A PLACE IN TIME + SPACE

A PLACE IN TIME + SPACE

CONTRIBUTING WRITER: Molly Thomas, Director of Cultural + Community Affairs

As a 30-something year old transplant and granddaughter of Ohio snowbirds, I approached the research for this article series with a certain degree of naivety. I embarked on this project, armed with the history of the 1960s from elsewhere and a plethora of pop culture influences shaped by the agendas of the writers, performers and directors that produced them.

My objective was to capture a snapshot of life in the City of Cape Canaveral during the 1960s—a staggeringly formative decade for the Space Coast, much of the country and arguably the entire world. As so many look back on the last 50 years and what the events and accomplishments of the 1960s meant to the world, the City of Cape Canaveral can pinpoint its place in that legacy with mankind’s first steps on the Moon.

As I interviewed current and former residents of the City that lived through that amazing time in its history—I was intrigued by what I was hearing, but it was not what I expected. Looking back, I’m not sure what I was expecting—but without divulging state secrets or digging up any unnecessary bones, I will attempt to assemble the stories I heard into a series of articles and use them to paint a picture of the Cape Canaveral community as it emerged in sync with the mankind’s quest for the space exploration.

Something to keep in mind as you’re reading is that this series of articles is not the gospel of Cape Canaveral history during the 1960s. Rather like Cape Canaveral itself, it’s an assemblage of memories from people that came from different places in the country, but most importantly different places in life. Those reading this article may share recollections with those that contributed to its content, or their experience may have been very different. Either way, what I discovered during my research was that amidst the varied stories I heard and emotions I encountered, there was a single underlying theme—opportunity.

PART 1: SETTING THE STAGE

So to understand how remarkable the impact of the Gemini and Apollo programs were on the City of Cape Canaveral, you have to know a little bit about what the community was like just a few years prior. The beachside communities of Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach lagged behind their mainland neighbors in both infrastructure and residential development. In fact, both communities remained remote and unincorporated until the mid-20th century—but that’s not to say the place was uninhabited or had nothing to offer.

Population

Due to an assortment of factors, ranging from its remote location and incorporation status, to the inclination for its data to be intermingled with neighboring communities, there is a predominant gap in the historical records between 1940 and 1960 for the community that would become the City of Cape Canaveral. For example, the 1940 census records lists the area as the town of Artesia, located enumeration district 5-36, which is part of Precinct #22 aka Cocoa Beach. The precinct just to the north, #13, includes the Cape proper and ultimately, when the military would take control of this area just a few years later, many of its residents would move south into Artesia. But despite the confusing nomenclature and the inevitable shifting of the populations, this record contains some valuable data, reporting a little over 200 residents between two precincts that year. Unfortunately, because of the National Archives’ 72-year-rule, we will have to wait until 2022 to obtain the detailed records from 1950 and until 2032 for those from 1960.

We can however tell from aerial photographs that there wasn’t much development to speak of. Additional clues are provided in the voter registers where handwritten tallies by the town clerks account for 330 registered voters in July of 1962, 538 voters by May of 1963, and 902 the year after that. By 1965, the actual voter identification numbers exceeded 1100, but it’s unclear if that reflected accurate population totals by that time.

This same pattern of rapid growth was experienced across the state. In 1950, the total population of Brevard County was 22,400. In 1960 it had grown to over 111,000 and by 1970 it would be 230,006. Newcomers to Brevard would account for 5% of Florida’s overall population growth between 1950 and 1970. By 1970, when Cape Canaveral finally incorporated into its own entity on the federal census, the City’s population totaled 4,258 residents.

Development

Unlike so many other areas of the country, which were already built out by the mid-20th century, Cape Canaveral was a proverbial blank slate that was ripe for real estate investors and it didn’t take long for the word to get out. The majority of its early residents lived in the trailer park communities that began to spring up in the 1950s as military presence developed on the Cape. There were also the families that had moved south after the military took over in the 1940s and came with houses and all. These homes would be among some of the City’s first permanent structures—though sadly, most of them did not survive the rapid development that was to come. By the time the first round of engineers began to arrive, between 1960 – 1961, Cape Canaveral was still lacking available housing but they wouldn’t be kept waiting.

Before the space center, fishing was the main industry in Cape Canaveral—in fact, according to the 1940 census, more than 25% of the adults in Precinct 13 reported working as either fishermen or laborers in a local fish house. In Precinct #22, just south of the Bight, the dominant occupational fields were construction, land clearing and some form agriculture, including citrus, bee culture and tree nurseries. Not surprisingly, the land clearing and construction fields would grow exponentially as the projects at the Cape evolved and the demand for housing and civic amenities increased.

In the 1950s, despite having few of the entertainment options we have today, Cape Canaveral residents in those days didn’t want for amusement. Friends and neighbors came together to play cards and backyard barbecues were community events. Kids living in the trailer parks would spend their free time hanging out in the community laundry rooms listening to records and dancing to their favorite Elvis tunes.

Young people who had the opportunity to work, did. Some worked for their parents, learning trades, helping to maintain the many mobile home parks or rental properties that their parents owned or managed. Others embraced a more entrepreneurial spirit, using the family car or truck to pull visitors out of the soft sand or muddy ruts in the unpaved streets. Some even took on more elaborate business ventures, like loading a snow cone machine into their parents’ station wagon and driving it up and down the beach selling refreshing icy treats to beachgoers at 10 cents a pop.

In the years leading up to the space boom, the community that would become the City of Cape Canaveral, was the kind of place that a city kid from up north may have dreaded moving to, and some of those who did remember these feelings well. To hear early residents talk about the days before NASA, the stories are almost reminiscent of Mayberry—only with palm trees and beautiful beaches. For the majority of those that arrived early-on, the lack of development was probably the biggest adjustment to overcome. Most weren’t exactly sure what they were expecting when they arrived, but they certainly didn’t expect what they found. Some of the residents and former residents that contributed to this article likened it to building a community out of nothing.

Be sure to check out next month’s issue for Part II of this series… Changes Come