut-Rate plumbing. It opened in 1934.

In the early 1900s, houses were often built in the frame vernacular style.

In 1919, a fire destroyed most of the original downtown along Front Street. At the time, it was rebuilt west of US Hwy 1.

During the Jim Crow years, black people were required to enter movie theaters via a different entrance from whites and sit in the balcony. Gas stations had signs for rest rooms labeled "Men", "Women", and "Colored." This persisted until integration in the late 1960s.

In late 1942 the Naval Air Station Melbourne was established as a site to train newly commissioned Navy and Marine pilots for World War II. The program ran until 1946, and the land that was used for that program makes up most of what is currently the Melbourne Orlando International Airport.

In 1969, the cities of Eau Gallie and Melbourne voted to merge, forming modern-day Melbourne.

Geography

Melbourne is located approximately 60 miles (97 km) southeast of Orlando on the Space Coast, along Interstate 95. It is approximately midway between Jacksonville and Miami. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 39.6 square miles (102.5 km2), of which 33.9 square miles (87.7 km2) is land and 5.7 square miles (14.8 km2) (14.42%) is water.

The east–west street named Brevard Drive was historically the "center" of town; with addresses called "north" and "south" of this street. The north–south Babcock Street provided the same centerline for "east" and "west" directions.

Melbourne Beachside has a small presence on the South Beaches barrier island. It is often confused with Melbourne Beach, a separate political entity.

Brevard County

Brevard County is located in the east central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2010 census, the population was 543,376, making it the 10th most populated county in Florida. The official county seat has been located in Titusville since 1894. Brevard County comprises the Palm Bay?Melbourne?Titusville, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is located along the east Florida coast and bordered by the Atlantic Ocean.

With an economy strongly influenced by the John F. Kennedy Space Center, Brevard County is also known as the Space Coast. As such, it was designated with the telephone area code 321, as in 3-2-1 liftoff. The county is named after Theodore Washington Brevard, an early Florida settler and state comptroller.

History

Main article: History of Brevard County, Florida

The history of Brevard County begins with the prehistory of native cultures living in the area for thousands of years prior to the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century. The Windover Archeological Site, discovered in 1982, was found during excavation to have the largest collection of human remains and artifacts of the early Archaic Period (6,000-5,000 BCE), or more than 8,000 years before present. It has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.

The geographic boundaries of the county have changed significantly since its founding by European Americans in the 19th century. The county is named for Judge Theodore W. Brevard, an early settler and state comptroller.

Features

The Brevard-Volusia county line

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 1,557 square miles (4,030 km2), of which 1,016 square miles (2,630 km2) is land and 541 square miles (1,400 km2) (34.8%) is water. Most of the water is the Atlantic Ocean, the St. Johns River and the Indian River Lagoon. The county is larger in area than the nation of Samoa and nearly the same size, and population, as Cape Verde.[6] It is one-third the size of the state of Rhode Island.

Located halfway between Jacksonville and Miami, Brevard County extends 72 miles (116 km) from north to south, and averages 26.5 miles (42.6 km) wide. Marshes in the western part of this county are the source of the St. Johns River. Emphasizing its position as halfway down Florida are two roads that have been numbered halfway down Florida's numbering system, State Road 50 and State Road 500.

The Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway along the eastern edge of Brevard County is the major waterway route in Brevard County. It includes the Indian River. Additional waterways include Lake Washington, Lake Poinsett, Lake Winder, Sawgrass Lake, the St. Johns River, and the Banana River. Dredging for the Intracoastal created 41 spoil islands in the Brevard portion of the Indian River.

Geology

The underlying limestone in the county is relatively young at 150,000 years old. This means that the ground will not develop the sinkholes that are prevalent in the spine of Florida, where limestone is from 15 to 25 million years old. The soil contains high levels of phosphorus.

Adjacent counties

Volusia County - north

Indian River County - south

Osceola County - southwest

Orange County - west

Fauna

There are 4,000 species of animals locally.[39] Common mammals include North American river otters, bobcats, white-tailed deer, raccoons, marsh rabbits, and opossum. Feral pigs, introduced by Europeans, present an occasional traffic hazard. Lovebug season occurs twice annually in May and August?September. Motorists, usually, encounter swarms of these while driving during a four-week period. Deer flies are particularly noticeable from April through June. There were 596 manatees in Brevard County in 2009, out of a total of 3,802 in the state. This is a decline from 2007 when there was a total of 859 out of a state total of 2,817. Bottlenose dolphin are commonly seen in the intercoastal waterway. The venomous brown recluse spider is not native to the area but has found the environment congenial. The Florida Butterfly Monitoring Network has counted species of butterflies monthly for a year since 2007. In 2010, it counted 45 species. Included are zebra swallowtail butterflies. Fish and reptiles include alligators, red snapper, sea turtles, scrub lizards, and rat snakes. There are an estimated 3,500 gopher tortoises in the county. They are on the endangered list.

North Atlantic right whales give birth near the coast of Brevard, among other places, from November 15 to April 15. They are rare, a protected species.

Avian

Turkey vultures, a migrating species, are protected by federal law. They migrate north in the summer and return in September.

The county's most common winter bird is the lesser scaup, a diving duck. In 2008, half a million were counted. In 2010, 15,000 were estimated. Local bird counts indicate that there are at least 163 species of birds in the county. Other birds include the red-shouldered hawk, the loggerhead shrike, the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker, Cooper's hawks, pileated woodpeckers, Savannah sparrows, rails (which also includes coots), Florida scrub jays (an endangered species), wood storks, grackles, great horned owls, northern mockingbirds, brown thrashers, catbirds, green-winged teals, greater yellowlegs, western sandpipers, least sandpipers, dowitchers, and American white pelicans. Peak migration in the fall is from the last week in September through the first week in October. Fall migration tends to be stronger than spring because birds typically take different flyways.

Flora

Live oak trees, various grasses, and juniper plants were sufficiently common to generate pollen noticeable by some people in February 2011. Native trees include cabbage palm (the state tree of Florida), fringetree, coral bean, sweet acacia, geiger tree, firebush, beautyberry, coral honeysuckle, and blanket flower. Native plants include sea grape, red mulberry, purslane, dandelion, Spanish bayonet, blackberry, Jerusalem artichoke, dogwood, and gallberry.

On the east coast of the state, mangroves have normally dominated the coast from Cocoa Beach southward. Northward these may compete with salt marshes moving in from the north, depending on the annual weather conditions. - Wikipedia.org

Pictures and Things to do in the Area: