A Brief History of Brevard County

In 1513, Juan Ponce de León led the first Spanish explorers here. The area was inhabited by the Native Americans know as the Ais.

In 1783, the last naval battle of the American Revolutionary War was fought between the USS Alliance and the HMS Sybill off the shores of Cape Canaveral.

"Mosquito County" was formed while the state was still a territory, and on some maps is absorbed into an unofficial "Leigh Read" county between 1839 and 1845. This eventually became three new counties one of which was "Saint Lucia County" on March 14, 1844 - it was renamed Brevard County in 1855 after George Washington Brevard, who served as Florida State Comptroller from 1854 to 1860. In 1905 St. Lucie County was created from the southern third of the county.

In the 1800s the Hernandez-Capron Trail passed through the county and in the early 1900s the Union Cypress Railroad was built from present day Lipscomb Rd and University Blvd west to Deer Park.

On Christmas Day 1951, Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore (founders of the local NAACP and Civil Rights activists) were slain by a bomb, well before the "Civil Rights Era. "Florida's Attorney General has offered a reward and established a hotline to solve the slaying. The Brevard justice center is named after them as a memorial.

In 1989, county administration was moved to a government complex at Viera, as part of a mid-county development project that included a Baseball Spring Training complex at Space Coast Stadium, and a master-planned community, known as Viera.