Titusville Florida Since 1867
From Henry Titus's hotel to the Apollo gateway.
Titusville became Brevard's county seat in 1879, got its first railroad in 1885, and grew almost fivefold in the 1960s after NASA built its moon port across the river. This is its history, sourced.
Latest articles
Six most-recent pieces. The full archive lives on the articles page.
- Editorial
What 'Old Titusville' means, an editorial position
What this site covers: Titusville from Sand Point and Henry Titus through the county seat, the railroads, the freeze, the Moores and the space age.
- Parks
Sand Point Park: Titusville's river park, named for the town's first name
Sand Point Park is a 29.88-acre city park on the Indian River at U.S. 1 and the Max Brewer Causeway, home to Titusville Little League and the Astronaut Memorial. Its name is the one the town carried until 1873.
- Space Era
January 28, 1986: Challenger, and how Titusville remembers it
Challenger lifted off from Pad 39B at 11:38 a.m. on January 28, 1986, in 36-degree air, the coldest launch yet, and broke apart 73 seconds later. What the presidential commission found, and the memorial across the river in Titusville.
- Sports
Titusville High School football and the back-to-back state titles of 1982 and 1983
Titusville High won Florida's Class 3A championship two years running, beating Osceola 33-0 in 1982 and Palatka 28-21 in 1983, after losing the 1980 final to Gainesville. Its crosstown neighbor, Astronaut High, reached the 2000 Class 3A final.
- Disasters
Hurricane David, 1979: When It Hit Florida, Its Category, and Brevard's Damage
Hurricane David came ashore just north of Palm Beach at midday on September 3, 1979, as a Category 2, then ran its eye up the Brevard coast that night. What it did to Titusville and the county.
- Environment
The Enchanted Forest Sanctuary: Titusville's piece of Brevard's Environmentally Endangered Lands
The Enchanted Forest Sanctuary in Titusville is a 481-acre preserve of Brevard County's Environmentally Endangered Lands Program, which voters created in 1990. Its Management and Education Center, opened in 2003, was the program's first.
What this site is
Old Titusville covers the city of Titusville, the seat of Brevard County, from Henry Theodore Titus's arrival in 1867 through the Apollo and Shuttle eras. Coverage extends north to Mims, where a bomb under their home killed Harry T. and Harriette Moore at Christmas 1951, and east across the lagoon to the launch complex that drove the city's growth in the 1960s.
Common questions about Titusville history
- When and how was Titusville founded, and who was it named after?
Titusville is named for Col. Henry T. Titus, who came in 1867 to a landing on the Indian River called Sand Point. He built the Titus House hotel, finished in 1870, and ran the post office, and in 1873 the post office's name changed from Sand Point to Titusville. He pushed for the town to become the county seat, which voters approved in 1879, and he died two years later, according to the National Park Service history of the town.
- When did the railroad reach Titusville?
In 1885. The first line was a 35-mile railroad from Enterprise on the upper St. Johns River, begun by the Atlantic Coast, St. Johns and Indian River Railroad and completed by the Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West, which leased it. Residents put up $30,000 and the right-of-way. The tracks ran down Broad Street onto a wharf in the lagoon, where the railroad's own steamboat company carried passengers south. Henry Flagler's railway, renamed the Florida East Coast in 1895, didn't reach Titusville until January 1893.
- What happened to Harry T. Moore in Mims?
At about 10:20 p.m. on December 25, 1951, a bomb went off beneath the bedroom of Harry T. Moore and his wife Harriette at their home in Mims, just north of Titusville. Moore, who had organized Brevard's NAACP branch and led the state conference, died shortly afterward; Harriette died nine days later. In 2006 Florida's Attorney General and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement concluded that four Klansmen, all dead by then, were responsible: Earl J. Brooklyn, Tillman H. Belvin, Joseph N. Cox and Edward L. Spivey. The Moores are buried in the LaGrange Mims Community Cemetery.
- How did the space program change Titusville?
It made a small town into a city. The census counted 6,410 people in Titusville in 1960 and 30,515 in 1970. NASA acquired 88,000 acres on Merritt Island, across the river, in 1963 for its moon program, and the suburb of Whispering Hills and the community of Indian River City were merged into Titusville the same year. The 1970 census found 22,713 of the city's residents living in areas annexed during the 1960s.