Writing
Notes, essays, and research from Old Cocoa Beach.
- 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.
- Military
Patrick: the base next door to Cocoa Beach
South of Cocoa Beach, the Navy's Banana River Naval Air Station was inactivated in 1947, handed to the Air Force in 1948 and renamed Patrick Air Force Base on August 1, 1950, as headquarters of the missile range. It is now Patrick Space Force Base.
- Storms
Cocoa Beach hurricanes: 1979 David, 2004 Frances and Jeanne, and the storms since
The hurricanes that reached Cocoa Beach since the 1960s: David's eye up the coast in 1979, Erin in 1995, Frances and Jeanne in 2004, Matthew offshore in 2016, then Irma, Ian, Nicole and Milton. Tracks and readings from National Hurricane Center reports.
- Decades
The 1960s in Cocoa Beach: 3,475 people to 9,952
The census counted 3,475 people in Cocoa Beach in 1960 and 9,952 in 1970. A 1966 study for NASA found missile workers made up about 60 percent of the Cocoa Beach Lions Club, and the town called itself the "Free World Space Center, U.S.A." What the records show about the boom decade.
- Places
The Cocoa Beach Pier, opened 1962
Richard Stottler built an 800-foot wooden pier over the Atlantic at Cocoa Beach in 1962 and called it the Canaveral Pier. It became the town's launch-viewing deck and surf hub, took its present name in 1984, and passed to Westgate in 2014.
- Founding
From Oceanus to Cocoa Beach: Gus Edwards and the incorporation of June 5, 1925
The first settlement at Cocoa Beach, called Oceanus, was made by freed slaves after the Civil War. Cocoa men bought the land in 1888; Gus C. Edwards bought out his partners in 1923, the town was incorporated on June 5, 1925, and Edwards was its first mayor. It became a city on June 29, 1957.