Writing
Notes, essays, and research from Old Cocoa Beach.
- Culture
Cocoa Beach culinary history: Bernard's Surf, the Mai Tiki Bar, the long-gone places
Where the astronauts ate, where the Apollo crowd drank, and what's left of the 1960s Cocoa Beach restaurant scene. Bernard's Surf, Ramon's, the Mousetrap, the Mai Tiki Bar, and the half-dozen successors that still trade on the legacy.
- Surf
Kelly Slater: born 1972, grew up in Cocoa Beach, eleven world titles
Robert Kelly Slater was born February 11, 1972, in Cocoa Beach. By 2026 he had won the World Surf League championship eleven times, the most in surfing history. A documentary biography of the most successful competitive surfer on record.
- Editorial
Why Cocoa Beach worked, the editorial premise
What made Cocoa Beach into what it became, when most barrier-island Florida towns of the same vintage faded or never grew at all. A 1,200-word editorial argument about geography, timing, and one Department of Defense decision.
- Storms
The 2017 Hurricane Irma evacuation of Cocoa Beach
Hurricane Irma triggered one of the largest evacuations in Florida history. Brevard County, including Cocoa Beach, was under mandatory evacuation orders for several days in September 2017. A documented account of what happened on the barrier strip.
- Astronauts
The Astronaut Memorial Foundation, founded after Challenger
The Astronaut Memorial Foundation was founded in 1986 after the Challenger disaster. The Space Mirror Memorial at Kennedy Space Center is its single most visible work. A history of the foundation and the memorial.
- Architecture
Mid-century motel architecture in Cocoa Beach: what's left of the Cocoa Beach Modern
A field survey of the surviving mid-century-modern motel architecture in Cocoa Beach. Cinder block, jalousie windows, kidney pools, and neon. What was the Cocoa Beach Modern style, where you can still see it, and what's been demolished.
- Institutions
Cocoa Beach Junior-Senior High School and the Minutemen
Cocoa Beach High School opened in 1965 because contractor families had kids. The school's nickname, the Minutemen, is one of the few Cocoa Beach institutions named directly after the Cold War missile program. Six decades of FHSAA history.
- Infrastructure
Beach renourishment in Cocoa Beach: the recurring federal investment
How Cocoa Beach has been pumping sand back onto its eroding beach since the 1990s. USACE projects, FDEP cost-share, and the structural reality that the barrier strip would lose its tourist value without continuous federal renourishment.
- Ecology
Sea turtle nesting on Cocoa Beach and the dark-beach rules
Cocoa Beach is a major sea-turtle nesting beach. Loggerhead, green, and leatherback turtles all nest here. The FWC monitoring program, the city's dark-beach lighting ordinance, and what residents and visitors are legally required to do between May and October.
- Architecture
The 1980s Cocoa Beach motel era and the post-Apollo decline
The mid-century motel boom built by Apollo crested in 1969 and slowly fell apart through the 1980s. What got demolished, what survived, and how the modern condo era erased most of the iconic Cocoa Beach motel architecture.
- Places
The 1996 Cocoa Beach Pier fire
On March 1996 a kitchen fire at the head of the Cocoa Beach Pier burned the restaurant and bar structures to the deck. Half the pier was rebuilt over the following 18 months. The most expensive single non-hurricane event in the pier's history.
- Places
Lori Wilson Park and the last barrier-island maritime hammock
A 32-acre Brevard County park on the Cocoa Beach Atlantic side preserves one of the last intact maritime hammocks on the barrier island. Trails, ecology, and how to actually use the park as a local.
- Military
Patrick Air Force Base / Patrick Space Force Base: the base next door
The Banana River Naval Air Station became Patrick AFB in 1950, became Patrick Space Force Base in 2020. A history of the military installation that put NASA at the Cape and kept Cocoa Beach growing for 75 years.
- Astronauts
Apollo 11 launches: the million-visitor weekend on Cocoa Beach
On July 16, 1969, roughly a million spectators packed the Brevard coast for the Apollo 11 launch. Motels were selling driveway parking. Hotels were renting cots. Cocoa Beach ran out of food. The biggest weekend in the town's history.
- Culture
The Beach Boys, surf rock, and Cocoa Beach's pop-culture footprint
What the Beach Boys actually had to do with Cocoa Beach (less than the legend says), what the town's surf-rock connection actually is, and how I Dream of Jeannie put Cocoa Beach on prime-time American TV without ever shooting there.
- Storms
Cocoa Beach hurricanes: 1979 David, 2004 Frances and Jeanne, and the recurring threat
Every named storm that has hit or threatened Cocoa Beach since 1950, what they did, what was rebuilt, and why the barrier island remains structurally exposed despite a century of building-code changes.
- Surf
How Cocoa Beach became the East Coast surf capital
The Eastern Surfing Association, Dick Catri, the 1960s Brevard surf scene, Kelly Slater, and the documentary case for why Cocoa Beach holds the East Coast surfing title.
- Decades
The 1960s, when Cocoa Beach grew 1,000% in ten years
Census data, motel construction, contractor in-migration, and what a barrier-island town does when its population goes from 246 in 1950 to 9,952 in 1970 because of a missile program.
- Decades
Cocoa Beach in the 1950s, before NASA arrived
What the barrier island looked like the decade before the astronauts: a fishing community of a few hundred people, one paved road, a wartime airbase next door, and zero idea what was coming.
- Places
The Cocoa Beach Pier, opened 1962
Richard Stottler built an 800-foot wooden pier on the Cocoa Beach Atlantic side. It opened in 1962, survived hurricanes, partially burned, got rebuilt, and is now operated by Westgate Resorts. A history of the most photographed structure on the barrier island.
- Astronauts
The Mercury 7 in Cocoa Beach
Where America's first astronauts lived, drank, and trained between launches. The Holiday Inn under Henri Landwirth, the Cape Colony Inn, Bernard's Surf, and the local culture that surrounded them between 1959 and 1963.
- Surf
Ron Jon Surf Shop: founded 1959 in NJ, opened Cocoa Beach 1963
How a New Jersey surfer named Ron DiMenna opened the first East Coast surf shop chain, expanded into Cocoa Beach in 1963, and built the 52,000-square-foot 24-hour flagship that locals still call 'the castle.'
- Founding
Cocoa Beach incorporates: June 5, 1925
How a barrier-island settlement with fewer than 30 year-round residents got a Florida town charter, what the original boundaries were, and who signed the petition.
- Founding
The freed-slave settlers who got to Cocoa Beach first
Before the 1925 incorporation, before Gus Edwards bought the tract, freed Black families bought land on the Cocoa Beach barrier island. A documentary history of the island's first owners.
- Founding
Gus Edwards buys Cocoa Beach (1923)
How a Cocoa city attorney named Gus C. Edwards picked up the entire Cocoa Beach barrier-island tract at a Brevard County tax sale, platted it, and sold lots, the legal foundation for the 1925 incorporation.