The Apollo-era population boom in Titusville, census by census

The census tells the story of Apollo in Titusville. The town counted 2,604 people in 1950 and 6,410 in 1960. In 1970 it counted 30,515, almost five times as many as ten years before. Then the curve flattened: 31,910 in 1980, 39,394 in 1990.

Before the boom

For most of its history Titusville grew slowly. The Census Bureau’s 1970 report lists its population at every census since 1900:

Year	Titusville
1900	756
1910	868
1920	1,361
1930	2,089
1940	2,220
1950	2,604
1960	6,410
1970	30,515

Between 1930 and 1950 the county seat added barely 500 people.

Why it came late

The missile range came first, and its center of gravity was south of Titusville. A 1966 study by Florida State University’s Institute for Social Research, done for NASA, traced Brevard’s growth to the 1948 decision to put the long-range guided missile program at Cape Canaveral, with its headquarters at the former Banana River Naval Air Station, named Patrick Air Force Base in 1950. In a survey of newcomers who had arrived in the previous two years, the study found Melbourne had drawn 56.8 percent of them and Titusville 25.1 percent, and it noted that Titusville was “relatively new as far as experiencing an appreciable influx of space-related personnel.”

That changed with the moon program. In 1963, the study says, NASA acquired 88,000 acres on Merritt Island, across the river from Titusville, for the industrial center of its space effort, and major federal activity shifted north from Patrick. The authors expected the northern part of the county to “receive the predominant share of future population growth.” The 1970 census bore that out.

Annexing the suburbs

Part of the jump came from new territory. The 1966 study notes that in 1963 the suburb of Whispering Hills and the unincorporated community of Indian River City were merged into Titusville, and the city’s own history lists both consolidations among its 1960s milestones. The Census Bureau’s 1970 report shows how much that mattered: of Titusville’s 30,515 residents in 1970, it counted 7,802 inside the city’s 1960 limits and 22,713 in areas annexed during the 1960s.

After Apollo

The 1970s didn’t reverse the boom, but they stopped it. Titusville added fewer than 1,400 people between 1970 and 1980, and the city’s history describes the end of the Apollo program as offering “new challenges to the community,” as did the Shuttle program that followed. Growth resumed at a slower pace:

Year	Titusville
1970	30,515
1980	31,910
1990	39,394
2010	43,761
2020	48,789

The county around it grew much faster. Brevard as a whole had 23,653 people in 1950, according to the 1966 study, and 606,612 at the 2020 census.

Further Reading

• Florida: A Short History by Michael Gannon