Florida's Space Coast (Images of America)

Florida’s Space Coast is an area that got its name from one of the most exciting times in United States history. Settlers were living in Brevard County as far back as the 1800s, and even after World War II, it was still a quiet place to live. Cities and beach towns along 74 miles of Atlantic Ocean coastline were thrust into the modern age in the early 1950s, when rockets began lighting up the skies above them. By the end of that decade, the space race had begun, and the nation would set a path to put men on the moon. The area’s population surged with over 200,000 new residents, and things would never be the same. It was a time when people risked their lives for space exploration, and a community came together to make it happen.