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thanks to Pete Godke for sharing early Cocoa Beach family photos

Sediment cores within the Thousand Islands tell us that sometime in the past 3000 years or so, a cataclysmic storm approached the Cocoa Beach coast in the vicinity of Minutemen Causeway with storm surge rushing over the dune, scouring sand and vegetation, and pushing this massive barrier island surge into the lagoon – creating a lagoon delta shoal formation and most likely an inlet. Plants slowly colonized these shoal islands – and the shifting of sand by longshore ocean currents would have gradually closed an inlet. Indigenous peoples lived in Brevard County for as long as 12,000 years so these first inhabitants were living along the Space Coast when this extreme storm arrived.

Brevard County, formerly part of Mosquito County, started getting populated in the mid-1800s. The population soared in the late 1950s and 1960s as Kennedy Space Center and NASA’s race to the moon launched our 1st Space Boom. Cocoa Beach was quickly developed, and its western shoreline was dredged/filled to form canal front homes – waterfront living for many of KSC’s first workers. Mosquitoes were a huge annoyance and biologists soon learned that these pests could be controlled by creating ditches through the Thousand Islands, disturbing the egg laying and life cycle of the saltmarsh mosquito.

Many of the original mangrove wetlands have been converted to residential streets and many of those mangrove islands existing today have been altered by this ditching and dredging – creating large areas of upland that did not exist thousands of years ago. Blueprints and drawings from the 1960s show that all of the islands were under consideration for development with bridges, parks, schools and subdivisions of single family residences. In the 1970s – a public call to preserve the islands, along with the decade’s tightening environmental protection, kept these islands from more rapid development. Although there are now many coastal native plants on the islands, in the past, huge areas of invasive plants colonized the freshly dredged spoil piles – islands. These invasive species continue to be removed while coastal native trees and shrubs are planted, which are beginning to establish a more vibrant and healthier ecosystem.

The Thousand Islands are essential lagoon habitat, provide a “learning laboratory” for students eager to explore the mazes of “mosquito canals” and give us a place to escape the rigors of life. These islands remind us that the power of the ocean to shape the land must not be ignored. They are worthy of our appreciation, our respect, and our continued efforts to preserve them.