SATELLITE BEACH, FLORIDA

"WHERE PROGRESS PREVAILS"

 

 

PREAMBLE

 

This history is provided to the residents of Satellite Beach in the interest of preserving the rich legacy of community left by those who founded and have enriched the City.  For many, this has been a home and a community, not merely a place to live and, perhaps, prosper.  Without continued pursuit of the ideals which informed the actions of those who went before, the legacy left by current residents will be but a poor shadow of what we inherited, and, if we do not know of that legacy and how it came to be, it will be only be by chance that we might preserve some portion of that which we inherited.

 

This history is neither comprehensive nor authoritative.  It is a patchwork of stories, facts, and surmises gleaned from discussions with those who participated in the events, and written sources, primarily Council minutes, ordinances, tax and land records in the Brevard County Archives in Titusville, and newspaper accounts, including those in the Beachcaster, the City’s long-running monthly newsletter.  Although incomplete, themes are evident in the narrative.  It is these themes which, in large part, define the character of Satellite Beach as we know it.

 

This history is a living document.  It began as a single paragraph providing context for a rightsizing report prepared in 1993.  Gradually, it has expanded as more information has become available.  It is anticipated, and hoped, that some of those reading this history will have facts, stories, or corrections with which to enrich it.  Anyone is welcome – is encouraged – to provide suggested revisions, new content, or leads to new material.  The City has also made provisions to copy old photographs, movies, videotapes, and printed material showing something of the City in its earlier years.  Information can be provided to the City Clerk or provided via e-mail to birthday@satellitebeach.org.

 

THE SETTING

 

Satellite Beach is a unique community.  Even its name is unique, there being no other place name among the 46,216 listed by the United States Census Bureau for the 2000 census that contains the word “satellite”, although 246 other places include the word “beach” in their name.

 

As of January 2007, Satellite Beach encompassed  2,467 acres (3.8 square miles).  However, 1 square mile of this is water, leaving 1,850 acres (2.9 square miles) of upland area spanning the barrier island separating Brevard County’s Atlantic Ocean coastline from the Banana River segment of the Indian River Lagoon.  The City’s upland areas are bounded by 2.8 miles of ocean beach, 1.3 miles of shoreline on the Banana River, and 7.2 miles of shoreline fronting navigable canals connected to the Banana River.  The largest east-west City dimension across the island is 1.5 miles (along Cassia Boulevard from the ocean beach to the Banana River shoreline of Lansing Island).

 

Satellite Beach is located in the region where tropical and temperate climatic zones overlap.  Within the approximately 70 miles between Vero Beach (the approximate northern limit of purely tropical climate) and Titusville (the approximate southern limit of purely temperate climate), particularly along the ocean coastline near the temperature-moderating influence of the Atlantic Ocean, there is an overlap of plants and animals associated with these two climatic zones.  Based in large part upon its location on the barrier island, where the tropics meet the temperate climatic zone, Satellite Beach enjoys an abundance of natural resources.  Threatened Atlantic Loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) nest on the City’s beaches at densities of approximately one nest per 10 feet of shoreline per year.  Endangered green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) deposit an average of tens of nests along the City’s ocean beach each year.  There are approximately 10 acres of coquina rock outcrops frequently exposed along the low-tide line of the City’s ocean beach.  The National Marine Fisheries Service has classified the rock as an Essential Fish Habitat-Habitat Area of Particular Concern (EFH-HAPC).  It is extremely important to aquatic life and found only in a few locations along the Eastern seaboard.  Endangered right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) calve off the City’s shoreline.  Endangered West Indian manatees (Trichechus manatus) frequent the City’s canals and the Banana River.  Bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) forage over Samsons Island.  Xeric scrub around the Library, until the late 1990s, hosted a family of threatened Florida scrub jays (Aphelocoma coerulescens).  The City’s ocean beach is, also, part of about 16 miles of shoreline from the Pineda Causeway (SR 404) to south of Melbourne Beach where fossil Atlantic ghost crabs (Ocypoda quadrata) occasionally are found on the beach, the relics of a unique set of geological circumstances which preserved these creatures when they died in their burrows perhaps about 110,000 years ago.  There are also multiple endemic and listed plant species which now grow naturally, or were present prior to development, within the corporate boundaries of Satellite Beach.

 

A study commissioned by NASA and published in June 2000 (Wind and Flood Hazard Assessment of Critical NASA Assets at the Kennedy Space Center) used the best available meteorological history and model information to estimate the probability of hurricanes impacting the area including Satellite Beach.  The results estimate a 65% probability of a weak Category 1 hurricane (74-86 mph maximum sustained wind) striking the area in any 10 year period, dropping to a 47% probability of a weak Category 2 hurricane (99-102 mph wind) striking in any 25 year period, a 39% probability of a Category 3 hurricane (115-120 mph wind) in any 50 year period, a 28% probability of a Category 4 hurricane (133-143 mph wind) in any 100 year period, and a 6% probability of a Category 5 hurricane (158-164 mph wind) in any 100 year period.  These numbers lend credence to the popular perception that Satellite Beach is located in a portion of the North American Atlantic shoreline with a reduced incidence of catastrophic hurricanes.  They also indicate that the City can expect weak hurricanes on a fairly regular basis, on average, more frequently than once per decade. 

 

The record-breaking hurricane season of 2004 demonstrated that the City is not immune to major hurricane damage.  The City suffered damage from Charlie, Frances, and Jeanne in 2004.  Total estimated damage and recovery costs to City government and residents from Charlie were $48,000, in keeping with previous storms.  Estimated damage and recovery costs for Frances and Jeanne came to over $69 million, orders of magnitude greater than any previous losses to the City, despite wind recorded on the oceanfront in Indian Harbour Beach during Jeanne, the stronger of the two storms, barely qualifying for Category 1 status.  A year after the hurricanes passed through there were still homes which were not habitable due to the damage, some having to be gutted to the studs, and the interiors rebuilt in their entirety.  Secondary water damage resulting from wind damage to roofs, and mold due to water intrusion and lack of air conditioning (due to several weeks without electrical power), were the primary forms of damage.  The City lost its only hotel, the Ramada Inn when winds tore off much of the northern wall and broke glass, causing massive interior water damage.  Sold as-is after the storm, the new owner decided to tear down the old building (only 20 years old) and use the property to build condominiums.  Other beachside hotels, outside of the City, also suffered major damage, but were completely rebuilt and reopened, in most cases after a year of renovations.  The City also lost two long-standing landmarks, the bowling ally constructed in 1959 and the Dairy Queen.  Both were so badly damaged they were demolished and the property sold for redevelopment.

 

While relatively secure from catastrophic hurricane damage, studies commissioned by the US Army Corps of Engineers and Brevard County have documented long-term loss of oceanfront land.  Historical data indicate the location of the top of the dune bluff is retreating at a rate of about 0.6 foot per year, with the mean high tide line along the beach retreating at a rate of about 0.3 foot per year.  Comparison of surveys conducted in 1844 and 1859 with the current coastline suggests that in the century-and-a-half since that time there has been slight net accretion (perhaps 50 to 150 feet) of land between Patrick Air Force Base and the northern end of the City, little change in the shoreline in the portion of the City north of Cassia Boulevard, and loss of as much as 1,700 feet (0.3 mile) in the vicinity of Volunteer Way.  Sea level rise is expected to increase the rate of dune bluff retreat to about 1 foot per year.  This presents a threat to the City’s extensive oceanfront development, which has resulted in 25% of the City’s ocean shoreline being armored in some manner.  Sea level rise is particularly relevant in light of the City’s highest elevation being 19 feet above sea level, along portions of the land from State Road A1A eastward.  The elevation then drops toward the west to 3 to 5 feet above sea level along the canal banks (the land west of South Patrick Drive and on Lansing, Samsons, and Tortoise Island being comprised of sand dredged from the canals used to fill what had been a normally flooded mangrove swamp). 

 

The 2000 census counted 9,577 individuals in 2,952 households (including 2,876 families) occupying 4,378 housing units, with a median household income of $55,571, a median family income of $63,442, and a median value of $124,600 per owner-occupied living unit.  The census indicates 95% of City residents were born as American citizens, 61% of City residents older than 14 are married, 38% of City residents older than 24 have a bachelor’s degree or higher, and 84% of the City’s housing units are owner-occupied.   The Executive Office of the Governor certified to the Florida Department of Revenue in June 2004 a population of 10,752 for Satellite Beach, of which 1,020 were derived from annexation into the City on 1 October 2003 of Pelican Coast, the 300-acre Patrick Air Force Base South Housing tract privatized by the Air Force in 2004.  As of April 2006 the State estimated the City’s population at 10,938. 

 

Satellite Beach is a relatively densely populated urban community.  It’s population density was about 4,031 individuals per square mile during the 2000 census.  This indicates Satellite Beach had more residents per square mile than 83% of the 403 municipalities in Florida at that time.  The City’s density was exceeded only by Daytona Beach Shores and Altamonte Springs in the East Central Florida region encompassing Brevard, Indian River, Osceola, Orange, Seminole, and Volusia Counties.  This residential density is largely the result of only 22% of the City’s land area being zoned for other than residential use.  The median single-family lot is 0.22 acre (95’ x 100’), the average single-family lot size is 0.23 acre (100’ x 100’), and the most frequent lot size is 0.24 acre (105’ x 100’).  The median and most common single-family home sizes are both 1,800 to 1,900 square feet under air, with an average size of 1,896 square feet.  As of 2007 the smallest single-family home (one of the earliest built in the City) was 800 square feet, and the largest (built on Lansing Island in 2005) was 8,249 square feet.

 

According to the Brevard County Property Appraiser’s records as of October 2007, the City – excluding the Planned Unit Development encompassing Pelican Coast and Montecito in the former Patrick Air Force Base South Housing area – was over 95% built-out, with fewer than 88 buildable vacant lots totaling 54.3 acres, the largest of which was 4.0 acres (on the site of the former Ramada Inn destroyed by the storms of 2004).  Only six were larger than 1 acre.  Four of the vacant parcels were the result of buildings being destroyed by the storms of 2004 and not rebuilt.  These newly vacant lots total 4.7 acres, and include two of the lots larger than 1 acre.  Thirty four of the vacant lots, totaling 25.6 acres, were on Lansing Island, the largest subdivision of undeveloped land remaining in the City.  The City’s housing inventory – excluding the PUD – included 4,496 units, of which 3,029 (67%) were single-family homes, 214 (5%) were duplex units, 21 (0.5%) were triplex units, 496 (11%) were townhouses, 107 (2%) were apartments, and 629 (14%) were condominium units.  Of the 4,692 living units, 833 (18%) were waterfront, of which 535 were condominium units on 34.1 acres of oceanfront, 22 were single-family units on 9.5 acres of oceanfront, and 300 were single-family residences on 96.3 acres on navigable canals and the Banana River.  Taxable value of real estate in the City was $995 million for 4,584 properties of all types (with single properties containing multiple duplex, triplex, or apartment units).

 

As of November 2007, the City had issued certificates of occupancy for 223 residential units in the Pelican Coast/Montecito PUD.  These were comprised of 203 single-family homes and 20 townhomes.

 

BEFORE THE BEGINNINGS (See attached maps and aerial photographs illustrating the City’s development.)

 

Before development, the area now comprising Satellite Beach consisted of saw palmetto and oak scrub covering a series of north-south running dunes and swales containing intermittent flowing streams.  The shores of the Banana River were lined with a mangrove swamp.  Even after World War II, there were deer, bear, and panther using the area.  The bears would swim the lagoon during the summer months and raid the abundant sea turtle nests to be found along the beaches.  Several miles to the north the island was so narrow and low that spring tides and storms regularly sent waves across the beach into the shallow marsh forming the eastern portion of the Banana River.  As late as 1871 the entire area now known as Satellite Beach was public land owned by the US Government.  It was not until 1923 that the last public land remaining in the area of the City came under private ownership. 

 

There is no evidence of regular occupancy by native Americans of the area now comprising Satellite Beach, although shell middens have been located several miles to the south along the Indian River just south of its confluence with the Banana River and there is evidence of regular habitation in the vicinity of Sebastian Inlet.  Historians state that the local native Americans, the Ais, lived in seasonal settlements on the island during the winter months when mosquitoes did not make life unbearable.  One of these seasonal settlements was located south of the City between Gleason Park in Indian Harbour Beach and the Banana River.   

 

Mosquitoes were no small issue.  About half the Atlantic coast of peninsular Florida was named Mosquito County when Florida was a territory, prior to entering the United States as a state in 1845.  Just prior to becoming a state, in 1844 the huge Mosquito County was divided into Orange and St. Lucie Counties.  A decade later, in 1854, the State Legislature changed the name of St. Lucie County to Brevard County, most likely to honor Florida’s Comptroller at the time, Theodore W. Brevard.  After a series of boundary adjustments – mostly shifting the County’s northern and southern boundaries northward and reducing its western extent, including carving of a new St. Lucie and Indian River Counties from the original Brevard County, it reached its current configuration in 1905.  The area was sparsely settled, remaining mostly raw wilderness.  As late as 1849 native Americans killed several settlers, including one on the Indian River near Fort Pierce.  In 1860 the entire – much larger – Brevard County of that day had a population of 267 people.  By 1870 the County population exceeded 1,000, by 1930 it exceeded 10,000, and by 1960 it exceeded 100,000.  By 2006 it exceeded 500,000.

 

Recent research suggests that the first European to sight Florida, Juan Ponce de Leon, did so and landed somewhere between Cape Canaveral to our north and Sebastian Inlet to our south on 2 April 1513 - not in the vicinity of St. Augustine as commonly believed.  Thus, Satellite Beach might have been the first landfall on North America for the series of European explorations and settlements which resulted in the current demographics of the continent.  Melbourne Beach has taken the effort to acknowledge this piece of history with a historical marker in a park within their community.  Although the towns of Melbourne and Eau Gallie slowly grew during the late 19^th and early 20^th Centuries, there was no significant development on the barrier island except small communities in Melbourne Beach (beginning in 1883) and Indialantic (beginning in 1915).  There was nothing else on the island for miles north and south of these towns except for a few pineapple plantations in the latter 19^th Century.  The plantations, of which none are known to have been within the current City proper, did not survive a series of freezes in the 1880s, 1890s, and 1901 and competition with foreign pineapple growers in the first few years of the 20^th Century. 

 

A few maps of the area show several communities on the islands east to northeast of Eau Gallie around the turn of the century.  Tropic, which lent its name to the US Geologic Survey’s Tropic, Florida Quadrangle topographic map, was located at the southern tip of Merritt Island in maps from 1888 to at least 1932.  It was noted for its guavas and other tropical fruit produce.  Banyan, in the vicinity of where the Pineda Causeway crosses Merritt Island, appears on maps from 1914 to at least 1921.  It was noted for the beans grown there.  Oceanus was located on the barrier island near the north end of Patrick Air Force Base on maps printed in 1898 and 1902.  In 1922 a plat was registered for a subdivision named Milford Beach, consisting of 22 lots, in the area of Oceanus.  Atlantic is shown on at least one map in 1902 on the barrier island in the vicinity of the southern end of Patrick Air Force Base.  At least one individual listed it as his home in a deed recorded in Titusville for purchase of 20 acres in that area in 1893, and the postal service operated a post office called Atlantic in that vicinity from 14 December 1892 to 15 December 1899.  The 1930 census includes enumeration of 26 households with a total of 86 members in Banyan, Lotus, and Tropic “towns” on the southern end of Merritt Island.  Aerial photographs taken by the Navy during February 1943 show the southern end of Merritt Island to be occupied by a nearly continuous series of groves, presumably citrus, connected by an unpaved road.  There are several homes evident in the photographs, with docks extending well into the Indian River.  The barrier island is devoid of development between the Eau Gallie Causeway and the Naval Air Station except for the paved two-lane highway along the coast, a road to Mather’s Bridge, the remnants of a failed attempt to establish a pineapple plantation by Charles M. Coleman in the period 1918 to 1926 about one mile north of Mather’s Bridge, and Carlos Canova’s inn/casino and pier over the ocean at the end of the Eau Gallie Causeway.  Carlos had been a surveyor for the US Government, and obtained title to a tract of land fronting the ocean where the Eau Gallie Causeway now ends.  He built a pier and made a living from fees charged for visitors to fish from it.  The area became known as Canova Beach.  In later years his stepdaughter, Patsie, operated a shell shop, first on the pier and, later, in a building on the east side of A1A a short distance north of the A1A-Eau Gallie intersection.  She deeded the property to Brevard County for a public park, and the badly damaged brick building was demolished after the 2004 hurricanes.

 

The earliest record yet found which bears a recognizable relationship to the City of Satellite Beach is the first survey of the State of Florida conducted by the US Government Land Office so settlers could clearly define the property they owned.  This survey was begun in 1840, prior to Florida becoming a state in 1845.  The survey was conducted by laying a 66-foot long chain with 100 links along the ground from a known point, stretching the chain taut along the ground in either a north/south or east/west direction, inserting a stake at the far end, and repeating the process 80 times for each mile measured.  Alternatively, unofficially and with less precision, a surveyor could place a mark on a wagon wheel and count the number of turns it took to drive along a transect.  Section corners were marked with wooden pegs.  The survey for the area of the City south of Cassia Boulevard was conducted during the fourth quarter of 1844 by A. H. Jones.  The survey for the area of the City north of Cassia Boulevard was conducted between 4 and 12 June 1859 by William S. Harris.  South Patrick Drive, Cassia Boulevard, and Volunteer Way, as well as the property line between the Holland/DeLaura/Satellite schools’ campus and Pelican Coast and the City’s southern boundary with Indian Harbour Beach, all follow the section lines laid out by the surveyors during these initial surveys.

 

For 80 years prior to 1950 the area now occupied by the City of Satellite Beach was a playground for those living across the country.  It was not a playground in the sense of Disney World or Las Vegas, with their glitzy tourist attractions, or in the sense of the Grand Canyon or other natural wonders.  It was a playground composed of paper and ink, on deeds, mortgages, and currency. 

 

The first purchase of public lands in what is now the City was by William Henry Gleason, who, during a visit to Florida in 1865 for the US Government to determine if Florida could serve as a colony for freed slaves, was so impressed with the area around what is now Eau Gallie that he moved his family from Eau Claire, Wisconsin and, on 10 March 1871, bought 16,248.21 acres from the State of Florida (in his wife’s, Sara G. Gleason’s, name) for $1.25 per acre and proceeded to establish the town of Eau Gallie.  The southwestern corner of the original Town of Satellite Beach incorporated in 1957 included several hundred acres in Mr. Gleason’s original land purchase, which was at the center of a major controversy in the City’s history shortly after incorporation.  He entered State politics and became Florida’s Lieutenant Governor from 1868 to 1870 during Reconstruction.  In the mid-1870s he endeavored to begin a State agricultural college in Eau Gallie with a donation of 2,320 acres of land, but after one campus building had been completed on Pineapple Avenue and Aurora Road, the State moved the college to Lake City in 1884 as the Florida Agricultural College, which then merged with other schools in 1905 to become the University of Florida in Gainesville.  The land he had donated reverted to Mr. Gleason’s ownership, and in 1882 he moved his family into the one building that had been built, opening it as the Granada Hotel in 1883.  He then had a frame Victorian style home built on the corner of Pineapple Avenue and Law Street in 1886 for his family.  That building, now the Old Pineapple In bed-and-breakfast, was occupied by members of the Gleason family until 1990, and remained in the Family until 1995.  The Granada Hotel burned in 1902 and was  demolished.

 

The next purchase of land did not occur until November 1891, when Austin E. Lyman purchased from the US Government 158 acres roughly bounded by the current locations of Ellwood Avenue and Roosevelt Boulevard from South Patrick Drive to the ocean.  He then extended his purchase to the Banana River during the next year.  Mr. Lyman, born in Massachusetts, was a dentist who practiced in Warren, Ohio from the 1850s until he moved his family, including sons John and Louis, to Melbourne in the 1880s.  He continued his practice in Melbourne into the 1920s and then retired in the area.  As of 1930 the Lyman family were still residents of Melbourne, and the Melbourne telephone book still includes listings for Lyman. 

 

With Mr. Lyman’s purchase there began a flurry of land buying in the area of the future Satellite Beach.  Mr. Aaron Bennett, like Mr. Lyman, made separate purchases, from first the US Government, and then the State of Florida, in 1891 and 1892.  At least two other individuals purchased land in the City in 1892.  One of the 1892 purchases was for 160 acres from the US Government by Lena Belle Johnson, a resident of Brevard County, on 8 October 1892 for $200.28.  The area purchased consisted, approximately, of the land between Ocean Drive and the Sports and Recreation Park’s eastern edge between DeSoto Parkway and Satellite Avenue.  Ms. Johnson was quite active in purchasing and selling local real estate for several decades spanning the end of the 19^th and start of the 20^th Centuries.  She was born in Ohio in 1866, and made her “Satellite Beach” purchase when 26 years old.  In June 1893 she married John Thatcher Hood, age 35 with a daughter Maud R., aged six, born in Maryland, at the time of their marriage (suggesting he was likely a widower who had moved to Florida less than six years previously).  On 24 February 1898 John Hood obtained homestead title to 160 acres on Cape Canaveral surrounding what became Launch Complex 1/2/3/4 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, from which Snark missiles were tested from 1954 until 1960.  The Hood family was living there during the 1900 census, in which he as listed as an unemployed marine engineer.  By March 1904 Lena is listed as a widow on land transaction documents, and by 1906 is listed as “now of Baltimore Maryland”.  The 1910 census enumerates Lena B. Hood, a dressmaker, living in Baltimore, MD with her two stepchildren, Maud R. and C. Howard Hood, both in their 20s.  In 1901 she sold her “Satellite Beach” holding to W. S. Branch, a druggist who lived in South Dakota.  The Branch family then moved to Orlando, where he opened a book store, prior to selling the eastern half of the property to the Nelson Investment Corporation of Miami in February 1921, during the early stages of the Florida real estate boom of the 1920s.  The Corporation combined the land purchased from the Branch family with a parcel to the east running to the ocean (originally purchased, along with thousands of other acres, by James M. Graham (a bank clerk who moved his family from West Virginia to Alachua County in 1888 and founded the First National Bank in Gainesville, Florida, in 1894) from the Florida Department of Education for $1.25 per acre) and registered a plat for the Eau Gallie-by-the-Sea subdivision in March of 1921.  This plat still applies to property in the very southeastern portion of the City.  The subdivision extended from the ocean west to Verbena Drive between DeSoto Parkway and the southern boundary of the City extending west from Volunteer Way.  

 

Aerial photographs taken in the area in 1943 show no evidence that there was anything done on the ground as a result of the creation, on paper, of the Eau Gallie-by-the-Sea subdivision.  Lots were sold to buyers throughout the Country, but there were no roads, utilities, or anything else to distinguish this property from any other in the scrub which covered the island.  It was not until after Satellite Beach was incorporated that this subdivision was developed, and it was the City, itself, that served as the developer (authorized by a successful referendum vote among those owning property in the subdivision) starting in 1976 to put in roads and other necessary utilities so that owners could make productive use of their lots.  Other individuals purchased tracts of land from the US Government and from the Board of Education and the Internal Improvement Fund of Florida in the decades following Lena Johnson’s purchase.  However, these holdings were neither platted nor developed; they remained as speculative investments. 

 

In the period between 1906 and 1913 the Florida Coast Line Canal and Transportation Company purchased two lots on the Banana River in the area which would become Satellite Beach, perhaps in 1907 and 1909.  No deed records have been found, but the company paid taxes on this land in 1910 and 1912.  It then sold one of the lots in 1913.  The Florida Coast Line Canal and Transportation Company was one of multiple companies granted millions of acres of land during the decades around the end of the 19^th Century as incentive to build canals and railroads to open the sparsely settled Florida peninsula to development.  The company obtained about 1 million acres from the State, began construction of a canal from Jacksonville to Biscayne Bay in 1883, and completed it in 1912.  The cost of building and maintaining the canal exceeded the revenue realized from land sales and tolls, to the point that a mortgage was foreclosed and the property sold in September 1923.  In 1927 Congress authorized public operation of an inland navigation canal along the eastern seaboard, in compliance with which the State of Florida in the same year established the Florida Inland Navigation District, which exists today, to manage the Florida portion of the waterway, now called the Inland Waterway.

 

Two other corporations with ties to transportation and Florida history at one time owned small amounts of land in the City.  The Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Indian River Railway, a precursor to Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway, paid taxes on land in the City in 1895.  At later times the Model Land Company, one of the multiple spin-off companies Mr. Flagler developed around his railroad interests, also paid taxes on parcels in the City.

 

The first indication that someone may have actually resided in the area of the City is a homestead deed signed by President McKinley on 19 September 1898 granting John R. Lyman, then 33 years old, 163.58 acres running, approximately, from the west shore of Lake Shepard to the Atlantic Ocean across the southern half of Hightower Beach Park. To have obtained the homestead title, the Homestead Act of 1862 required that Mr. Lyman have lived on the land, built a home (which could have been as primitive as a thatched hut or lean-to), made improvements, and farmed for 5 years before he was eligible to "prove up" and get title.  Therefore, he may have been the first documented resident of what is now Satellite Beach.  However, County public records include an affidavit that John had died within two years of obtaining the deed, and the property passed to his father, Austin E. Lyman, (the same individual who bought land in the area of the City in 1891) and a younger brother, Louis A. Lyman.  In 1905 John’s brother Louis proved up a homestead one quarter mile south of his brother’s homestead (including the Holland/DeLaura/Satellite public schools campus).  Louis then married and moved to Jacksonville, where he and his wife worked as stenographers before returning to Melbourne during the 1920s, where he worked as a clerk and, eventually, combined households with his father. 

 

On 7 June 1923 Louis Taylor obtained homestead title to 150 acres between what is now Jackson and Roosevelt Avenues from the current location of South Patrick Drive to the ocean.  This transaction completed the conversion of public lands to private ownership in the area now comprising Satellite Beach.  Less than two years later, in May 1925, the Gulfstream Beach subdivision was platted by its two owner/developers, Joseph D. Feher, from California, and Jacob Korf, a dentist, from Miami, in that portion of Mr. Taylor’s homestead east of Magnolia Street.  By that time, Mr. Taylor had deeded the remainder of his homestead to G. E. and Mabel Spires, who, in turn, in July 1925 sold the property to the Eau Gallie shores Company, of which Mr. Spires was the Secretary.  The President of the company was W. J. Creel.  William Jackson Creel came to Eau Gallie in 1910.  He was Eau Gallie’s first physician, active in the local community, and involved in local real estate transactions.  In November of 1925 Eau Gallie Shores was platted in the area now bounded by Jackson and Roosevelt Avenues between Magnolia Street and South Patrick Drive.  Unlike the Eau Gallie-by-the-Sea and Gulfstream Beach subdivisions, Eau Gallie Shores resulted in moving of dirt.  The 1943 aerials show a somewhat overgrown grid of blazed trails corresponding closely to the platted rights-of-way in the 1925 subdivision plat.  However, there is no evidence of construction of any infrastructure or homes.  By 1951, when a new set of aerial photographs were taken, this grid had become further overgrown and harder to distinguish from the undisturbed surrounding scrub. 

 

The only other subdivision platted in what is now Satellite Beach by the mid-1930s was on 80 acres between DeSoto Parkway and the Sports and Recreation Park from the west side of DeSoto Park to Lena Johnson/Hood’s parcel by Alexander J. Goode, in April 1925.  The subdivision consisted of 150 quarter-acre and three-quarter-acre lots arranged in six blocks.  Mr. Goode lived in Tillman, what is now that portion of Palm Bay near US 1 and Palm Bay Road.  His primary income was derived from building boats and serving as captain on yachts of the wealthy.  His father, who moved his family from Illinois to a homesteaded of 153 acres on the north side of Crane Creek in Melbourne in 1877, had bought the land sometime prior to1895.  Alexander’s son, Harry, was an avid fisherman who operated Harry Goode's Outdoor Shop, built in 1920, near the Melbourne end of the Melbourne Causeway.  The Goode family is still well-represented in Melbourne.

 

Speculation in Florida real estate is not a new phenomenon.  In the 1920s thousands of individuals sought their fortune in buying and selling land in Florida.  In many cases pieces of land changed hands as-is.  In other cases, as mentioned above for Eau Gallie-by-the-Sea, Eau Gallie Shores, Gulfstream Beach, and the Goode parcel, owners registered plats of subdivisions, in which they then sold lots.  However, most of that economic activity did not result in actual construction, although the sums of money involved were not inconsequential.  A single sale in 1925 of multiple parcels on the island between the City and the location of the Pineda Causeway involved 892.577 acres being sold for $460,543.20 to a couple living in Miami by The Florida Beaches, a land company in Brevard County.  The price comes to $515.97 per acre.  Inflation increases the sale price to $4.99 million, or $5,586.16 per acre in 2005 dollars – for land accessible only by boat across two rivers from the nearest town of any size, Eau Gallie.  Another couple, from Melbourne, bought 47.79 acres of oceanfront in the City from the same company for more than $2,333 per acre (equivalent to $25,260 per acre today).  Vernon C. Fry, one of the original twelve investors who, including Henry Ford, started the Ford Motor Company, was a principal in The Florida Beaches, and may have been The Florida Beaches’ sole proprietor.  One name of interest among those who bought and sold land in the City was Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, author of The Everglades: River of Grass in 1947 and champion of preserving the Everglades.  She bought a 50-foot by 100-foot lot on Grant Avenue east of Magnolia Street in the Gulfstream Beach subdivision in May 1925, at the height of the land speculation boom.  Other, more local owners in addition to those already mentioned, included Aaron Bennett, founder of what is now the Eau Gallie Yacht Basin in the late 1880s, and Gus C. Edwards, the founder of Cocoa Beach, incorporated in 1925.

 

The plats for the three original 1920s subdivisions in the City are still referenced for land descriptions in those parts of the City and show the current street names for all the streets in these areas except for Shell Street, Volunteer Way, Pineapple Street, Avocado Street, and State Road A1A.  The plat by Alexander Goode has been superseded.  Although the cities of Melbourne and Eau Gallie (now part of Melbourne) and that portion of the barrier island directly across from downtown Melbourne (Melbourne Beach and Indialantic) grew during the land speculation of the 1920s, the rest of the island remained wild and inaccessible.  This is understandable, given the total lack of roads or other amenities in the area, and the lack of bridges over the Indian River until Ernest Kouwen-Hoven built his wooden bridge from Melbourne to Indialantic that opened in 1921.  The bridge from Eau Gallie to Canova Beach opened in 1926.  The narrow, wooden bridges provided access to the island, but were difficult to navigate and prone to recurring fires. 

 

The land boom’s end was hastened by the great hurricane of 1926 that devastated Miami, and economic conditions continued to worsen until the nationwide rash of bank failures in 1929, in the aftermath of which G. E. Spires, the Secretary of the Eau Gallie Shores Company, and also a principal in the failed State Bank of Eau Gallie (formed in 1913 with William H. Gleason as President and located after 1925 in the brick building on the southeast corner of Eau Gallie Boulevard and Highland Avenue), was indicted for violation of State banking laws involving $14,000.  For the next decade the County suffered severe economic conditions along with the rest of the country.  The incorporated community of Indian River City and the Tillman Drainage District (encompassing much of the area now in Palm Bay) were dissolved in 1928 as a result of financial difficulties.  By 1933 the State owned 87% of the land in the County because owners had defaulted on taxes.  In 1935 the State held tax certificates, for unpaid taxes on most, but not all, of the land in what is now Satellite Beach.  This was particularly true for the small lots in the still-undeveloped subdivisions, although the State also held tax certificates on land owned by larger landowners including A. J. Goode, the Gleason Brothers & Company, and the Florida Beaches.  Others, such as Pearl L. Lyman (widow of Louis A. Lyman) and Eva B. Korf (widow of Jacob Korf, co-founder of the Gulfstream Beach subdivision) continued to pay taxes through the Depression.  Non-payment of taxes could have made good business sense at the time; as the Great Depression wore on, the State sold tax certificates it held for as little as 17¢ on the dollar.  In 1934, lots in the Eau Gallie Shores Subdivision were sold for taxes for $3.50 apiece.  Therefore, one could defer paying taxes on their land and, eventually, redeem it at a fraction of what taxes would have cost. 

 

The Florida Beaches Corporation, situated in Brevard County, was one of the survivors of the Depression.  In 1925 they had assembled over 1,100 acres, including what had been originally the Jordan homestead and Edwards purchase of 1921.  In 1947 the Corporation (which by then may have been wholly-owned by Vernon C. Fry) sold the land to Martin and Leslie Lepp, of Detroit, MI.  Two months later the Lepps sold Louis G. Olson, an attorney living in Eau Gallie, and his wife, Ethel, approximately 1 acre of this land between SR A1A and the ocean.  Over the next few years the Olsons and the Lepps entered into a variety of agreements among themselves involving the land the Lepps had bought.  In November 1951 the Lepps registered a plat for the Michigan Beach subdivision (the name commemorating their home state).  By that time they are listed as residents of Brevard County, FL.  Just a year later, in November 1952, they are residents of Dade County, Florida. 

 

On 25 April 1939 President Roosevelt signed a Naval air base law that included construction of a base on the Banana River as part of the country’s preparation for what became World War II.  Work officially started on construction of the Banana River Naval Air Station, at the narrow area of the barrier island several miles north of the City’s location, on 18 December 1939.  On that date clearing brush off 260 acres of palmetto scrub commenced, but the brush was so thick the contractor did not complete the job until 29 April 1940, and lost money on the job.  By the middle of 1940, 3.6 million cubic yards of dredged fill had been moved at a cost of $400,000 to elevate the area on which the base would be built and make the nearby Banana River navigable for seaplanes.  After being used to train thousands of Navy aircrew members, the base was formally deactivated on 1 August 1947 after the victory over Japan.  During its operation, however, the base had helped lift Brevard County out of the depression.  Also, the need for infrastructure to support the base brought potable water to the barrier island, via Cocoa and Cocoa Beach, from Orange County.  It also prompted construction of paved roads on the island and a concrete bridge over the Indian River to replace the one built by Ernest Kouwen Hoven in 1921 at Melbourne, as well as a mosquito eradication program which became a model for other areas.  (As asides, the low-span concrete bridge with a swing span from Melbourne to support the naval air station was not completed and open to traffic until 1 August 1947, the day the base was deactivated; and the wooden bridge from Eau Gallie continued in use until it was replaced in 1955 with a concrete span, with a center swing span to permit boat passage.  The swing-span Melbourne bridge was replaced with the current twin concrete high-spans completed in 1979 and 1984, and the Eau Gallie swing-span bridge was replaced with the current twin high-rise bridges in 1988.)  By 1943 there was a paved road (now State Road A1A) from the bridge at Cocoa Beach to the bridge at Eau Gallie (and, perhaps, to the bridge from Indialantic to Melbourne).  In 1949, only two years after its closing, the base was reopened as an Air Force installation, subsequently named Patrick Air Force Base, in support of the country’s new Joint Long Range Proving Ground for testing of long-range missiles, established by Public Law 60, signed by President Truman on 11 May 1949.  The activities stemming from this law have had a profound impact on the subsequent history of Brevard County and, eventually, on the founding and growth City of Satellite Beach.  As a start, the missile program, which morphed into the space program, attracted large numbers of people from across the US in the 1950s who needed someplace to live.  Housing was at a premium.

 

BEGINNING OF A COMMUNITY

 

As late as 2 April 1951 there was nothing between Canova Beach, on the eastern end of Eau Gallie Boulevard, and Patrick Air Force Base except a modest single-family home owned and occupied by Mrs. Stephanie Sniath between A1A and the ocean near the northeast corner of A1A and Volunteer Way (formerly Satellite Avenue) in the Eau Gallie-by-the-Sea subdivision that had been platted 30 years earlier in 1921. 

 

Canova Beach included Carlos Canova’s fishing pier extending into the ocean at the end of Eau Gallie Boulevard, a small trailer park, and four private homes.  Very soon thereafter Canova Beach grew to include a restaurant (the Pelican) at what now is 2285 Highway A1A and a small store where one could buy milk, bread, or other basic necessities.  On the west side of the island and about half a mile north of the Eau Gallie Causeway, the mathers family was operating their private toll bridge over the south end of the Banana River, providing vehicle access to the south end of Merritt Island.  About half a mile north of the Mathers’ operation were the remnants of Charles Coleman’s failed pineapple plantation of the early 1920s. 

 

On 17 November 1951 Mr. Olson and his wife bought 200 feet of oceanfront east of SR A1A approximately between Norwood Avenue and Cinnamon Drive.  Less than one month later, on 10 December 1951, Mr. Olson, now a widower, completed a purchase from the Lepps of land extending from the ocean to west of the current location of South Patrick Drive that, for the most part, included all the lots that now front on Cinnamon Drive and those on the south side of Norwood Avenue.  This included a portion of the Lepp’s newly-platted subdivision of Michigan Beach.  Just months after the second purchase, he completed a house on that land at what is now 130 Cinnamon Drive, which he then rented to Nick Castora, a draftsman working in Melbourne for the Electronics Engineering Company of California, a contractor building and installing electronic systems at the new missile test complex on Cape Canaveral, and eventually downrange as well.  The location of the house was so remote, and lacking in utilities, even electric power, that Mr. Castora lit bonfires to guide visitors to his home when he was entertaining.

 

In 1952, Tom McLean, an engineer also working for the Electronics Engineering Company in Melbourne, who attended one of Nick’s social gatherings, learned from Nick Castora that he could buy a 100x103-foot lot on the island for $900, paying $20 per month to Mr. Olson.  Tom’s brother, Harry MacLean, a carpenter, bought a lot on the north side of Cinnamon Drive near A1A from Mr. Olson in August 1952.  The brothers built Harry’s home, in their spare time, and Harry and his family (wife Kathy and children Ted, Zena, and RuthAnn) moved into 150 Cinnamon Drive early in 1953.  The three MacLean children – 5, 8, and 10 – went to public school in old downtown Melbourne in what is now the Henegar Center for the Performing Arts on New Haven Avenue.  They rode there and back in a pickup truck with their parents, who both worked in Melbourne.  After school the youngest, Ted, sold newspapers on the street.  In July 1953 Tom bought a lot next to his brother and they then built Tom’s home and he moved into 160 Cinnamon Drive with his wife, Pearl, and son, Scott, in 1953.  Four years later he would serve as one of the new municipality’s charter Council members.  Even though not paid for fully, Mr. Olson gave the brothers papers stating the lots had been paid for so that the brothers could obtain loans from a local bank with which to construct their homes.  By the time the first home was completed they were able to connect to electric power, but they were still without telephone service.  At this time Joe Patanella built a small four-unit apartment building on the southwest corner of Cinnamon Drive and A1A and a four-bay garage to the immediate west, with living quarters he, his wife Esther, and two children occupied on the second floor.  The two children, Rosemary and Joe Junior, finally provided the MacLean children with neighborhood playmates.  Just months later, Jeanette Courtney, with a mailing address in Daytona Beach, built a single-family home just to the west of Mr. Patanella’s home-over-garage.  The senior McLeans rented her home while their two sons built a house for them, moving into their new residence at 165 Cinnamon Drive in 1954.    In 1955 Robert Moser, a bachelor engineer working with the group of German scientists led by Dr. Werner von Braun, was transferred from Huntsville, Alabama to Cape Canaveral, from which they would be launching the Redstone missiles modeled on the German V-2 rockets.  Dissatisfied with the honky-tonk atmosphere of Cocoa Beach, Mr. Moser drove south beyond Patrick Air Force Base until he encountered the nascent community on Cinnamon Drive.  After a brief conversation with “Loui” Olson, the men agreed on a handshake that Mr. Mosier would pay $10,000 for the lot at 220 Cinnamon Drive and a two-bedroom, single-bath home Mr. Olson would build on it for him while he returned to Huntsville to pack and move his belongings.  Mr. Moser returned to find the house ready for him to occupy.  He shortly thereafter met and married a young woman who was renting one of the units Mr. Patanella had built.  The area was sufficiently rural that one family living further west, the McKibbens, who built at 395 Cinnamon Drive in 1957 and had four children, kept a horse which occasionally got loose and visited neighboring families, scaring the MacLean and other children by making noise outside their bedroom windows at night.

 

By the end of 1955 there were 15 living units within the future corporate limits.  These included Mrs. Sniath’s and Mrs. Courtney’s homes; Mr. Olson’s home at 130 Cinnamon Drive; the three homes built by the McLean brothers; the five units built by Mr. Patanella; Mr. Moser’s home; a home built by Georgia H. Latta, a widow, at 620 Ocean Avenue, in the Eau Gallie-by-the-Sea subdivision; a home at 122 Sheridan Avenue, in the Gulfstream Shores subdivision, built by Ralph Moody, an abstractor working for Melbourne Title & Guarantee Company; and the Gaines Acuff family at 225 Wilson Avenue in the Eau Gallie Shores subdivision.

 

Like the extended McLean family, Walter Lane, a technician working at Patrick Air Force Base with Boeing on avionics for the Bomarc missile program, bought four lots in the Eau Gallie Shores subdivision at 400 Wilson Avenue in 1956 because the land was inexpensive ($300 per 50x100-foot lot) and the commute to work was much-improved from that required of those living on the mainland.  He had the masonry work completed by Gaines Acuff, a builder by trade, and completed the carpentry and finish work himself with assistance by his family and co-workers, moving in with wife and children before the kitchen was completed.  The Acuff and Lane children provided each other neighborhood playmates, although their homes were separated by one third mile of thick palmetto traversed by a sand trail that would become Wilson Avenue.

 

In 1956 Reginald and Olive Leonard and their two young daughters were living in a trailer in the trailer park in Canova Beach from which Reg commuted to his Air Force job with the missile program at the Technical Laboratory on Patrick Air Force Base (the large building just west of A1A across from the NCO Club).  Mother and daughters would spend time at the beach and have to run back across A1A to the trailer and shower because the mosquitoes covered them when the left the beach.  They bought a lot at 205 Wilson Avenue with the idea of moving their trailer there and building a cabana over it.  Shortly thereafter they were approached by Gaines Acuff, who offered to build them a home for a very reasonable price because it would allow him to remain near his pregnant wife, Juanita.  The Leonards agreed, and Gaines did much of the construction, with Reg, Olive, and both their parents completing much of the interior finish work.  After the extended Leonard family completed their home, Reg Leonard was ordered to Fort Rucker, Alabama, where the family lived for the next 14 months.  They left before incorporation, and returned to find they lived in an incorporated municipality.  After getting back, they attended a Council meeting in the White’s home and noted how Mayor Hedgecock’s hands shook as he read from a sheet of paper during the meeting; he was not at all accustomed to public speaking.  It was during this period that Reg got himself appointed to the new zoning board, in Olive’s words, “so a hotdog stand was not put in across from us.”  From that start he went on to become a member of Council, and then Mayor when Percy Hedgecock resigned from that position.

 

After completing the Leonard’s home, Gaines then went on to build a home for William Morton at 240 Wilson Avenue.   

 

Also in 1956, Mr. Everrett Seaman built a modest apartment building south of DeSoto Parkway on the west side of A1A, where he lived and rented out the remaining units.  Known as the Corinthian Apartments, the well-worn building was demolished in 2005, along with an adjoining long-closed restaurant, by a new owner who consolidated the properties for redevelopment.

 

There were several individuals or couples living in trailers in the City at the time of incorporation.

Rollin C. and Beatrice M. Gordon lived in a trailer overlooking the beach on several hundred feet of oceanfront they had purchased for $25 per front foot where Eastwind Condominium (1465 SR A1A) is now located.  They had also purchased a large portion of the Eau Gallie Shores subdivision for $15,000 and were selling it off a lot at a time.  It was from them that the Lane family bought the lots on which they built.  Another trailer resident was a sergeant in the military who had a trailer on his lot on the southwest corner of Wilson Avenue and Orange Street.  He left it there when assigned overseas.  When he returned after incorporation, the City had demolished the trailer and cleared away the debris.  Early residents in the Eau Gallie Shores/Gulfstream Beach neighborhood also remember a reclusive man who lived in a very small frame building on the north side of Grant Avenue east of Magnolia Street, in the immediate vicinity of where Marjorie Stoneman Douglas had bought her lot.  Who he was, the circumstances by which he came to live there, or what happened to him are all unknown.  It appears from aerial photography that he was not there in either April 1951 or April 1958.

 

Building residences on the barrier island was made possible by construction of A1A during the war by Joe Wickham, a local native who was a developer and active in Brevard County government.  Mr. Wickham also was instrumental in dredging the mosquito control canal (now called the Grand Canal) between 1954 and 1958 to fill a mosquito-breeding mangrove swamp on the western shore of the barrier island along the Banana River.  The dredge can be seen in the 1958 aerial photograph working in Lake Shepard west of the early phases of construction of Patrick Air Force Base South Housing.  The canal was dredged as an experiment to see if filling the swamp along the Banana River would reduce the hordes of mosquitoes that plagued the island without continued reliance on spraying with DDT - the practice that had been implemented when the Naval Air Station was operational.  Two C-47 aircraft sprayed DDT over the beach area several hours each day.  The County also used biplanes to spray for mosquitoes, sometimes spraying an area twice in one day.  Dredging the canal also created new dry land, Four-Mile Island, which converted unusable swamp into what later became Lansing, Samsons, and Tortoise Islands.  Mr. Wickham also dug east-west running drainage canals across the island every half mile from the base to Indialantic to stop flooding in that community.  Concerned for conservation even in those free-wheeling days, Mr. Wickham, in addition to the mosquito control experiment, placed a jog in South Patrick Drive/River Drive just south of the present Eau Gallie Boulevard to avoid native American shell mounds along the river.  The first two finger canals on the island were dug on both sides of what is now Anderson Court by Jim Dunoway and his son, Sal, to supply marl to the Air Force as topping for the area which was developed as Capehardt (South) Housing for Patrick Air Force Base. 

 

The pioneer residents of Satellite Beach did not move here to enjoy a lush seaside resort.  They moved to a plain of dense palmetto that could conceal a house trailer, dotted by a very few cabbage palm trees and bordered by a mangrove swamp, because land was inexpensive, as low as $300 for a 50x100 foot lot in Eau Gallie Shores, and it was a convenient commute to jobs at Patrick Air Force Base (a major attraction with the two-lane roads and narrow bridges in the County totally inadequate to handle the flood of new residents working on the nation’s missile programs).  The mosquitoes and other insects set up a din at night.  Rattlesnakes were a very real threat.  You made do with the sulfur-smelling water from a well and went to Melbourne to shop (the nearest supermarket was an A&P (Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company) store in Eau Gallie on the southwest corner of Eau Gallie Boulevard and Cypress Avenue) – and to Orlando to do serious shopping.  Young children went to schools on the mainland at the Melbourne Airport, near what is now Wickham Park (Sherwood Elementary), and in downtown Melbourne (Melbourne Elementary) until an elementary school was built in Indialantic.  Middle and high schools were in downtown Melbourne on New Haven Avenue.  There was no fire department, no local police, no community recreation program, no public works to maintain roads and drainage – there were no paved roads or drainage.  The streets were unpaved sand trails, at places impassible when it rained.  Some of those who first moved in built their own homes in their spare time, building at a pace that matched the rate at which they could save funds to pay for supplies.  It was hard to get banks to loan money to build a home here; they considered it a high-risk investment because of the remote location and lack of utilities.  At least one family had to go to Vero Beach to find a bank willing to loan $4,500 with which to build their home.  If you lived far from A1A, you paid $20 per pole to have electricity run to your home.  There were no permits required or building codes.  Each person built as they believed best suited them.  Sea breezes through open jalousie windows served in lieu of air conditioners.   When the mosquito fogging equipment came by occupants had to run around the house closing the windows to keep the spray from filling the house.

 

Even after incorporation, much of the municipality was still undeveloped.  There were large expanses of scrub to explore.  Several families kept collections of gopher tortoises in the back yard.  During the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, when a tent city sprang up on the base to house the multitude of troops converging on the area, there was sufficient undeveloped area for military units to set up Hawk mobile antiaircraft missile launching batteries and anti-aircraft artillery in the City.  The soldiers were then kept busy chasing away inquisitive youngsters from nearby homes.  And Dumont Smith each evening delivered beer to soldiers manning a large Hawk battery just west of what is now Martesia from his small “beer joint”, the Satellite Drive In, occupying the building originally built for the Teen Club on Magellan Avenue.  The tense international situation, with military activity in their midst, created significant anxiety among residents.  At the peak of the crisis some families decided they were too close to the coast for safety.  Two chose to evacuate to the center of the State, intending to make their way to a cabin in Tennessee if the situation continued to worsen.  They made it to Kissimmee before Khrushchev announced the precipitating missile sites in Cuba would be dismantled.  Dumont Smith then spent several days pumping grout into a well that had been drilled to supply the large Hawk battery installation with water.  The last large expanse of native habitat did not disappear until construction of the Carriage Park subdivision in the 1980s.

 

In November 1955 Percy Hedgecock, three brothers (Shine, June, and Hub), and a cousin (Jimmie Caudle) bought from a plumber working for them in Miami (Jack Knap) the 130-acre parcel of land between Norwood and Ellwood Avenues from A1A to the river.  They learned that the land was available when Percy went to a gas station near where the brothers were working together building a house in Miami to get Moon Pies and Pepsi sodas and encountered the plumber.  They got to talking and the plumber mentioned that he had a piece of property on the island across from Melbourne that he wanted to sell.  The two men flew up to Melbourne the next day to look at the land, and Percy bought it on the plane as they flew back for $700 per acre.  In Percy’s words, “You might say that Pepsi Cola was the cause of Satellite Beach being born.”  Back in Miami Percy was offered $40,000 for the $5,000 deposit note he held on the property.  It took over 3 months to obtain the first electrical hookup, and over 8 months before there was telephone service - and that was a handset in a box mounted on a utility pole along A1A.  The closest store was along Eau Gallie Boulevard, and the nearest schools were in Melbourne.  Developers from North Carolina, via Miami, they put in two-lane roads, sold lots, and built houses for those who chose to live here, many of whom worked at the base supporting the space program.  Five months after starting construction, the Hedgecock consortium had constructed four homes for themselves and three models.  On opening day for the model homes, they sold two houses for cash, and started construction on three more speculation houses. 

 

The Hedgecock brothers grew up on a tobacco farm in Kernersville, North Carolina lacking electricity and telephone.  The four brothers who moved to Satellite Beach had all finished high school; three other brothers and a sister did not, and a ninth brother died young.  Percy bought a tavern and converted it to a prosperous general store in North Carolina.  He got into the building business when a customer mentioned to him that it was going to cost him $3,000 to have a new rental home built to replace one that had burned.  Percy considered what the man wanted and offered to build his home for $1,900.  This was the beginning of the Hedgecock construction activity.  In 1952 they were having a hard time finishing a large house in Winston-Salem because of sleet and snow.  On the suggestion of their first cousin, Jimmy Caudle, the four brothers and their cousin took a trip to Daytona Beach to see the races on the beach in February.  After three nights there they continued south to Miami Beach, where they bought four adjoining lots on which to build.  After returning to North Carolina and completing the house they had started, in July 1952 they packed their families, moved to Miami, and began building homes for themselves and to sell.  During the next few years, as they continued to build homes in the Miami area, they made several automobile trips to the Cape Canaveral area looking for land on which to build (the housing shortage due to the expanding missile program making the Cape Canaveral area a prime market for those building homes), but they did not find what they were looking for.  It was then that Percy and Mr. Knap had their conversation about Mr. Knap’s land.

 

The Hedgecock development activity was very much an informal family affair.  They would decide who would get the next home they would build.  The men would build the home, and the wives would wash the windows and clean it up when the home was ready for occupancy.  The designated owner then occupied, sold, or rented the home, and the group would begin work on the next house.  It was a hands-on operation by all, with “Pepsi breaks” at 10 and 2.  As the Hedgecock brothers and cousin Jimmy Caudle began building in what would be Satellite Beach, the number of developers grew as members of the Hedgecock’s extended family moved from North Carolina to Satellite Beach.  These included cousins Jack, Dumont, and Percy Smith; Ted Craver and Leolin Sells, who were married to Smith women; and Leolin’s brother Ray Sells (See Smith family tree). 

 

There was another individual who for a time played an active role in the growth of the City.  Charles Green (C. G., “Gandy”) Rodes is an interesting individual.  Born in West Virginia in 1875, he moved with his parents, brother and sisters, and at least one cousin’s family, to Melbourne sometime between 1880 and 1907.  In 1907 his brother-in-law, living in Ft Lauderdale, convinced Mr. Rodes to move there, where he bought a 10-acre farm, did well growing tomatoes, and established what became a thriving feed store.  Mr. Rodes conceived of the idea of emulating Venice, Italy, in the swamps of South Florida.  To do so, he dredged waterways through mangrove swamps to form peninsulas of dry land on which to build homes, each of which had access to the water in the canal from which had come the fill on which it was built.  He named his development Venice, and by 1925 he had became a millionaire in real estate. This technique differed from earlier efforts to develop Florida swampland by ditching and draining it, which routinely ran afoul of Florida’s heavy rainfalls, nearly flat topography, and high water table.  Instead, he used the high water table to his advantage to keep the canals he created filled with water.  This dredge-and-fill technique was emulated throughout Florida during the remainder of the 20^th Century to allow development of what was otherwise worthless swamp, including by those who dredged the finger canals on the western side of Satellite Beach.  In the mid-1900s Ft Lauderdale adopted the nickname The Venice of America based on the number of developments built on Mr. Rodes’ dredge-and-fill principal. 

 

Famed in his earlier years for his extravagant trips around the country in chartered rail cars accompanied by numerous relatives and friends, an 81-year-old Mr. Rodes, purportedly worth $13 million at the time, chose to live for a few years in a modest home in Satellite Beach shortly after his wife died in Ft. Lauderdale on 2 May 1955.  He had given his son two hotels in Ft. Lauderdale as the son’s sole inheritance and, prior to his wife’s death, had accumulated a large amount of land in Brevard County, including large parcels on the barrier island in what would become Satellite Beach and the Cape Canaveral missile launching complex.  While in the City he engaged in a variety of business enterprises with associate Paul Prewitt, a former jockey, and Prewitt’s wife.  The Prewitt’s daughter was Mr. Rodes’ secretary.  In what was, to a small degree, a return to his earlier real estate dealings, Mr. Rodes hired Gaines Acuff to do the blockwork on five duplex rental homes, as well as a small commercial building, he built on Park Avenue east of A1A.  Dumont Smith helped expand Mr. Rodes’ home on the southwest corner of Park Avenue and A1A to add commercial space where the younger Ms. Prewitt could run a beauty shop.  The expanded home is now the Veterans of Foreign Wars building.  

 

In 1957 Mr. Rodes hired Dumont Smith to build the Skyline Restaurant (now the Cove) on the site of a small golf driving range that Mr. Rodes had built a short time before for the Prewitts to operate by the side of A1A.  Lou Pavlakos, who had operated a restaurant earlier in Eau Gallie and was a member of City Council from 1964 to 1968, operated the restaurant.  In 1964 Mr. Rodes sold the restaurant to Mr. Pavlakos for the same few thousand dollars Mr. Pavlakos came into through a modest inheritance.  The restaurant was the first commercial building built in the City.  Shortly after the restaurant opened, Mr. Rodes replaced the driving range with a nine-hole, par-3 golf course behind and to the south of the restaurant.  When the golf course closed a few years later, Mr. Pavlakos hired Richard Smith to build a putt-putt golf course behind the restaurant, which was operated by the Pavlakos children until it, too, closed.  The Pavlakos family eventually purchased the golf course property from investors who had bought it from Mr. Rodes, and built the Skyline Estates townhouse development on the property.  Nick Pavlakos, one of the children, was the general contractor for the development. 

 

It was on the nine-hole golf course in 1962 that Sam Snead played two exhibition rounds of golf as a fundraiser for Little League in the young municipality shortly after its incorporation.  Sam came from the same part of West Virginia as Mr. Rodes, and they knew each other.  On that basis Mr. Rodes invited him to play the exhibition, and paid Sam his $1,000 fee.  It was given to Mr. Snead as ten $100 bills rolled up in a tomato can (since the rumor was that he kept his money buried in tomato cans in his yard). 

 

In the early 1960s Mr. Rodes and the Prewitts left the area for a horse farm he bought in Hillsborough County on the advise of Mr. Prewitt.  Some time later he was in a nursing home and the Prewitts were not to be found.  Legal records show that his son took control of Mr. Rodes affairs and sued the Prewitts for fraud in their dealings with his father.  Charles Rodes died on 14 April 1967 and is buried in Lauderdale Memorial Park alongside his wife.

 

At the same time Mr. Rodes’ restaurant was under construction, Percy Hedgecock invited the owner/operator of the closest service station, at what is now 930 A1A in Indialantic, to open a gas station in the new community Percy was building so residents would not need to drive that long distance to get gas or have their car repaired.  Mr. Burgess was not particularly interested in opening a second station or moving from the family’s rented home in Indialantic, but Percy persisted.  When Percy offered to build the station and a new home for the Burgess family on lots he owned in Michigan Beach at a very reasonable price, they agreed.  Percy Hedgecock and Dumont Smith built the station in three weeks at the southwest corner of A1A and Harwood Avenue, and was able to buy gas for his truck there, at Cy’s Amoco Service Station, while he finished the restaurant building.  Thus, the service station was the first retail enterprise to open in the new community, even though construction had started first on the restaurant.  Percy retained title to the land on which the station was built, and sold a lease on the property to Amoco Oil Company, who in turn leased the station to Mr. Burgess.  Mr. Burgess refused to subscribe to telephone service in his home to avoid calls from those who wanted service outside normal business hours.  A few years later the Burgess family decided to open a service station on US Route 1 in Eau Gallie, one parcel south of the southwest corner of Sarno Road and US 1.  The family operated that station for several decades before closing it.  When the Burgess family left Satellite Beach, Dumont Smith and Doyle Dean bought the station from Percy Hedgecock and enlisted Doyl’s brother, Charlie, to move from Miami to operate the station.  When Dumont got tired of fielding calls by customers dissatisfied with the service provided, he sold his interest in the enterprise to Charley Dean, as had Doyle Dean some time before. 

 

When they first opened their service station in Indialantic, the Burgess family spent a month or two living in one of Mrs. Sniath’s oceanfront cabins until the home they were to move into became available.  The Burgess girls remember Mrs. Sniath as an older woman who took them to the dune overlooking the ocean, cut sea grass, and showed them how to weave it into baskets.  They also recall that they noted how the Sniath property deteriorated between the time they stayed there and when they lived in the City.  Mrs. Sniath was born on 24 Decembe 1896, and so would have been in her 50s when she entertained the Burgess girls.  She died in 1982 in the 32937 zip code, which includes Satellite Beach, Indian Harbour Beach, and South Patrick Shores.  In the mid-1950s Mrs. Sniath married Kostanty Gos, who lived in Eau Gallie.  The couple was active in real estate throughout Brevard County for several years, but eventually divorced.  Mrs. Sniath’s last recorded land transactions involved the sale of her oceanfront Satellite Beach property to a neighbor of that property, Eugenie A. DeBrecey, living at 789 Shell Street, with legal papers dated 28 November 1962 and 30 December 1968.

 

Two congregations were established in 1957 prior to the community organizing itself into a City.  The congregation that became the Evangelical Free Church of Satellite Beach (now calling itself Oceanside Community Church) held its first service in a garage in Indialantic on Sunday, 5 May of that year.  On 28 May 1957 Father Hugh Cuthbertson was appointed as Priest-in-Charge of Mission for a new congregation to be established in the Satellite Beach area.  The first service of what would be known as Holy Apostles Episcopal Church was held the next day in a model home in the Taylor Made Development on Ocean Boulevard in what is now South Patrick Shores.  The Episcopal congregation was admitted as an organized mission of the Episcopal Diocese of Florida on 16 October of 1957.  The Free Church congregation moved their Sunday services to the community’s new civic center on 22 January 1958, just one month after that building was completed.  On 7 February the Free Church congregation held an organizational meeting at which they elected temporary officers.  On 21 April they called their first pastor, Wesley Engstrom, a recent graduate from seminary, and filed papers of incorporation with the State on 2 November 1958.  The Episcopal congregation moved its services to the new civic center on 9 November 1958.  In July 1959 the first house of worship was added to the community’s residential and business inventory.  However, it was not built in the City.  The frame Florida Craftsman Episcopal Church sanctuary, built in 1902, was transported by barge from Fort Pierce to a lot in Eau Gallie Shores, where it stands today, to serve the young Episcopal congregation.  In 1960 Leolin and Ray Sells built the City’s second sanctuary – for the Evangelical Free Church congregation on three acres it bought from Mr. Rodes amidst saw palmetto scrub on Cassia Boulevard. 

 

During the following years additional congregations were added to those that predated the City.  In 1959 the Pilgrim Holiness Church (the Wesleyan Church since 1968) was established, with the congregation meeting in the Civic Center on Sunday afternoons.  The pastor, Floyd Gookins, who was also a builder, built the sanctuary at 501 Cinnamon Drive and the parsonage at 505 Cinnamon Drive, as well as several other homes in the new community.  The first service was held in the new sanctuary on 1 January 1960, although the building was not completed and a dedication service held until January 1963.  In 1962 the First Baptist Chapel of Satellite Beach (now Our Father’s House) was built at 455 Cassia Boulevard.  In 1963 Our Savior Lutheran Church (now moved to Palm Bay) held its first services in the City’s Civic Center.  They then moved to their own facility at 1001 South Patrick Drive.  In 1964 the First Methodist Church of Satellite Beach held services in a parsonage built at 490 Lee Avenue on land the denomination had bought in 1961.  The growing congregation then moved through a series of buildings of increasing size until moving into the first portion of the current building in 1978.  In 1991 the Chabad Space Coast Jewish Center added a Jewish synagogue to the religious community meeting within the City.  Originally meeting in rabbi Zvi Konikov’s home, then in rented quarters in the Lori Lane Shopping Center, the Center is now located at 1190 A1A,.

 

During the first ten years of permanent residency, the area now known as Satellite Beach experienced exponential growth, with the population, on average, doubling each year.  There was one residence in 1951, three in 1952, seven in 1953, eight in 1954, 13 in 1955, and 25 in 1956.  By the end of 1957, tax records indicate there were 87 households living in Satellite Beach (See attached listing of early families.), although this number does not include the unknown, but modest, number of households living in a trailer park operated by Mrs. Sniath and in Mr. Patanella’s and Mr. Seaman’s rental units.  Aerial photography taken on 23 April 1958 shows a total of 149 buildings (including one gas station and one restaurant) within the 2006 City limits south of South Housing (then under construction).  The 1960 census counted 825 residents in the City.  At 2.3 residents per unit (the average in the 1990 and 2000 census counts), this would suggest there were about 359 living units in the City in 1960.  By 1961 the City Directory, which did not list every household, included 1,198 households.  Perfect power-of-two exponential growth in the number of households would have appeared as follows: 1951, 1; 1952, 2; 1953, 4; 1954, 8; 1955, 16; 1956, 32, 1957, 64; 1958, 128; 1959, 256; 1960, 528; and 1961, 1,028.

 

Control of the character of the community extends to Satellite Beach’s very earliest days.  From his second sale of a lot, in June 1952, Mr. Olson placed restrictions in the deed as to what the new owner was allowed to do with the property.  Buildings on lots off A1A were to be “of concrete construction”, restricted to residential use, with a minimum front setback of 30 feet and a minimum 750 feet of floor space. In the 1950s in Brevard County these were upscale standards.  The Hedgecock family, likewise, specified minimum standards for the homes built on their land, including requiring tile roofs in later development phases.  The Hedgecock brothers went to the extent of registering a deed restriction with Brevard County public records specifying building standards on land they owned.  Construction within the emerging community, with very few, isolated exceptions (such as the unknown gentleman on Grant Avenue), was in keeping with Mr. Olson’s standards.

 

Not all those who built in the City shared high standards.  There was the unknown man on Grant Avenue living in his shack.  There were several individuals who lived in trailers on their lots.  In one of these instances, when the owner sought a permit for an addition, Percy Hedgeock told him the trailer would have to go.  After discussion, they agreed the addition could be built if the trailer was at the same time encased within walls.  In other cases the owners were eventually forced by code violations to leave.  Mrs. Stephanie Sniath added several small rental units to create Sniath Apartments and Trailer Park, hosting about a dozen small trailers.  However, the septic systems consisted of buried 50-gallon drums and conditions were generally of questionable quality or worse.  After incorporation, Percy Hedgecock and the new Town Council enacted a public health code that was used to bring sufficient pressure to bear that the owners of the trailers moved out when given a deadline by which to do so.  Percy and company then destroyed those that remained.  In 1962 Mrs. Sniath (then remarried to Kostanty Gos) sold her complex to Eugenia DeBreceny, a local resident who then moved into the property.  As of 2007 the shell of Mrs. Sniath’s modest home, the first building in the City of which there is a record, comprises the northern end of a multi-unit rental complex on the property.

 

Several conditions during the City’s early, formative years appear to have set the stage for the unusual degree of involvement of residents in City affairs and its tradition of self-sufficiency.  First, the residents during the City’s first years were, in a real sense, pioneers on a new frontier.  The physical isolation of the community from established communities resulted in residents looking within their own community for answers to issues such as a lack of utilities as they transformed raw land into a community one lot at a time.  Second, the early residents were all transplants from all across the country; there was no established social circle.  They were separated from family and friends with whom they had socialized elsewhere.  As such, they were all newcomers who had to look to their new neighbors for any social interaction.  Third, perhaps one reason Satellite Beach developed its tradition of self-sufficiency is that many of those building in the community also resided in the community; they were building their community, in which they would live with what they built and whom they attracted with that building.  Fourth, the small community benefited from residents who engaged in a rare degree of integrity and local philanthropy.  Louis Olson and the Hedgecocks would close a $100,000 deal with a handshake alone.  Mr. Olson sold a lot and built a home based on a handshake and a few minute’s conversation with a new space center worker.  That individual returned to Huntsville and moved with no formal assurance the lot or home would be there for him when he returned.  They were.  On other occasions Mr. Olson provided families who bought lots from him with papers giving them clear title to their property before it was paid for so that they could qualify for building loans from banks.  C. G. Rodes offered 83 acres of land (where Sherwood and Hamlin Avenues are now located) to a young couple to help them get started financially.  He also gave title to four of the five rental homes he built on Park Avenue east of A1A to those renting them when he moved away.  It appears he gave away much of the real estate he acquired in the area.  Percy Hedgecock held private mortgages on many of the homes he sold.  After the owners had paid on the  mortgage for a number of years and become integrated into the community, he not infrequently relieved them of further payments, particularly when ill health or loss of employment would have resulted in their loosing their home.  He also helped an unknown number of students through college.  The bulk of these transactions were known only to those directly involved.  Mr. Olson, the Hegecocks, and others engaged in development in the City, contributed land, funds, and labor to build the government and recreational facilities needed to support the community’s expanding inventory of services.  Finally, Percy Hedgecock had a vision for a family-centered community and the drive and personal skills to pursue that vision. 

 

From the start, Mr. Hedgecock took a personal, proprietary interest in creating a residential community – a town – with a good quality of life emphasizing recreational opportunities for youth.  He built multiple baseball fields and, until his death, personally funded trophy-winning girls’ softball teams which, in their day, made Satellite Beach the "Junior Softball Capital of the World."  If Percy believed something needed to be done, and affairs did not move fast enough to suit him, he would complete the task himself.  As but one example, when residents complained about vermin infesting weed-overgrown vacant lots, Percy bought a Ford tractor and drove it himself, waking residents early in the morning with the noise, to keep weeds down in the City. 

 

BEGINNING OF A MUNICIPALITY

 

The history of Satellite Beach as a municipality goes back only to 3 August 1957 when, by a margin of 45 to 11, residents voted (in the Castle Dare Realty Office on the southeast corner of A1A and Park Avenue, in the commercial addition to Mr. Rodes’ home) to incorporate as the Town of Satellite Beach.  The 57th eligible voter was downrange at the time of the election and was not available to vote.  The Clerk of Elections was Jimmie Caudle, and the Inspectors of Election were Robert Anderson and Robert Bowell.  The new town consisted of about 50 homes, one restaurant (the Land and Sea Restaurant), and a gas station.  The move to incorporate initially arose in 1956 to address a lack of zoning and building inspections in the county.  All that was required to become a building contractor was $5 for a license.  Incorporation was finally precipitated by the desire to prevent construction of a 250-unit trailer park when a sign advertising such went up on the west side of A1A between Park and Roosevelt Avenues.  During a visit to with the Hedgecocks, Carlos Canova (of Canova Beach) stated that someone would build a trailer park on this part of the beach over his dead body; the beach was too nice.  Several evenings later he came back and argued that the community should form a town.  Percy said he did not know anything about starting a town, to which Carlos replied that all you had to do was get a lawyer to draw up papers and send them to Tallahassee, where the Legislature would either approve it or not.   Carlos then stated that the new town would need a Mayor and Council, and that Percy was the right person to be Mayor.  Percy declined.  After three days of people urging him to serve in that capacity, Percy finally relented and agreed.  He subsequently was re-elected to that position eight times and served 15 consecutive years until he resigned in 1973, at which time he had the longest continuous tenure as a mayor of any Brevard County municipality.

 

Percy Hedgecock led the incorporation effort, which resulted in the Florida Legislature enacting House Bill 1451, “An act to create, establish and organize a municipality to be known and designated as the Town of Satellite Beach”.  The bill “[b]ecame a law without the Governor’s approval” on 30 May 1957.  It required approval by a majority of the residents living within the boundary of the potential new town who voted in a referendum election on incorporation for the act to become operative and effective.  This required referendum was the event which occurred on 3 August 1957.  The bill further stipulated that the “Act shall become operative and effective on the first day of the calendar month succeeding the month in which such election is conducted”.  As such, the City has three dates which could be construed as its “birthday”: 30 May 1957, when the State’s enabling legislation became law; 3 August 1957, when the successful referendum on incorporation was held; and 1 September, 1957, when the State legislation declared its action to become effective.  The City has traditionally used the date of the referendum as the date of its founding.  The first Founder’s Day celebration was an all-day affair held on 6 August 1960.  Activities included softball games on Olson Field; Boy Scout camping and skills exhibitions; formal flag raising and retiring of the colors ceremonies by Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and Brownies; and a potluck meal in the civic center where the Luau Teen Club members served nearly 400 people. 

 

The State legislation designated Percy Hedgecock as the City’s first Mayor; with John Fisher, Arthur Longos, David Shackleford, and Dudley (actually, Wiley W.) White comprising the City Council.  The first ordinance passed by the new Council (See attached copy), on 13 August, 10 days after the successful referendum (and prior to the 1 September date on which the legislation declared the act to become effective), limited zoning within the corporate boundaries to “single family dwellings; with the following exceptions.  All property lying east of A1A Highway and the Ocean shall be zoned Commercial, Hotel, and Motel.  A 250 Foot Strip adjoining A1A Highway on the west side shall also be zoned Commercial, Hotel, and Motel.”  In the words of then-Mayor Percy Hedgecock some years later, this action was “an emergency measure and it was to remain in full force and effect until such time as the town council could pass and put into effect a comprehensive zoning ordinance [which occurred on 11 March 1958 with adoption of Ordinance number 10, developed by a committee of residents].  The passing of this emergency ordinance prevented the construction of a large trailer park which was to be located [on] the property now being used for the construction of Quality Homes in the Flamingo Homes subdivision and Satellite Lanes” a bowling alley west of State Road A1A between Park and Roosevelt Avenues.  This emphasis on well-regulated development has continued in successively upgraded zoning regulations.

 

Most of the $500 it cost to develop the first City charter was funded by Louis Olson, who, with Percy Hedgecock, also donated the land for Olson Field behind the Police Department.  Others who contributed funds for the incorporation effort were Percy, C. G. Rodes, and Paul Prewitt.  The original City charter, prepared by attorney A. T. Rossetter, is an 88-page document outlining in great detail the powers of the municipality, its organization and officers, revenue and taxation, and enactment of ordinances.  In keeping with the times and locale, the charter included authority "to establish and set apart in said Town separate limits or districts for white and negro residents."  The charter also provided authority to "prohibit and suppress gambling houses, bawdy houses and disorderly houses and any show, circus, exhibition or any amusement contrary to good morals and all obscene pictures and literature," as well as allowing for a quarantine ground and a cemetery.  However, there is no evidence any of the provisions cited were acted upon, although the City’s designation as a “bird sanctuary” still stands.  In fact, when the new Surfside Elementary and Satellite High Schools opened on the same day in the fall of 1962, they were the first two integrated schools in the County.  Police Chief Pete Mardell and Mayor Percy Hedgecock spent the day going from one school to the other to see if there were any problems.  There were none.  The original charter has been succeeded by two others, in 1973 and, most recently, in 1986.  In 1965 the State Legislature designated Satellite Beach as a city, rather than a town.

 

Evelyn Price, the secretary to the attorney who drew up the City's original charter, won the $25 prize in a contest to name the new city.  The first child born to a family living in the new City was Lance Dumont Smith, born in November 1957 to Dumont and Sarah Smith living at 169 Glenwood Avenue.  In May 1958, a few months after the City was established, a "satellite" in the form of a balloon of metal on a tower was erected at Harwood Avenue and State Road A1A as an eye-catching logo for the new city, complete with launch “exhaust” of talcum powder which covered the crowd and scented the scene when lofted into the air by a small quantity of dynamite as the tower was raised.  The “satellite” was featured in a 7-1/2 minute segment about Satellite Beach as a “space city” on the Douglas Edwards program on CBS television in the months leading to the first moon shot.  Eventually the tower rusted and a windstorm brought down the City's central identifying feature in March 1959.  Again, in 1959, Satellite Beach made national news with half-page picture features in the 28 September issue of Life magazine and in the November issue of Popular Science on moving the sanctuary of Holy Apostles Episcopal Church from Fort Pierce by barge up the Indian River in July of that year.  In 1964 Phyllis Koerner won a $25 savings bond for her suggested City slogan, "Where Progress Prevails."

 

The new town’s name, the “satellite” that was erected along A1A, and Douglas Edwards’ feature on a “space city” are directly attributable to the unique conjunction of time and place in the City’s founding.  It had taken less than 15 months from President Truman establishing the Joint Long Range Proving Ground centered on Cape Canaveral to the first successful launch of a missile from that site – Bumper 8, a German V-2 rocket with a WAC-Corporal second stage – on 24 July 1950.  There had then followed a growing list of successful, and unsuccessful, launches over the following years.  In 1955 a significant change occurred in the United States’ missile program when plans got under way to use a rocket to launch an artificial satellite into orbit around the Earth as part of the International Geophysical Year, which extended from 1 July 1957 through 31 December 1958.  As with the start of the missile program, it was, again, less than two years before crews were successfully launching vehicles.  After two tests, on 8 December 1956 and 1 May 1957, of the Vanguard rocket designated to place the U.S. satellite into orbit, the Soviet Union shocked the World, and especially the United States, when it launched Sputnik 1 on 4 October 1957, with its small radio transmitting signals that could be picked up around the World.  (As an aside, the movie October Sky, released in 1999, provides a good representation of the mood which gripped the nation at this time.)  After this feat the third successful test flight of a Vanguard test vehicle on 23 October 1957 was at best anticlimactic.  The Soviets then followed by placing Sputnik 2 into Earth orbit on 3 November 1957.  If before there had been any doubt in the minds of the United States public about a space race between the Soviet Union and the United States, there was none now.  The United States countered the dual Soviet successes with a decision to attempt to place a satellite into orbit using the next available Vanguard test vehicle.  On 6 December 1957 the missile exploded on Launch Pad 18A before the eyes of the World via live television. The first American attempt to launch a satellite had failed dramatically and publicly.  The Army then launched the United States’ first satellite, Explorer 1, on 31 January 1958 atop a Redstone missile (successor to the German V-2).  On 5 February 1958 another Vanguard missile failed to carry a payload to orbit.  However, on 17 March 1958 a Vanguard rocket successfully carried the Vanguard 1 payload into orbit.  Therefore, the idea of artificial satellites was growing in the mind of the nation’s public as 1957, the year of the City’s beginning, progressed.  Then, within four months and four days after the City became a reality, the Soviets launched two Sputnik satellites and the United States launched its first satellite.  It would only be fitting that the new town of Satellite Beach launch its own satellite.  And it would only be fitting that national news made note of the impact of this new race to space on the lives of those living in the vicinity of the nation’s space-launch complex.  And where more appropriate to do so than a new town named Satellite Beach which, itself, had a great deal of pride and a flair for showmanship?

 

Things we take for granted today were not necessarily always viewed as reliably being a component of the future.  The very existence of Satellite Beach as a municipality falls into this category, and not just prior to the referendum on incorporation in 1957.  In April of 1967 there appeared out-of-the-blue a proposed referendum on whether to unify all the municipalities in South Brevard County into a single city.  Strongly backed by wealthy local interests in Melbourne, the BUILD (Beautification, Unification, Industry, Leadership, Dynamic) South Brevard initiative even had a committee considering possible names for the new mega-city, such as Brevard Beach, Long Beach, and Three Rivers (after the Indian, Banana, and St. Johns Rivers).  Sid Martin, of Melbourne Beach, and Percy Hedgecock were the leaders (primary strategist and passionate advocate, respectively) of the opposition to unification.  They formed a group called FACTS (For Analyzing Consolidation’s True Significance), that name being suggested by Frank Thomas of Melbourne Beach.  The local legislative delegation had introduced the enabling legislation structured such that the referendum was an all-or-nothing, area-wide vote.  Even though the Satellite Beach City Council, along with others opposed to the concept of unification, recommended revising the ballot so that each municipality could vote independently whether or not to become part of the new city, the delegation did not accept that recommendation.  After much passionate discourse on both sides of the issue, the final vote was 9,169 for unification and 10,290 against (53% to 47%).  Most telling, though, is that Satellite Beach voted 290 for and 1,464 against (17% to 83%).  If Satellite Beach had not voted at all, or had voted less strongly against the initiative, the referendum would have succeeded by up to 53 votes, 8,879 for versus 8,826 against (50.01% to 49.99%).  Thus is the narrow margin by which Satellite Beach, and the other municipalities in South Brevard County, retained their identities.  In a replay-with-variation two years later, a city-by-city vote for unification was defeated, again, except for the unification of Eau Gallie and Melbourne into the Melbourne we know today.

 

BOUNDARY CHANGES

 

Most of the area now comprising Satellite Beach was raw and unimproved at the time of incorporation, and not everyone owning land within the new town’s limits was pleased.  The City’s southern boundary originally extended from ocean to river in a straight line now defined by the drainage ditch south of Satellite Avenue, and the northern boundary extended from ocean to river in a straight line where the school property along Jackson Avenue abuts Pelican Coast (formerly Patrick Air Force Base South Housing).  William Lansing Gleason (grandson of William Henry Gleason, the first land owner in the area incorporated as Satellite Beach) was a co-founder of Indian Harbour Beach to the south in 1955.  He, with other family members, as Gleason Brothers and Company (incorporated in 1899 by his father, William H. H. Gleason, and uncle, George G. Gleason), owned and developed much land in the area, including Eau Gallie and the several hundred acres within the City limits bought by his grandfather in 1871.  After Satellite Beach was incorporated in 1957, Mr. Gleason wanted a portion of the land he owned along South Patrick Drive rezoned for industrial use.  However, Percy Hedgecock objected, with City Council’s support.  When City Council refused on 14 April 1959 to allow Mr. Gleason to remove from the City about 200 acres he owned in the City’s southwest corner, Mr. Gleason filed a lawsuit in Brevard County Circuit Court shortly thereafter alleging that “the lands involved are subject to municipal taxation to support the town government without receiving any benefits or municipal conveniences…  The only possible reason for inclusion of the lands in the town is… for tax purposes.”  Judge Vassar B. Carlton found in Mr. Gleason’s favor.  The City appealed the decision in the Second District Court of Appeal in Lakeland, but lost the appeal because, in the words of the 1960 decision, “where land embraced within boundaries of municipality was rural, wild, unimproved, low, marshy, and bounded on one side by a river, that there was no occupant upon the land and not a single structure nor any other improvements whatsoever except for a county road traversing such land, and large expenditures of money would be required for filling and developing the property before the lands would be benefited, owner of such land was entitled to have it excluded from the municipality.”  The decision further states that, “the lands are wild, unimproved, raw, undeveloped, and lacking in permanent improvements of any kind; that the town has offered no services to the property and is not benefiting or improving it in any way; that the property in its present condition is not susceptible to municipal conveniences and benefits without expensive filling and developing of the lands; that the property is far removed from conveniences and advantages of city life, is isolated from the built-up portions, and is not needed by the town for future expansion at the present time and could not be used for industrialization or for residential areas without the spending of great sums of money.”  This decision, among others, is cited in at least two legal reference works as precedent for limits on the ability of municipalities to annex unimproved land.  The Gleason family had the means and the will to undertake this type of legal action; this was not the first time the Gleason Family had gone to court about a land dispute.  On 29 May 1905 the US Supreme Court had found against Mr. Gleason’s father in his lawsuit (199 U.S. 54) claiming an error on the part of a US Government survey had deprived him of land rightfully his in Dade County.  In the early 1960s a sign went up on the land which had been removed from the City advertising the “Miracle Mile” of commercial development, and in 1963 the land was incorporated into Indian Harbour Beach.  The end result is the City’s jagged southwestern boundary, with the industrial area along Tomahawk Drive, along with the upscale residential development west of South Patrick Drive along what had originally been half the City’s shoreline, being outside the City. 

 

A parcel of land between the Grand Canal and the Banana River (created from mangrove swamp when Joe Wickham dredged the Grand Canal) just outside the City’s original northern boundary was owned by Percy Hedgecock and Adger Smith and their wives.  This was incorporated into the City at their request via Ordinance #43 adopted on 23 June 1964.  It now comprises the southern end of Tortoise Island. 

 

The land east of State Road A1A east of Pelican Coast was added to the City in two segments.  The segment from Scorpion Court to Hightower Beach Park was owned by Paradise Beach Development, Ltd, of which Charles Nelson (who owned and developed multiple large parcels of land in the area) was a principle.  It was incorporated into the City at the owners’ request via Ordinance 118 adopted on 22 July 1969.  After it became part of the City, in 1978 or 1979, Bill Gleason and Marty McGuire (also involved with Paradise Beach Development, Ltd) tried to persuade then-Mayor Pat Utecht that it would be a good idea to construct four high-rise towers, complete with bus service and nursing staff, for elderly living units (much like Trinity Towers in downtown Melbourne).  That concept did not survive because Mayor Utecht believed there was excessive risk due to the inability to evacuate the towers’ residents in the face of a hurricane.  The second segment, from 1.6-acre Hightower Beach Park (named for Mr. C. E. Hightower, a developer from Broward County, who donated it to the County in 1960 “for recreational purposes”) to the north end of South Housing, was added by the State Legislature at the request of the City effective 1 January 2002 so that conservation lands owned by the City and the State north of Hightower Beach Park would lie within the City.  This last action added 0.2 miles to the City’s ocean coastline. 

 

In August 1974 City Council authorized purchase from former Mayor Percy Hedgecock a 200-foot by 40-foot piece of land that comprises a portion of the outfield of the Hedgecock Brothers Field behind City Hall.  The land was across the boundary between Satellite Beach and Indian Harbour Beach that had been removed from the City as a result of Mr. Gleason’s lawsuit in 1959 and incorporated into Indian Harbour Beach in 1963.  This transfer of land back into the City was completed amicably.

 

On 1 October 2003 Satellite Beach grew by approximately 300 acres when it annexed Patrick Air Force Base South Housing, which the privatization developer (Patrick Family Housing, LLC) designated Pelican Coast.  Development was to include 549 single-family units to be rented to active duty Air Force personnel south of Patrick Drive; 819 civilian single-family and multi-family residential units (in Montecito, north of Patrick Drive); Air Force Moral, Welfare, and Recreation athletic facilities; and other Air Force facilities, such as a chapel and convenience store.  The 2003 annexation provided the City the opportunity to work with the developer to create an upscale residential district consistent with the character of the City.  It also, for the first time, took the City’s official population over 10,000 with the military families and civilian rental occupants living in Pelican Coast at the time of annexation.  South Housing shares its birth year with Satellite Beach.  On 18 October 1957 the Air Force awarded a $16 million contract to Florida Builders, Inc. of Tampa, FL, to build 999 Capehart housing units (South Housing).  Site clearing was underway three days later. 

 

SELF-RELIANCE

 

With an informal, small town demeanor, the residents of Satellite Beach accomplished much by volunteer labor.  The elected officials - Mayor and five Council members - all served without pay, a practice which continues to the present (although the elected officials now comprise a Council of five, including the Mayor, as the result of a Charter amendment approved on 18 September 1973).  The Town government initially operated out of the home of Wiley White, elected by the first Council as its Chair, with his wife, Ann White, acting as Town Clerk; Council meetings were held in the sun room (enclosed porch) of their home.  The first municipal building, a civic center, was built on the northwest corner of Cinnamon Drive and Thyme Street by contributed contractor labor and materials between 3 August and 21 December 1957 at a total cost to the City of about $6,500.  The building (a three-bedroom home without interior partitions except for the bathroom) was finished and furnished by volunteers, including the Satellite Beach Garden Club, the first social club in the City.  Part of the funds used were obtained from sale of raffle tickets for a new Edsel automobile, which Mr. Hedgecock won (having bought about half the tickets sold) - and had auctioned off for $2,100 to his brother Herbert to pay for lights for Olson field.  In March 1961 the City dedicated a separate City Hall next to the civic center with donated materials and labor for $9,900.  The growing civic complex was then expanded again in 1961, using donated labor by the Volunteer Fire Department, to include a Fire Station.  The three buildings served as the seat of City government until they were demolished in 1992 to make way for a new Police Station which opened in 1993.  The Fire Department had moved to new quarters in 1989 on property on South Patrick Drive that the Volunteer Fire Department donated to the City, and City Hall had moved to what had been the library in 1992, after the library was moved to new facilities in 1991.  In 1968 the municipal complex again expanded when, using $40,000 earned from Little League concession stands, the City built a recreation center over a little-used tennis court that had been constructed a few years earlier.  Dumont Smith dug new footers around the perimeter of the court and laid up block walls on them, and Public Works employees roofed and finished the interior to provide an activities room and offices for the City’s new Recreation Department.  The Recreation Department resided in that building until it moved to the David R. Schechter Community Center in 2002, at which time it became a shop and storage facility for Public Works. 

 

When the City's first elementary school, Surfside, opened in 1962, teachers and volunteers, spearheaded by the Satellite Beach Woman’s Club, the Lions Club, and Mr. Hedgecock, moved in furniture so the school could open - with more students than it was designed for - at the start of the school year instead of in October when scheduled.  The Volunteer Fire Department participated by supervising the bonfire of empty crates and debris left from the construction.  The interior of the original library (now City Hall) was finished in 1967 by volunteers, who then donated over 6,000 volumes to begin its collection.  Fire protection has involved volunteers from the formation of the Satellite Beach Volunteer Fire Department in January of 1961, with paid professionals taking on an increasing role since 1964.  In 1963, with just one paid police officer, the growing community swore in 12 residents as auxiliary police who took weekly turns patrolling the City at night.  The tractor used until 2000 for lot mowing was donated and driven by Mr. Hedgecock in the late 1960s and early 1970s to maintain City property, and the Beautification Board, including members such as Scotty Culp, personally planted and maintained City landscape areas for many years.  In 1977 the volunteer fire department bought and donated to the City the land on which the Fire Station stands at the southwest corner of South Patrick Drive and Cinnamon Court.  In that same year the City’s Fire Department became the first in Brevard County to provide Advanced Life Support as a result of Charter Council member Tom McLean’s leadership, aided by extensive community fundraising efforts, to obtain the equipment and training needed in response to his brother’s untimely death from a heart attack.

 

Key  government services which are not provided by local governments, such as schools and postal delivery, came to Satellite Beach as the result of actions by individuals who took it upon themselves to foster change in the growing community.  Percy Hedgecock and Sam Fuchs, who owned large tracts of land in the City, were instrumental – as described in the following paragraph – in providing low-cost land as an incentive for the Brevard School District to build the four public schools that now serve the City.  Lewis Coleman, who partnered with Jim Gaskin to start a pharmacy at the northern end of the strip shopping plaza on the southwest corner of A1A and Ocean Boulevard in South Patrick Shores north of the City in 1957, used his considerable local influence to convince the postmaster of the Eau Gallie Post Office to establish a branch in the back of the new pharmacy.  The post office branch, consisting of a second counter at the back of the store, officially opened on 15 September 1962.  It was named the Amherst Post Office after the telephone exchange then serving Satellite Beach and South Patrick Shores.  In a short time the traffic through that small branch office was sufficiently brisk to make its continued operation difficult, at which time the postal service opened a dedicated facility in the southern end of the shopping plaza.  With encouragement from Percy Hedgecock, the postal service moved the branch office to its current location on Jackson Avenue.  Ground breaking for the new facility took place on 13 July 1967, and after numerous construction delays, it was dedicated on 5 April 1969 as the Satellite Beach Post Office, serving the City, South Patrick Shores, and Indian Harbour Beach.

 

Developers and landowners have contributed significantly to the City.  The City's first school, Surfside Elementary, was built on land sold to the School Board at a loss by Mr. Hedgecock to get a school built in the City before one which was scheduled to be built in Indian Harbour Beach.  Mr. Hedgecock and Mr. Olson donated land on which athletic fields were built.  In 1967 the 5 acres on which the City's first library (now City Hall) and “new” civic center are located was sold at a deep discount by Marty McGuire to the City after vigorous negotiations by Mr. Hedgecock - moving from $150,000 to $25,000 over one afternoon.  At the time, this land was within the municipal boundaries of Indian Harbour Beach (being part of the land withdrawn from the City by the courts as a result of the lawsuit filed by Lansing Gleason in 1959).  The land was not formally part of the City until the Legislature revised the boundaries of Satellite Beach and Indian Harbour Beach in 1969.  In 1968 a 34-acre tract west of the Grand Canal was given to the City by Sam Fuchs, a developer from South Florida who owned a large block of land, including that on which the public school complex north of Jackson Avenue was built - and who, like Mr. Hedgecock, sold it to the School Board at a loss (half of the $120,000 he paid for the 40 acres) 60 days after he bought it so that the City would have junior and senior high schools (on what is now the only public school campus in Brevard County hosting grades K-12).  His gift carried with it two stipulations: 1) that it be named for his sons and 2) that it be used for a public park.  In 1969 the City bought 32 acres of adjacent land for $115,000 from Mr. Blate and Mr. Weinstein of Miami and, in 1972, dredged two channels between the Grand Canal and the Banana River to establish a 52-acre island slated for recreational development as Samsons (“Sam’s sons”, to fulfill Mr. Fuch’s first condition) Island Park.  In 1976 City contractors donated labor and materials to build the stands in DeSoto Park.  As early as 1967 City officials attempted to partner with Brevard County to purchase 100 feet of oceanfront land in the City for a public park.  However, despite the Satellite Beach Woman’s Club raising $1,000 to contribute towards the purchase price, that effort ended in failure as the County instead purchased a large tract of oceanfront land several miles south of the City for a public park (Paradise Beach Park).  In 1970 City officials again approached Brevard County about purchasing 1,200 feet of oceanfront land in the City for a park.  In 1971, after nearly two years of effort and near-failures the County obtained title to the land through the concerted, personal involvement of the City’s Mayor and the Woman’s Club (including a trip by the Mayor and two Club members to Miami to iron out a deal-breaking misunderstanding on the part of the property owner, who was the same Sam Fuchs who had donated land for what became Samsons Island Park).  The Woman’s Club promptly donated $767.59 to develop the park as its 1971-1972 Civic Improvement Project.  The resulting parking lot, largely paved with donated concrete left over from local construction jobs) was completed just in time to accommodate numerous busses carrying girls’ softball teams to the first national softball tournament hosted by the City.

 

Satellite Beach has traditionally gone to its residents for their ideas and opinions when faced with a major issue.  In 1960 and 1961 the City’s Planning and Zoning Board worked very closely with a firm interested in developing a shopping center in the City.  The Board contacted supermarket, drug, and other chain stores to find who might be interested in moving into the City.  They then worked with them to determine how many square feet they would need and how it all should fit together.  The result is Atlantic Plaza.  In 1985 a referendum to replace the outdated and deteriorating fire station failed.  However, that left the City with its antiquated city hall/fire station/civic center building that had a leaking roof.  The City formed an ad hoc facilities committee of residents to consider how best to address the issue.  The committee invited the town to an open house at the complex and invited their comments.  As a result, the City engaged in a game of facilities musical chairs.  A new library was built on part of the wastewater treatment plant property, freeing the old library for renovation as a new city hall, and a new fire station was built on land which had been donated by the Volunteer Fire Department.  The old municipal complex was then demolished and replaced with a new police station.  Similarly, in 1997 residents voted down by 2 to 1 a bond issue referendum to pay to build a new recreation complex, including a large building containing a gymnasium, activities rooms, and offices for the Recreation Department, on the site of the decommissioned wastewater treatment plant.  The Recreation Board and City staff then polled residents to find out what had been their reason for rejecting the bond issue.  The response was that the cost was too high; people recognized the need for new facilities, but not at the scale and cost proposed.  When the City shortly thereafter had an opportunity to purchase a derelict shopping center, Council convened an ad hoc committee again.  As a result, the City bought the shopping center and renovated it into the David R. Schechter Community Center.  This left the wastewater treatment plant site open to be developed over a period of several years with outdoor activities such as a skate park, dog park, and soccer and football fields.  The fate of Samsons Island and efforts to obtain title to oceanfront property, discussed later, are other issues where public input has played a major role in developing a workable solution to a contentious issue.

 

Unlike most local governments, which hire consultants to develop and update key documents, the City’s self-reliance extends even to development of the documents which guide its governance.  The City’s first charter was written pro-bono by a local attorney.  When the State mandated that each local government enact a comprehensive plan in 1979, the City enlisted a committee of residents (the Comprehensive Planning Advisory Board, CPAB) to complete that task.  Based on a survey distributed to a large portion of the City’s households, the committee drafted a plan which was formally adopted in 1981 via Ordinance 276.  The same committee updated the plan as part of a State-mandated review in 1988 via Ordinance 476.  When the time came for a second State-mandated review and amendment of the plan in 1997, the CPAB, again, conducted the review and made the changes in 1999 via Ordinance 748. 

 

In those instances where the City has employed a commercial firm to develop a needed document, the results have on multiple occasions necessitated that the City repair a damaged product.  The consultant hired to assist in the process of reviewing and amending the Comprehensive Plan in 1998-1999 at a cost of $27,000 performed so poorly the CPAB and City Council discussed canceling the consultant’s contract.  The City’s original Land Development Regulations (LDRs), which govern what may be constructed in each of the zoning districts in the City, were prepared in 1977 by a consultant for a fee of $22,000.  When the product was delivered to the City, the City Clerk noted that the product was identical to a handout model ordinance she had brought from a State conference some months before.  The only difference was that the name of the City had been inserted into the appropriate blank spaces.  After prompting from the City Manager, the consultant did further work on the document, but it was adopted essentially as it appeared in the model.  In 2000, after finding the LDRs increasingly difficult to work with, City Council chartered a Citizens Ad Hoc Land Development Regulations Review Committee to address the LDR’s deficiencies.  On 1 November 2003, after 143 full-committee meetings lasting 331 hours and much homework over a period of 3 years and 8 months, the committee provided Council with their recommendation, which was a synthesis of review of multiple codes, Florida State Statutes and Administrative Code, technical reports, citizen input, and other available sources of information.  Council used this product as the starting point for their complete revision of the LDRs adopted on 30 November 2004 by Ordinance 896.  In 1997 the City hired a consultant to assist with designing the park to occupy the site of the decommissioned sewage treatment plant provided to the City by Brevard County.  The resulting plan was rendered moot when voters defeated by almost two-to-one a $4.85 million bond referendum to pay for the project.  Then, in 2000 the City accepted an ad hoc citizens’ committee recommendation to purchase a derelict strip shopping center a short distance from its major school campus for just over $500,000 and refurbish it for about $2 million to become the community center which would have been built on the park, while using grant funds to pay for more than one third of the cost to develop the outdoor features at the park, including Brevard County’s first skate park and first off-lead dog park, multiple soccer fields, a football field, and a paved jogging/bicycle loop trail.  In 2005 the City terminated for non-performance its contract with a consultant hired to assist with design of a renovated Pelican Beach Park and improvements in the SR A1A right-of-way as part of the City’s community redevelopment program.  The work had to be completed by the City Engineer.

 

MUNICIPAL LEADERSHIP (See attached lists of City Councils, Mayors, Council members, and Department Heads.)

 

Mr. Hedgecock served as the City's first mayor, serving five consecutive terms from 1957 until he retired from the position in 1973.  During his tenure the City government functioned as a council under the leadership of the mayor (who did not have a vote, except to break a tie), in which each member of the elected council also served as head of a City department.  When Mr. Hedgecock resigned as Mayor, the City Council decided the increased sized of the town and the number of paid City employees warranted a full-time City manager.  This council-manager form of government was incorporated into the new charter of 1973.  The Council hired a resident, George Miller, as full-time City Administrator, and in 1977 the first professional city manager was hired, Richard Shinn (who was City Manager of Palm Bay prior to taking the position in Satellite Beach).  He was succeeded in 1985 by Michael Crotty, who still serves in this capacity. 

 

From its founding, the City government endeavored to provide quality, and affordable, services to residents, with paid public works employees from earliest years.  Two key roles of this group have been maintaining the City's stormwater drainage system – essential to prevent flooding of streets and homes – and developing and maintaining the facilities needed for the City's extensive organized athletic programs.  In July 1958 the City hired O. B. Garner to serve as its police force.  For its first five years the City did not levy any property taxes, functioning off revenue received from State cigarette taxes, other intergovernmental funds transfers, and State-mandated utility franchise fees.  In 1962 Council, encouraged by residents, approved a 5 mill ad valorem tax to fund improved services in the City.  In 1963 they added a second police officer, and in 1964 they added a paid fireman from a City budget of $163,500 - including a reserve of $8,373.  Despite providing these levels of service, building the library (now City Hall/Civic Center in the Scotty Culp Municipal Complex), and making other capital improvements, the tax rate was cut to 3 mills in 1963.  Then, over a period of years the millage was further reduced to 2.15 mills - adequate to fund City services, in the words of Mr. Hedgecock, "with all of the revenue that we are receiving from the State and Federal governments."  In 1968 the City hired its first recreation employee. 

 

In addition to providing services using municipal employees, City Council worked with contractors and other government agencies to provide services and address a multitude of issues influencing life in the City.  During 1958 City Council took action needed to pave streets, provide street lighting, make available natural gas service in the City, and reduce the speed limit on State Road A1A from 65 to 45 miles per hour.  In 1963 Council amended the zoning ordinance to require sidewalks in new subdivisions, and in 1964 granted franchises for potable water (from the City of Melbourne) and cable television services.  In 1969 the City obtained County sanitary sewer service, removing the need for septic systems in the City, although in the mid-1980s the expanded sewage treatment plant, originally built to serve Indian Harbour Beach, became a source of conflict between the City and the County.  Effluent from the plant was disposed of in leaching ponds, which raised the water table so high that the back yards of homes abutting the plant were not useable.  As a result the City refused to allow the County to expand the ponds, in response to which the County declared a moratorium on new construction on the island south of the Pineda Causeway.  This resulted in a deluge of mail from representatives of the building industry pressuring the City to change its stance.  In the end the plant was not expanded, and the moratorium was lifted.  In 1971 the City sponsored an Explorer Post of students at Satellite High School, the first Explorer Post sponsored by a city, as well as acquiring land for and beginning development of Pelican Beach Park in cooperation with the County (with County Commissioner Joe Wickham participating in the dedication ceremony for the park). 

 

Council also has continued, from its first meeting, to refine its code to match the expectations of residents.  The first, one page, ordinance governed zoning in the City.  Also passed in 1957 was an ordinance requiring licenses of those engaged in specific occupations in the Town.  The new town established nine zoning districts by Ordinance 10, adopted on 11 March 1958 and amended numerous times in the subsequent years.  In 1959 Council enacted the first of the City’s ordinances specifically governing fences.  In 1960 they limited the hours during which alcohol could be served.  In 1963 they required registration of those engaged in solicitation in the City, placed limits on striptease and unbecoming behavior (at the request of ministers in the City), and established a 20-foot setback from the dune bluff for construction along the City’s ocean shoreline.  In the interval between first and second readings of the ordinance governing striptease and unbecoming behavior, the Brevard County Sheriff’s Department’s vice squad raided the Copa Clup (at 1365 South Patrick Drive where Walker’s Skateboards is now located) and arrested four women for vagrancy and disorderly conduct after watching them perform for several hours.  In 1965 the City Council enacted the first of the City’s ordinances specifically governing signs.  In 1971 they prohibited sale of obscene material.  In 1972 and 1973 they placed limits on use of boats and seining.  In 1976 they made garbage collection mandatory.    In 1978 they limited the location of gas stations and added flood-proofing provisions to the code.  In 1979 they took action to protect trees, remove underground tanks from unoccupied gas stations, and increase the dune bluff setback to at least 50 feet.  In 1980 they established an ocean bluff protection area, prohibited taking of fish from canals, and regulated parking.  In 1981 Council addressed docks which obstructed waterways and adopted a Comprehensive Plan required by Florida legislation.  In 1983 they regulated peddlers.  In 1984 they regulated adult book stores.  In 1985 they required dune crossovers.   In 1989 they initiated recycling.   In 1990 they regulated lighting on beachfront property.  In 1993 they regulated satellite dish antennas.  In 1994 they addressed public nudity.  In 1997 and 1998 City Council developed code regulating communications towers.   In 2000 Council adopted a comprehensive shoreline protection ordinance.  In 2002 they created a redevelopment district.  In 2004 Council adopted a revised set of Land Development regulations. 

 

As with any group of people, there seldom is unanimity among residents as to the best course for the City to pursue.  Such divergent opinions were evident even in the issue of whether the community should incorporate.  Mr. Shackelford, a State-designated charter Council member, was concerned that the move to incorporate, led by owners of large tracts of land, was an attempt to reduce subdivision requirements.  At the first Council meeting after the successful referendum to incorporate, Mr. Shackelford resigned from Council.

 

About 1960 two developers of shopping centers were vying for permission to build in the City.  Percy Hedgecock backed one party, while Reg Leonard backed the other.  There were rumors bribes had been offered, and each man was convinced the other had accepted.  After heated debate during a Council meeting both men decided the other was honorable and no bribes had been accepted; they both were just stubborn, with Percy perhaps being the more stubborn of the two. 

 

In1962, a group of residents calling themselves The Par-3 Committee made the rest of the town aware that City Council was at the final step of granting a private contractor a franchise to build and operate a sewage treatment plant just to the south of the then newly-opened Surfside Elementary School to serve the fast-growing community.  Council merely needed to adopt the enabling ordinance on its second reading.  The Par-3 Committee’s activity brought out such a crowd to the Council meeting that it had to be moved from the Council Chamber in City Hall to the cafeteria-auditorium in Surfside.  Even then there was insufficient room to hold the more than 250 residents who showed up.  The result was that no franchise was granted.  The City eventually made arrangements to have the sewage treatment plant serving Indian Harbour Beach serve Satellite Beach, also.

 

Even such widely-accepted traditions as providing a strong recreation base for youth in the City have been the center of sufficient controversy to alter the face of City government.  When Reg Leonard faced re-election in 1975 after having been appointed Mayor upon the retirement of Percy Hedgecock and successfully campaigning for election to the post at the end of his appointed term, his opponent for the position stood on a platform of reduced recreational involvement on the part of the City.  The campaigns ended with Charles Delanoy as Mayor, by a margin of 11 votes out of over 1,700 ballots cast.  After the election more than 11 residents told Olive, Reg’s wife, that had they known what the results would be they would have voted for Reg. 

 

In 1975 a developer’s request for the City to annex the entire portion of Tortoise Island between the City’s boundary and Patrick Air Force Base became a major issue involving residents’ right to have a formal part in addressing major City issues (via referendum), overextending City services to serve the new development, environmental impacts of development, and the desire of those living along the Grand Canal opposite the undeveloped island (outside the City) to have it remain that way.  Part of the developer’s interest in annexation may have involved his need to obtain a permit for a bridge across the Grand Canal to the island.  After more than a year of heated debate, annexation failed by a split vote of two for and three against, with at least one negative vote tied to the still-lacking bridge permit.  A byproduct of the debate was that the City Charter was amended to require approval of any annexation by a majority of voters in a referendum. 

 

Perceived favoritism for developers, in the form of easily-approved variances and changes to building regulations prompted Pat Utecht, then a member of Council for four years, to run for Mayor on a platform of tightening control on development in opposition to Mr. Delanoy.   Mr. Utecht won the election (by a margin of 1,029 to 882 votes) and proceeded to oversee changes to the membership and activities of the City’s Board of Adjustment (which grants variances) and the Planning and Zoning Advisory Committee (which considers issues involving the building code).  In 1977 a group of residents then undertook a successful drive to amend the City’s Charter to change the term of office from two to three years and to limit membership of elected officials to no more than six consecutive years, with a break of at least a full term after serving for that period. 

 

In 1982 Ed Rainis resigned after serving one year as a member of Council to run for Mayor.  Elected in the election of November 1982, he served less than two years as Mayor, resigning in 1984 to run, unsuccessfully, for County Commissioner of District 5.  Janie Bridgers was elected Satellite Beach’s first woman Mayor on 6 November 1984 to fill the remaining year of Mr. Rainis’ term.   She served one year until David Schechter won election as Mayor.  He served in that position for two 2-year terms until term limits forced him to cede his seat.  Linda Tisdale, who had been a member of Council for two years, became Mayor for a single term, to be replaced by David Schechter for another pair of terms. 

 

In 1990 City Council was considering a consultant’s recommendation to sell land that had been previously set aside for a large park.  A small group of residents informed and motivated the community to come out in sufficient numbers to convince Council that they should consider alternative answers.  The result was establishment of Samsons Island, which is discussed separately later on.

 

During Mayor Schechter’s second term in office, John Malone was elected to Council on a platform of fiscal restraint and government accountability with the aid of a citizens’ group calling themselves Citizens for Open Government (COG).  There then ensued three years of turmoil in Council as Mr. Malone pursued his platform promises.  The situation became sufficiently heated that uniformed officers were posted at the door during Council meetings to maintain order; the period of citizens’ comments for agenda items was moved from after Council deliberation to before deliberation to avoid the personal attacks and invective which had come to pass; and Council enacted, on 4 December 1991, Ordinance 547, “providing for the orderly control of City Council, commission, board or other committee meetings”.  After his single term on Council Mr. Malone lost his bid for Mayor against Mr. Schechter, garnering less than 30% of the votes.  In the following years Mr. Malone filed seven lawsuits against the City for a variety of alleged offenses, all of which he lost, and for which the courts found him and his attorneys liable for more than $88,000 in legal costs incurred by the City.

 

As a result of the turbulence during the Malone era, Council convened an ad hoc citizens’ committee to assess whether City services matched the needs of residents and were provided in an efficient manner.  The committee of 15 residents spent 8 months learning the details of how the City operated, considering alternatives, and preparing a list of observations and recommendations that was presented to Council.  The final report concluded that the City was providing a level of services consistent with the desires of residents; was not close to the point of having to curtail services due to lack of revenues; and was, in general, providing services in an efficient and effective manner.  In subsequent years, based on the report, Council adjusted spending in selected areas and, in 1995, convened a second ad hoc committee, the Capital Assets Planning Committee composed of seven residents, to review the City’s management of capital projects.  Council then implemented some of the recommendations of that committee.

 

Satellite Beach City Councils and staff have enjoyed a strong track record of conducting their affairs in an orderly and amicable manner.  It is the rare exception when a vote by City Council is not unanimous.  Potentially divisive split votes of 2-3 or 3-2, where one member of Council can change the outcome on their own, are very rare.  In the words of David Schechter, four-time Mayor, “I learned from Pat Utecht, when the vote is over you don’t keep a memory of it.  Still be friends even though you disagree.  Deal with the issue; don’t get personalities into it.  Be friends when you walk out the door.  Be able to work with each other, … work with each other as Council members.  Work hard for a consensus.”

 

The leadership in the City’s staff has not been immune from controversy.  On 23 Aug 69, Council received a telegram informing them that Police Chief Henderson was suspended under Statute 466.16 effective 22 Aug 69.  The suspension was the result the Chief’s indictment by a grand jury in the death of a prisoner under the Chief’s care.  Council appointed Patrolman Richard Nigh as acting Chief of Police.  A few months later a court found the Chief innocent, and he was restored to his former position.

 

In September 1973 four members of City Council and the City Clerk were brought before a grand jury for violating the State’s Sunshine law by taking a secret vote on April 24 to fill a Council vacancy left when Reg Leonard assumed the position of Mayor upon Percy Hedgecock’s resignation and then throwing the ballots away.  The grand jury did not indict them, however, because the jury found the individuals “ignorant of the law”, where such secret ballots had been a tradition in the City’s government for years.

 

Mr. Shinn, the City’s City Manager since 1977, was placed on leave of absence until the effective date of his resignation by City Council at a special meeting held on 18 April 1985.  The cause of this action was Mr. Shinn’s terminating Police Chief Tom McCarthy the previous day over a dispute originating over use of Law Enforcement Trust Fund money to build a boat ramp and buy a boat.  After comments by 25 individuals, City Council asked Al Pekora, former City Council member and Police Commissioner, to serve as interim Police Chief.  He did so for 6 months until Council hired Michael Crotty,  who at the time was City Manager of Warren, PA, as City Manager (from over 100 applicants), and Mr. Crotty hired Lionel Cote as the new Police Chief.  City Clerk Ann Scanlon served as acting City Manager until Mr. Crotty assumed the position.  As an aside, Mr. Crotty was not pleased with the manner in which Council conducted themselves as the interviewed him, and stated that he was withdrawing his application.  After the meeting, former Mayor Pat Utecht, Bud Meyer, and Al Braun invited Mr.Crotty for dessert at Sambo’s (on the northwest corner of A1A and Roosevelt Ave).  There the three residents finally were able to persuade him to reconsider, and he accepted the position.  Thus was the tenuous start of a relationship that has now endured more than two decades.

 

Leadership in Satellite Beach extended beyond the City’s borders, particularly on the part of Percy Hedgecock.  He was a charter member of the Brevard County United Appeal, and served on the Board of Directors of the South Brevard YMCA and the Brevard Training Center.  Percy served as a member of the Brevard County School Board for four years.  When Dr. Jerome P. Keuper, an executive with RCA working in the missile program at Patrick Air Force Base determined to offer continuing education opportunities to scientists, engineers, and technicians who were working for the space program in Brevard County, Percy became actively involved in that effort.  Despite lacking any education beyond a high school diploma on his part, perhaps because of that fact, Percy valued higher education.  He initially hoped to have the campus built in Satellite Beach.  However, this is one of his few desires which did not come to be.  Instead, Brevard Technical College, established in 1958, renamed Florida Institute of Technology in 1965, built a campus at the intersection of Babcock Street and University Avenue in southern Melbourne beginning in 1961.  Even at that location, Percy wholeheartedly supported the new school both financially and with his enthusiastic support and considerable talents for getting things done, serving on the school’s Board of Trustees for six years until his death.  He also was Chair of the school’s student affairs committee and the athletic advisory board.  He founded the school’s scholarship fund.  Percy’s involvement with FIT was sufficient for the school to name its first gymnasium for Percy.  Percy was also heavily involved with attempts to repatriate prisoners-of-war from the Viet Nam conflict, making multiple trips to Southeast Asia and the Soviet Union in that effort.

 

ECONOMIC UPS AND DOWNS

 

In the early, heady years of burgeoning space programs which appeared to be a lasting boon to the area, the City residents developed a pride in the quality of their City services, and even donated a $59,000 three-pool swimming complex at Satellite High School in 1963 paid for out of State-mandated utility franchise fees.  With hard economic times in the middle 1970s due to cutbacks in the space program, many of the residents had to move to follow employment elsewhere, causing a major downturn in local real estate values.  Conditions got so bad that homeowners offered to give grand pianos, or $1,000 cash, to anyone who would take over payments on their home (forfeiting all equity in the home) so they could move to new employment without damaging their credit.  The lively residential building business stalled for several years.  During that time Dumont Smith, one of the extended family from North Carolina involved in the building trades in the City, kept food on his family’s table by winnings as a NASCAR racecar driver.  Others lived off savings.  Despite the hard times, economic hardship did not diminish Satellite Beach's high economic standing in South Brevard County.  During the 1970 census, only beachside Melbourne and Melbourne Beach had higher median family incomes.  During the 1990 census, only Melbourne Beach had a higher median family income; no beachside community had a higher median household income. In all of Brevard, about 1/2 dozen small districts of 600 to 3,000 population had median incomes comparable to those in Satellite Beach during the 1970, 1980, and 1990 censuses.  The 2000 census indicates that among Brevard County’s 15 incorporated municipalities, only Indialantic and Melbourne Beach exceeded Satellite Beach in median household income, and only Indialantic exceeded Satellite Beach in median family income.  As the employment base expanded after the contraction in the space program, there were many new residents – residents who had first-hand knowledge of the vagaries of the economy, and many residents who were spending their working day in Melbourne and Palm Bay rather than the base and the Cape. 

 

The 1980s and 1990s provided new challenges for local governments.  Revisions in Florida's tax code in the early 1980s gave municipalities the option of rolling back tax rates substantially.  Satellite Beach did so, to a rate of 1.830 mills, while other cities chose to retain substantially higher taxing rates.  During this period Federal and State legislation continued to impose increasing constraints on the conduct of municipal governments.  Concurrently, with tightening of fiscal policies by government at State and Federal levels, the portion of Satellite Beach's city income which came from State revenue sharing declined from over 30 percent in 1989 to slightly over 21 percent in 1992-93.  By 2007-08 these outside funds transfers had further declined to less than 3 percent of the City’s budget.

 

As the City entered the 1990s, it faced the added challenge of adapting to a no-growth way of life, with over 90 percent of its land already developed.  Through the years from the 1960s to the early 1990s the original population of the City matured from new families with young children to middle-aged grandparents to retired seniors.  However, the average age of City residents has not risen as fast as it would have otherwise as mobile military and young professionals – continuing to infuse new blood into the populace – choose to live in Satellite Beach based on good reports of the excellent schools and City amenities available.

 

Despite declining revenues from outside sources, the City’s finances fared well through the lean years.  An active real estate market (where vanishing vacant oceanfront land now brings more than $1 million per acre and units in some oceanfront condominiums start at $1 million) has kept property values high, and City government has actively restrained budget growth, not making use every year of the maximum 10% annual increase in millage allowed by the State. As of the end of fiscal year 2003 the City had a modest operating reserve of $55,964.  It also had accumulated more than $18 million in capital assets, mostly parkland, by the end of fiscal year 2004.  At the end of the 2004/2005 fiscal year, the City had a net worth of $16,964,789.  At the end of the 2005/2006 fiscal year, the City had over $1 million in its general fund with which to start the next year. 

 

The State Legislature and new Governor in 2007 mounted a new challenge to the City’s financial status.  “Tax reform” legislation coming from the Legislature’s regular session, and then a special session, forced the City to cut its 2007-2008 budget by 14.3%, to less than the previous year’s budget.  The City then had to position itself fiscally to preserve essential services and those services considered desirable by residents in the face of possible voter approval of a January 2008 State referendum which would substantially reduce ad valorem tax revenues available to the City.

 

PARKS

 

The City had grand plans for the parcels between the Grand Canal and the Banana River that had been donated by Mr. Fuchs and purchased by the City for a park.  Accessed by a bridge over the canal at the western end of Jackson Court, the park would include a marina, band shell, athletic fields, and fishing pier.  However, several years of negotiation with the US Army Corps of Engineers and the US Coast Guard to obtain the necessary permits for a low-profile fixed bridge failed, even though in the period 1970 to 1972 the City had dredged canals at the northern and southern end of the property (creating from Four-Mile Island the chain of Tortoise, Samsons, and Lansing Islands) to allow boats traversing the Grand Canal to avoid a fixed bridge if they would not fit under it.  Without access by car or foot, the park concept died, and the land lay fallow, enmeshed in a virtually impenetrable thicket of Brazilian pepper and Australian pine trees until 1989, when the City hired a consultant to recommend what to do with the inaccessible land.  In February 1990 the consultant recommended that the City sell the parcel for residential development because: 1) it was a “liability”, 2) to raise funds from the sale to finance City operations, and 3) to increase the City’s tax base.  When residents objected strenuously to the consultant's recommendation, on 8 April 1990 Council appointed 11 residents to the Samsons Island Citizens Ad Hoc Committee to recommend what should be done with the island.  On 15 August, Samsons Island Chairman, former Council member Vince Bellomo, presented to Council a report of the Committee’s recommendations.  Over the next five years the ad hoc Samsons Island Committee developed a master plan, based in large part on the work of electrical engineer, and amateur naturalist, Bill Killen, for development of Samsons Island into a nature preserve and passive recreation park, and personally undertook the laborious task of turning the plan into a park.  On 21 February 1996, Council formally established the Samsons Island Development Committee as one of the City’s permanent committees.  The Committee was “responsible for implementing the Samsons Island Park Master Plan approved on September 3, 1991, or as may be amended from time to time.”  On 19 February 2003, City Council, upon the recommendation of the Samsons Island Development Committee, changed the committee’s name to the Samsons Island Park Committee.  The rationale was that the Committee had switched its emphasis from development to management of the park.  The Committee and additional volunteers have since the beginning spent more than 50,000 hours on the island transforming a thicket of exotic vegetation into a passive recreation park and wildlife sanctuary.  Capital funding by the City of several tens of thousands of dollars has been leveraged by grants and cooperative mitigation efforts by a developer into improvements to the island exceeding $1 million in value.  The developer, David McWilliams, paid over $0.5 million to have a barge beached in the canal between Lansing and Samsons Islands, bring heavy equipment across that makeshift bridge, and use the equipment to remove about 12 acres of exotic vegetation in wetlands along the shoreline, excavate new channels and plant them with native vegetation to create new wetlands, excavate a freshwater pond, and build a two-car garage as an equipment building.  In 1994 the City received from Governor Chiles the first annual Florida Excellence in Coastal Management Award for the work on Samsons Island.

 

In 1996 the City completed negotiations with Brevard County for use of – and projected eventual clear title to – 35 acres adjacent to the new City Library on Jamaica Boulevard (on which there had been a sewage treatment plant until it processed its last sewage on 30 May 1991).  In exchange for use of the site for a new Sports and Recreation Park, the City treats all County residents enrolling in City programs conducted on the property as City residents.  With approximately 8 acres of xeric scrub on the property, the City has added upland scrub habitat in this area to the 52 aces of natural wetland and mesic habitats which have been planted on Samsons Island for wildlife and the 20 acres of coastal strand and grasslands habitats on its oceanfront conservation lands.

 

As former Mayor David Schechter noted as early as the 1980s, “Beach is our middle name” (as in Satellite BEACH, Florida).  In keeping with this viewpoint, the City has focused much attention on providing good public access to this defining feature of the City.  In the 1960s and 1970s the City worked with Brevard County to, eventually, create Pelican Beach Park, and through the years the City used public rights of way and worked with oceanfront developers to add to and improve its beach access points until, by 2000, there were 15 dune crossovers along the City’s 2.8 miles of oceanfront, including a handicapped-accessible crossover at Pelican Beach Park.  Using funds provided through Florida’s Preservation 2000 program, in 1999 the City acquired title to 15.3 acres of undeveloped oceanfront land lying to the north and the south of Brevard County’s Hightower Beach Park for $3.8 million.  Combined with the County park and adjacent State conservation lands, the purchase placed 18.5 acres of undeveloped natural habitat spanning 2,840 feet of continuous shoreline into public ownership.  This is the longest stretch of public undeveloped beach in the 26 miles between the Federal space launch complexes on Cape Canaveral and the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge south of Melbourne Beach.  Using funds from the same program, in 2000 the City acquired title to 1.85 acres of natural habitat which expand Pelican Beach Park 340 feet to the south, for an uninterrupted public shoreline of 1,630 feet.  The FCT purchases, finally, realized the goal of a 1984 City referendum in which residents agreed to tax themselves to purchase oceanfront land for public use.  That goal had gone unrealized when a variety of funding mechanisms each ran afoul of State restrictions.  In 2005 the City bought the 1.05-acre oceanfront parcel at the end of Sunrise Avenue for $2.25 million to prevent construction of a six-story condominium and preserve this rare opportunity to see the ocean while driving along SR A1A.  In 2005 and 2006 the City Council and residents engaged in a lively debate which resulted in Council adopting on 4 October 2006 Ordinance 934 allowing the developer of the demolished Ramada Inn property to build more, and taller, condominium units, with less breezeway, than the City’s Land Development Regulations previously allowed in exchange for title to a 2.2-acre property with 300 feet of beach frontage he owned at the end of Ellwood Avenue for use as public open space.  The City obtained title to the 2.2 acres in the closing days of 2007.  These parcels expand the City’s parks and recreational lands to 142 acres, 7.7 percent of the City's total land area.  They also extend the City’s publicly-owned oceanfront land to over 5,900 feet, 40% of the City’s 2.8 miles of oceanfront. 

 

In 2000 the City also purchased a derelict strip plaza on South Patrick Drive, slightly west of the public school complex along Jackson Avenue.  Occupied at the time only by the Teen Zone, a youth center operated by a non-profit corporation sponsored by the Satellite Beach Police Department, the City renovating the 37,000-square foot plaza building to provide an indoor gymnasium large enough to accommodate a basketball court, meeting and activities rooms, the Recreation Department, and a permanent home for the youth center.  This facility, the David R. Schechter Community Center, opened in 2002 to replace, and improve and expand upon, the recreation center built in 1968 on a tennis court.  That original recreation center had to be closed to public use because of structural failure in one of its load-bearing walls due to failure of the footing installed when it was originally built on a tennis court more than 30 years earlier.

 

RECREATION

 

Satellite Beach went beyond creating parks; the City collectively undertook to populate them with youth engaged in a variety of activities.  From its earliest days, the leadership of Satellite Beach placed emphasis on providing a strong recreation program for youth in the City.  Percy Hedgecock believed that “Junior softball does the policeman’s job.”  Before the municipality was one year old, Percy and Louis Olson each donated building lots on which to build a ball field, Olson Field on Thyme at the intersection with Norwood.  Shortly thereafter, City Council, on 25 November 1958, enacted Ordinance #15, which established a Public Recreation Commission.  In May 1959 the City paid golfer Sam Snead to participate in a tournament at the Skyline Golf Course to raise funds for Little League, even selling his hat to Lou Pavlokos, proprietor of the Skyline Restaurant who would be elected to Council several years later.  In the 1970s and 1980s Percy Hedgecock funded trophy-winning girls’ softball teams.  Between 1971 and 1984 the City hosted 11 National Championship Slow-pitch Softball Tournaments, with teams coming to compete from as far away as Alaska.  Between 1973 and 1982 City girls' and boys' softball teams earned the title “National Champions” six times.  The Rockets (boys 16-18) were National Junior Softball Champions in 1975 and 1977.  The girls’ 15-and-under team, the Mets coached by Hub Hedgecock and George Grabosky, were Amateur Softball Association (ASA) National Champions an unprecedented three years running in 1980, 1981, and 1982.  They won the third championship in a tournament hosted by Satellite Beach.  Many of these girls graduated to the Comets (girls’ 16-18), who were ASA national champions in 1978, 1981, and 1985, as well as United States Slow-Pitch Softball Association world champions in three consecutive years from 1981 to 1983, winning the third year in a tournament hosted by Satellite Beach.  Some of the Comets players graduated to the Lady Comets, an adult women’s team, who won the USSSA adult world championship in 1982 in a tournament hosted by Satellite Beach to inaugurate the newly-completed baseball complex at Satellite High School paid for by Percy Hedgecock and built with labor donated by Hub Hedgecock.  By 1976 the Comets had produced 17 All American and 2 Most Valuable players in the United States.  By 1985 they had produced an additional 4 world tournament most-valuable and 24 all-world players.  In 1981 the ASA approved the City’s slogan, “Junior Softball Capital of the World”.   Two Comets players, Judy Hedgecock (Percy’s daughter) and Nancy Oldham (the City’s first Recreation Director), and Percy Hedgecock, himself, are in the American Softball Association Hall of Fame.  Percy was so dedicated to his girls’ teams that he even had an ambulance transport him to a game from the hospital where he was being treated for complications from diabetes.  A later player, Kelly Kretschman, who played softball at Satellite High School, was an outfielder in the Olympic Gold Medal US women’s softball team at the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia.

 

A major portion of the City participated in hosting the softball tournaments, which involved 30 or more teams, each with a dozen or more youth and adults, playing 70 or more games on whatever fields the City could muster, with several hundred spectators normally watching each game.  Larger tournaments required use of fields spread throughout much of south Brevard County.  There were jokes about the “million dollar grounds crew” as highly-paid space program workers taking time off from their jobs manicured the ball fields during the heavy use of each tournament.  Many residents hosted visiting players in their homes.  When one team, of 12 Spanish-speaking boys from a mission in New Mexico who camped their way to the tournament, could not afford to pay for commercial accommodations, the City offered to house them in the City’s jail.  However, when the newspaper reported that tidbit, several families offered to bunk, feed, and even transport all the boys on the team to and from their games.  Civic organizations all pitched in.  Tickets were on sale at local business establishments, and the Allamanders Square Dance Club would handle tickets at the games – while in their square dance outfits. 

 

During the 1970s and 1980s youth in the City also did well in marksmanship, a singles competition in contrast to the team play required in softball.  Participants set several national records.  The Satellite High team won a national championship, and at one time there were 19 students from Satellite Beach on marksmanship scholarships.

 

As the years pass, interest in specific sports waxes and wanes.  As colleges focused on fast pitch baseball instead of slow pitch softball, high schools shifted in that direction also.  The result was a declining general interest in youth softball after the 1980s.  The death on 27 January 1987 of Percy Hedgecock, followed in December 1988 by the death of his wife, Helen, who together had funded the championship girl’s teams, ended that athletic dynasty.  During the 1990s and beyond the interest in soccer, and more lately football, have increased.  The City then found means to develop fields for these sports in the DeSoto and Sports Park athletic complexes.

 

Satellite Beach’s support for its youth is not limited to athletics.  By September 1959 the City had a functioning Teen Club that met in the City’s Civic Center, complete with jukebox and volunteer adult counselors.  The club eventually was barred from using the Civic Center because of the condition in which the building was left after meetings.  The club then met in a small building (purportedly built by Percy Hedgeock for their use) on the southwest corner of Magellan Avenue and A1A (now the site of the Breezethrough convenience store).  The City, from its earliest days, supported Boy and Girl Scout activities, and in 1971 was the first city to sponsor an Explorer Post.  During the years the Recreation Department has sponsored an ever-expanding schedule of non-athletic activities for youth, including dance, drama, science, and ecology.  In 1995 several members of a Drug-Free Community Task Force, comprised of interested residents and sponsored by the City, spent a day in Satellite High School discussing with students their concerns and desires.  The result was formation of a non-profit corporation, Satellite Beach Community Services, Inc. to provide youth a safe place to gather.  The initiator for that action, and first president of the organization, was Lieutenant Mark Lowe, Operations Supervisor for the Satellite Beach Police Department.  Starting in January 1996, the group, with massive support from residents, community organizations, and local businesses, converted three derelict storefronts into the Teen Zone.  Open initially only on Friday evenings, and then also on an increasing number of Saturday evenings, the Teen Zone had hosted over 100,000 youth visitors by the time of its tenth anniversary.  The corporation eventually affiliated with the Police Athletic League and expanded its activities to include basketball leagues, wrestling, sponsoring a Boy Scout troop and an Odyssey of the Mind team for several years, tutoring, and a youth mentoring program.  In 50 years the City has gone full circle, from hosting a Teen Club in City facilities to hosting a Teen Zone in City facilities, in both cases supported by interested residents and City staff.

 

THE 21^ST CENTURY AND A SECOND 50 YEARS

 

Although the number of acres encompassed by the City has not changed greatly, the shape and scale of Satellite Beach in the early 21^st Century differs substantially from what existed at its founding.  The number of residential living units in 2006 exceeded 4,700, more than 90 times the number at the time of incorporation.  The City’s budget for Fiscal Year 2007-2008 of $13.1 million was several times the market value of all the property in the City when it was incorporated.  This budget pays for services exceeding those offered by most municipalities the size of Satellite Beach, and larger. 

 

The tradition of residents’ involvement in the City continues past the turn of the century.  Since formation of the Samsons Island Development Committee in 1990, volunteers have contributed more than 50,000 hours to developing the nature park.  Since 1996 over 40 volunteers have contributed more than 4,000 hours annually to programs sponsored by the Police Department, including Citizens on Patrol, Samsons Island Park Rangers, and a Marine Patrol.  Members of the City’s Volunteer Fire Department historically contributed more than 1,200 hours each year as firefighters.  Since the mid-1990s, family obligations coupled with new State and Federal requirements for firefighters have decreased this to about 300 hours per year, with the slack having to be taken up by paid professionals.  Volunteers also provide more than 10,000 hours each year to youth sports leagues, as they have for decades.  During 2000 and 2001 the Satellite Beach Woman’s Club spent countless hours to meet – and exceed – their goal of raising $100,000 to assist the City to purchase oceanfront land.  The Mayor and City Council members still serve without pay, the City’s active citizen committee structure is directly involved with essentially all major decisions made by the City, and (unlike in many local governments) these citizen committees write the City’s Comprehensive Plan and Land Development Regulations, which are the documents which – literally – determine the configuration and look of the City.

 

As the City enters the 21^st Century, the experience with Samsons Island and purchase of the oceanfront land for public open space and conservation has developed into an underlying ethic of pursuing a high-quality lifestyle which is sustainable in the long run.  The City has enacted an agreement with Brevard County to manage as a single unit all the City, County, and State land adjoining Hightower Beach Park.  The City has developed an $11.5 million master plan to upgrade its stormwater drainage to relieve flooding, and also to improve the quality of water discharged to the Banana River portion of the Indian River Lagoon, an Estuary of National Significance included in the National Estuary Program.  The Banana River is an Outstanding Florida Water and a State Aquatic Preserve.  As of the end of 2006 the City had completed or under way stormwater projects identified in the master plan totaling more than $3 million.  For several year, one position in the Recreation Department, which sponsors multiple environmental education opportunities for youth, was designated the City’s Environmental Programs Coordinator, with accompanying biology degree requirements.  The City has also placed a modest cap on the residential density which may be developed on land converted from non-residential uses.

 

The City appears to be entering a renaissance in community affairs early in the 21^st Century.  It has constructed the 37,000 square foot David R. Schechter Community Center and continues to add features to the new 35-acre Sports and Recreation Park being developed near the Library.  It also has designated its commercial district (encompassing 23% of its tax base) as a redevelopment district to facilitate renovation of public and private properties so as to improve both the aesthetics along its major thoroughfares and access to the businesses so important to the life of the City.  As of late 2004, the City investigated the feasibility and advisability of partnering with Brevard County to bring reuse water to City residents from the County’s South Beaches Wastewater Treatment Plant, a project estimated to cost about $20 million.  In that instance, the consensus was that it was premature to undertake such an ambitious capital improvement project.  With a web site (www.satellitebeach.org) featuring a photograph of children at the beach investigating the coquina hardbottom and the tag line “Family paradise cradled between warm Atlantic beaches and the natural richness of the Indian River Lagoon”, Satellite Beach continues to foster its friendly, small town, “Mayberry-by-the-Sea” demeanor as a refuge in an increasingly complex and fast-paced world as the urbanization of the Space Coast of Florida continues unabated.

 

POSTSCRIPT

 

Robert Moser who moved to Satellite in 1955 while working with Werner von Braun on the Redstone missile program, retired from NASA at the end of the Apollo moon mission program as Director of Launch Operations, and still lives in the second home he built in the City.  His parallel summation of the missile/space program and the City appears to characterize the local culture in the mid-20^th Century.  He said, “It was fun to go to work.  We worked as a team.  And I don’t think we knew the word ‘hardship’.  I think I went 6 years without a vacation.  There was a lot of dedication…  We enjoyed getting up in the morning and eager to get to work.  ‘I don’t want to leave.’  ‘Come on, can we do this before we finish up today.’  That type of thing.  And that I don’t think exists now.  It’s a job now, and ‘When’s my paycheck coming and how much is in there?’  It was a very close-knit team of people, and I think the group here in the City was a close-knit team of people.  And of course it just grew.”

 

History of Brevard County, Volumes 1 and 2, by Jerrell H. Shofner, published by the Brevard County Historical Commission in 1995 and 1996, served as the significant source of information about events and people in Brevard County.  The History provides a good general background for understanding the context in which Satellite Beach came to be and grew.  Back issues of the Beachcaster, newspaper clippings, and scrapbooks from a variety of sources; official Council minutes; and personal interviews with long-time residents provided much of the information recited in this history.

 

John Fergus

Begun 14 December 1996

© This document, or portions of it, may be copied for free distribution.  Please contact Satellite City Hall to seek permission to charge for copies.

 

If anyone has information or stories about, or photographs of, the following, or other topics not included in this history, they are invited to contact City Hall to get them integrated into the history.

            Commerce

                        Early businesses

                        Pantry Pride/Food Lion/South Patrick Plaza

                        Regency Electronics/Symetrics

                        Piston Joe

            Early Families and names

                        C. G. Rodes, Sr.

                        Louis Olson                

                        Nick Castora

                        Stephanie Sniath

                        Carlos F. Canova