Merritt Island, FL news and local guide

Oranges shaped the island's modern story. In the 1830s Douglas Dummett planted an orange grove on Merritt Island, the beginning of what became the famous Indian River citrus industry, and groves remained central to the island for generations. Pineapples were grown here too, until freezes in the late 1890s set that industry back. After the Civil War, freed people founded small communities on the island, among them Haulover, Clifton and Shiloh; those settlements later disappeared, but they are part of the island's history. Merritt Island has never become a city. It remains an unincorporated community and census-designated place, and in 1988 residents voted down incorporation by a wide margin. Growth arrived with the space program in the 1950s and 1960s, when the island sat between the mainland and the launch sites to the east. The National Park Service notes that the island's northern reaches still hold traces of earlier settlements, including the late 19th-century community of Eldora near Mosquito Lagoon. Sources National Park Service, Canaveral National Seashore: History & Culture Wikipedia: Merritt Island, Florida (citing Osborne, 2008; Florida Today)