Rockledge Florida Since 1887
The river town built on coquina.
Rockledge dates its incorporation to August 7, 1887. Winter visitors filled the Hotel Indian River and the Tropic, and the coquina ledges along the river gave the town its name. This is the history of the river town that came before the railroad, the land boom and the space program.
What this site is
Rockledge dates its incorporation to August 7, 1887, under a bill sponsored by local legislator H.S. Williams. The railroad came in 1893, the land boom in the 1920s, and the space-age growth that took the city past 10,000 people by 1970.
The name comes from the ledges of coquina along the Indian River, rock of the Anastasia Formation, which Florida's first state geologist cited at Rockledge when he defined it in 1912. Steamboats stopped here in the 1880s. The Hotel Indian River, built in 1884-85, was rebuilt as a Mediterranean Revival hotel in 1923. The Rockledge Drive Residential District, listed on the National Register on August 21, 1992, preserves 100 historic buildings along the river.
Common questions about Rockledge history
- When was Rockledge incorporated, and is it really the oldest city in Brevard County?
Rockledge dates its incorporation to August 7, 1887, under a bill sponsored by local legislator H.S. Williams, and both the city and the National Park Service's history of Rockledge call it the first incorporated municipality in Brevard County. The Park Service's history of Titusville, though, records Titusville voting 58 to 2 to incorporate in November 1886, so the claim depends on which record you read.
- Why is the city called Rockledge?
Gardner S. Hardee, who bought land on the Indian River in 1868, named one tract "Rock Ledge" for an outcrop of stone that formed a natural seawall along the bank. The city describes it as ledges of coquina rock. The rock is the Anastasia Formation, and when Florida's first state geologist defined that formation in 1912, the coast at Rockledge was one of the three exposures he named.
- What was the Hotel Indian River?
A resort hotel on the river at Rockledge, built in 1884-85. By 1889 it and the Tropic were the town's two large hotels, serving hundreds of winter visitors who came to hunt, fish and enjoy the river. In the 1920s boom the old wooden hotel was replaced by a Mediterranean Revival building that cost $300,000 in 1923.
- What did the 1894-95 freeze do to Rockledge?
Two freezes, peaking on December 29, 1894 and February 8, 1895, wiped out the fruit and then the trees; the U.S. Department of Agriculture recorded 18 and 19 degrees at Titusville. Rockledge's population fell from about 400 before the freeze to about 272 by 1900, and it didn't return to its pre-freeze level until 1910.
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Rockledge history from Florida Memory, the Brevard County clerk's records, and the National Register. New articles when we publish.