Cocoa Beach Florida Since 1925
The barrier island next door to the Cape.
Cocoa Beach sits on the barrier island between the Banana River and the Atlantic. It was incorporated in 1925, got its pier in 1962, and nearly tripled in the 1960s as the missile range and NASA grew beside it. Kelly Slater was born here in 1972.
From the archive
Primary-source histories of the people, places, and decades that built Cocoa Beach. Start anywhere; the archive doesn't read in order.
- Culture
Bernard's Surf, Ramon's and the Glass Bank: Cocoa Beach on old postcards
Bernard's Surf opened in 1948 and closed in 2010. Ramon's, opened by Donald and Allene Holt after they came in 1956, honored the Mercury Seven. The Glass Bank had a rooftop restaurant from 1963 to 1972. What UCF's archive of Cocoa Beach postcards records about the town's restaurants and motels.
- Surf
Kelly Slater: born in Cocoa Beach in 1972, eleven world titles
Kelly Slater was born in Cocoa Beach on February 11, 1972. He won the men's professional surfing world title eleven times, in 1992, 1994-98, 2005-06, 2008 and 2010-11, a record, and was both the youngest and the oldest men's world champion.
- Editorial
Why Cocoa Beach worked, the editorial premise
What this site covers: Cocoa Beach from Oceanus and the 1925 incorporation through the Air Force base next door, the space-age boom, the pier, the beach and its turtles.
- Astronauts
The Astronauts Memorial Foundation and the Space Mirror, founded after Challenger
The Astronauts Memorial Foundation was created after the Challenger accident of January 28, 1986. Its Space Mirror Memorial at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex was dedicated on May 9, 1991, and now carries 25 names. The foundation's Center for Space Education followed in 1994.
- Infrastructure
Beach renourishment in Cocoa Beach: the North Reach since 2000
Cocoa Beach's shoreline is part of the North Reach of the federal Brevard County Shore Protection Project, 9.4 miles from Jetty Park to Patrick. It was first rebuilt between October 2000 and April 2001, and renourished after the 2004 hurricanes and after Hurricane Sandy, with sand dredged from Canaveral Shoals.
- Ecology
Sea turtles on Brevard's beaches: what the state's nest counts show
In 2025 Florida's statewide survey counted 22,716 loggerhead nests and 30,431 green turtle nests on Brevard County's beaches, almost half of all green turtle nests in the state, and 129 leatherback nests. What the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's counts show.
The barrier island, from the beginning.
Before the astronauts, the pier and Kelly Slater, there was Oceanus, a settlement of freed slaves after the Civil War, and a tract of island that Cocoa men bought in 1888. Old Cocoa Beach covers the town from then on.
Common questions about Cocoa Beach history
- When was Cocoa Beach founded?
The town was incorporated on June 5, 1925, and Gus C. Edwards, a Cocoa city attorney, was its first mayor. According to UCF's RICHES archive, drawing on the city's history, the first settlement there was Oceanus, made by freed slaves after the Civil War; a group of Cocoa men bought the land in 1888, and Edwards bought out his partners in 1923. Cocoa Beach became a city on June 29, 1957.
- How fast did Cocoa Beach grow in the space age?
The census counted 3,475 people in Cocoa Beach in 1960 and 9,952 in 1970. Growth then slowed: 10,926 in 1980, 12,123 in 1990 and 11,354 in 2020. A 1966 study for NASA found missile-industry workers made up about 60 percent of the Cocoa Beach Lions Club.
- Is Kelly Slater from Cocoa Beach?
Yes. The World Surf League says Kelly Slater was born in Cocoa Beach on February 11, 1972. Guinness World Records lists his 11 men's professional surfing world titles, the most ever: 1992, 1994 to 1998, 2005 and 2006, 2008, and 2010 and 2011.
- When was the Cocoa Beach Pier built?
In 1962, by Richard Stottler, under the name Canaveral Pier. It runs 800 feet over the Atlantic. It was renamed the Cocoa Beach Pier in 1984 after a 1983 remodeling, and in 2014 the Stottler family sold it to Westgate Resorts' David Siegel and Jim Gissy, according to the pier's own history.