Instructions:
1....Print this file.
2....At its end, click on "rules" to see a copy of the trail rules and patch order form to get back to the list of Florida trails.
3....If you want a hand-drawn map showing the locations of all of the sites, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to Steve Rajtar, 1614 Bimini Dr., Orlando, FL 32806.
4....Hike the trail and order whatever patches you like (optional).
WARNING - This trail may pass through one or more neighborhoods which, although full of history, may now be unsafe for individuals on foot, or which may make you feel unsafe there. Hikers have been approached by individuals who have asked for handouts or who have inquired (not always in a friendly manner) why the hikers are in their neighborhood. Drugs and other inappropriate items have been found by hikers in some neighborhoods. It is suggested that you drive the hike routes first to see if you will feel comfortable walking them and, if you don't think it's a good place for you walk, you might want to consider (1) traveling with a large group, (2) doing the route on bicycles, or (3) choosing another hike route. The degree of comfort will vary with the individual and with the time and season of the hike, so you need to make the determination using your best judgment. If you hike the trail, you accept all risks involved.
In 1902, the novelty works and planing mill of the East Coast Lumber and Supply Co. were located here. Its water wheel was powered by an artesian well, and the electricity produced here was also used in company president George F. Paddison's house, located six blocks to the south.
The bridge to the beach opened in 1926, and on May 8 of that year the 51-room Harbor City Hotel opened at this end. Dr. W.J. Creel was the president of the firm that owned it and it was managed by J.L. Allen. About a month after it opened, it was sold to Mrs. George Thorne of Chicago for $250,000.
It was later known as the Oleanders, the Imperial in 1958, and then the River House. The building was constructed with a Spanish style, covered with grayish-white stucco.
During the 1880s, a large frame building on the shore carried every conceivable kind of merchandise needed in the new community.
The first bridge across the Indian River at this point was built by Grover Fletcher and opened on February 22, 1926. It frequently caught fire in the 1920s and 1930s. After having his sleep interrupted by 16 bridge fires in a 14-night period, fire chief Joe Wickham resigned.
In 1927, John R. Mathers constructed a toll bridge from the mainland to Merritt Island, known as Mathers' Bridge, located elsewhere. This bridge named after Dr. W.J. Creel was constructed later.
Dr. W.J. Creel was Eau Gallie's first physician. During the early 1900s, he had offices in the back of a building here and in Melbourne on New Haven Ave. next to the railroad tracks. In the front was the drug store of S.K. Watts.
In 1912, a bandstand was built on this corner.
Eau Gallie was founded in 1857 and served as the seat of Brevard County from 1874 to 1878.
In the 1910s, the Eau Gallie city hall was located in a two-story house at this location.
A home was built here in about 1900 and was the residence of the Sullivan family in 1910-12. They lived on the second floor and ran an ice cream parlor downstairs. It later served as a restaurant.
This Spanish style structure was built in 1924 by J.F. Ross of Ross, Benjamin and Vencil, real estate brokers. Ross was the president of the Eau Gallie Realty Board and commodore of the Eau Gallie Yacht Club.
In 1912, a two-story house was built here for Capt. Albert Isadore Rogero and his wife, Evelyn Isabelle Hernandez Rogero. They lived on the second floor, with the Brooks Department Store and a barber shop downstairs. The Rogeros had moved here from St. Augustine in 1902, and for 16 years operated a boat line connecting Eau Gallie with Merritt Island and Cocoa.
Mr. Karrick erected this building in 1924 for his general merchandise store and grocery business, which he had started in 1918.
This Frame Vernacular Cracker style house was built in the late 1890s for William Treutler. This was a common style for homes of the late 1800s in Eau Gallie. The Treutlers may never have lived in it, as it may have been rented out to several families. It was purchased during the 1940s by Dr. W.J. Creel, who used the adjacent lean-to as his office, and later as a hideaway to relax in.
This house later became the office of the Brevard Symphony Orchestra.
A building was erected here in about 1890, and it was used as a boarding house. Most of its tenants were young bachelors.
This two-story building was built by Clifford Ginter as an apartment house.
When area Methodists began meeting prior to 1888, they used a small log mission with a puncheon floor on the north bank of Horse Creek. then, they met in the Baptist church building. This congregation was officially organized in 1900.
The church was built in 1900-02, and a education building was constructed 50 years later. A new sanctuary was dedicated on Palm Sunday in 1957, but burned down in 1965 with only the church bell and sidewalk remaining.
This building, used as the Eau Gallie post office from 1920 to 1925, was built here of rusticated block during the 1890s. The big oak tree out back was used for tying up horses and buggies. Just to the south was Eau Gallie's first theater, operated by Harry Sample. It was used for minstrel shows, movies and stage plays, and for theatrical productions by the students of the Eau Gallie School across the street.
A two-story frame schoolhouse was built here in 1893. It contained five classrooms. The school continued serving students until 1923.
This home was built in 1914 for Francis Houston Hancock, and was later sold to Dr. W.J. Creel. The Creels had moved to Eau Gallie in 1910 from College Park, Georgia, and at first lived in 1667 Highland Ave. across the street.
This home was constructed in about 1890 for Carroll Houston. Its I-plan foundation, tin roof and Chippendale porch rail are typical for the period.
Built in about 1900, this was the home of homeopathic physician Dr. E.E. Macy. It previously had a widow's walk on the roof.
This three-story home was built in 1910 by the Gleason brothers, who had their land office on the second floor. On the first was a bank and on the third was the meeting room of the Masons. The bank closed during the Depression.
This was the residence of railroad agent S.K. Watts and his family. It was built in about 1900 by the Florida East Coast Railway.
The first railroad passenger station, located near the dock, was replaced by one at this location.
Built in 1965, this is the home of Harbor City Lodge No. 318, F&A.M.
Previously, this was the site of the home of author Zora Neale Hurston. She was born in Eatonville in 1901 to Rev. John and Lucy Potter Hurston. She attended Hungerford School, then traveled north to become a maid. She graduated from the high school division of Morgan College in Baltimore in 1918. She studied literature at Howard University in Washington, D.C., from 1923 to 1927, and while she was there she had a piece published in Stylus magazine in 1923.
She received a scholarship to Barnard College and became its first black graduate. In the 1930s, Hurston was Eatonville's most educated citizen.
While she attended Columbia University, her work caught the attention of anthropologist Frank Boas, who encouraged her to collect African-American tales. She received Guggenheim fellowships to collect folklore in Jamaica, Bermuda and Haiti. Hurston is considered by many to be the first native anthropologist, studying her own community.
She was one of the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance movement in the 1930s, but was condemned by some black critics for not being militant enough. Her anthropological work was overlooked by most of her contemporaries for its not being "scholarly" enough. In 1938, she worked as a junior interviewer for the W.P.A. Florida Writers Project for a salary of $67.20/month, collecting for white anthropologists information they were incapable of obtaining.
A bogus morals charge in 1948 was later dropped because she had been falsely accused. She was driven into depression and hiding in the Benton's Quarters section of Fort Pierce, where she worked some years as a maid, and for a while as a reporter for a black weekly newspaper. She died in anonymity there on January 28, 1960, after living at the segregated Lincoln Park Nursing Home, operated by the St. Lucie County Welfare Agency. After her suicide, she was buried in an unmarked grave. Novelist Alice Walker found the grave in an abandoned graveyard and gave it a marker in 1973 reading "A Genius of the South".
Her major works were Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934), Mules and Men (1935), Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Dust Tracks on a Road (1942), Tell My Horse, Seraph on the Suwanee, and Moses Man of the Mountain. Her reputation was rescued in 1978 by anthropologists, and she has enjoyed more fame in death than she did in life.
The high school was built here in 1923 for twelve grades, and expanded by the construction of a second building in 1926 just to the south for the junior and senior high students. The elementary grades were located on the first floor of the southernmost building, with the high school located upstairs.
The high school was phased out, with students being bused to Melbourne High School. The school here continued as an elementary school beginning in 1948. It was renamed Dr. W.J. Creel Elementary School in 1961 in honor of the man who had served for 26 years on the school board.
In 1966, black students were transferred here from the former West Eau Gallie School, which had opened in the 1920s on the west side of the cemetery. Creel Elementary School relocated to 1566 Palmwood Way in 1971 and the old building became an adult basic education center and offices.
In 1963, the new Eau Gallie High School opened at 1400 Commodore Blvd. after 15 years of there being no high school in Eau Gallie. Its students came from Melbourne High School, which had handled both cities' high school needs since 1948.
Former lieutentant governor William Henry Gleason bought 16,000 acres for $1.25 per acre in 1868. He changed the name of the settlement from Arlington to Eau Gallie, meaning "rocky water". He offered a donation of 2,320 acres to the state for the construction of an agricultural college, which was accepted in 1871.
A coquina two-story ten-room classroom building was erected here in 1875, but never opened because the Republican reconstruction government released control over the state to the Democrats who wanted the college in Lake City. In 1876, the state moved the college to Lake City and then to Gainesville in 1906, where it became the present University of Florida.
The building came back to Gleason and he turned it into the Granada Hotel. It burned down in 1903.
This ornate 3-story home was built for the Gleason family in 1892. It shows a Queen Anne Victorian style with a tower and gingerbread, with some scale siding. It was occupied by at least one Gleason family member until 1990.
The Eau Gallie Jail was located here in the 1910s.
The first library was founded by the Eau Gallie Woman's Club and was located in Ella Rossetter's insurance office on Eau Gallie Blvd. In 1939, it consisted of 25 books. It later moved to Ada Stabler's restaurant, the Eau Gallie City Hall, and the Civic Center on Highland Ave. This building was erected in 1962 as the library's first permanent home. It was substantially remodelled after 1999.
In 1893, the Florida East Coast Railway station was built here. For a time, Eau Gallie was the southern end of the railroad, and the tracks extended over the river on the dock. The track remained after the depot was moved to the corner of Guava Ave. and Law St.
Dr. Charles W. Lansing built a drug store and four rental cottages on this corner during the 1880s.
During the early 1890s, this was the site of the Eureka Hotel operated by Mrs. Henry R. Olmstead. It was sold by the Truetler estate in 1901 to Preston A. McMillan, who moved his family here from south Merritt Island. He renamed it the Indian River Inn.
The Vant Wood family bought it in 1908 and renamed it the Seminole Hotel. A third floor was added and the wooden frame building was covered with galvanized iron. It was sold in 1915 to Jacob Gosch, who renamed it the Riverview Hotel. It had rooms for 200 guests and was the meeting place for clubs and wekly dances until the opening of the yacht club. It burned down in June of 1921.
The bank was organized in 1913 with William H. Gleason as its president. It moved into a new brick building here in 1925 and closed in 1928.
John Green was one of those who thought Eau Gallie would be the end of the line for the railroad, and planned a resort of a large hotel and several cottages for wealthy northerners. The large building located on this site was named The DuNil Hotel. He had a fresh water pool, tennis and lawn bowling courts, running water, and a stable of horses. He named the area Sarno after a city in India.
After Green died, other owners were unsuccessful at turning a profit, and the resort closed. A post office opened there in 1895 and closed in 1896.
In 1907, the Kentucky Military Institute bought most of the ghost town and G.C. Restone was hired to convert it into a military school. The DuNil Hotel was renamed the Military Inn and the Military Park post office was established on January 27, 1914. Each year, 250 to 300 people came here for the winter classes. The institute remained in Eau Gallie until 1921, when it burned down.
Many of the parents visiting here for the winter built seasonal homes in Hyde Park or on Pineapple Ave.
This section of US 1 was a part of the Dixie Highway, which was the dream of Carl Fisher of Indianapolis. He had made his fortune in the new auto industry, and wanted to build a highway from Chicago to Miami. When news got out, many communities formed associations to lobby for inclusion on the route.
The Dixie Highway Association met in Chattanooga and chose a route passing through Tallahassee and Jacksonville, and proceeding south along the east coast. Frenzied lobbying also produced an inlland route passing through Gainesville, Ocala, Winter Park, Orlando, Kissimmee, Bartow and Arcadia, rejoining the coastal route at Palm Beach.
In 1915, fisher led an auto cavalcade from the Midwest to Miami, popularizing auto trips to Florida. The Dixie Highway was officially open for traffic in October of 1925 from the Canadian border at the northern tip of Michigan to Miami.
The headmaster of the Kentucky Military Institute was Col. Fowler. He built his boathouse here of locally milled cypress.
Brothers Alexander R. and Henry U. Hodgson of Como, Ontario, came here in 1885, and were later joined by brother John Edwin M. Hodgson. They bought land from the Houston family and built a boatway, a general store, and their family home named Windmill Grove. They operated a steamboat, owned an orange grove, and founded the Hodgson Brothers Mercantile business.
They helped to establish this church, which was organized in 1890 with five members, and the first sanctuary was completed in November of 1897. Its design copied one in Como, with the overhead beams resembling an inverted ark, a symbol of salvation. The congregation was organized by Bishop William Crane Gray. Until the sanctuary was completed, they met in the Truetler Hotel on Hyde Park Ln. and in the First Baptist Church building.
This church's first vicar was Rev. B.F. Brown. In 1957, a new parish house was built, and in 1962-63 the old sanctuary was moved to the rear of the property. A new section was added on in the front.
In 1896, while this area was known as Captain Bennett's Storm Proof Yacht Basin, the Eau Gallie Boat Works were established. Aaron Bennett started it here at the end of the steamboat line. Phillip David Barbour of Louisville, Kentucky, developed the basin more fully in the 1920s.
This was the home of John Hodgson, who arrived in Eau Gallie in 1883. His second wife, Sarah, was a physician. This house was built in about 1910 for them and included her office, and examining rooms upstairs. On the first floor was a pharmacy. The house was remodeled later by a niece, Florence Hodgson, as her retirement home. The remodeling included the removal of the large drugstore window and doors.
Alexander R. Hodgson, H.U. Hodgson and John Edward Hodgson founded a mercantile business at this site during the 1890s and operated a small steamboat.
The headquarters of the Eau Gallie Yacht Club were across the street from the store, beginning in 1907. Later, the club moved to Indian Harbor Beach across the Indian River.
S. Thurston Ballard, having made his fortune in the flour and biscuit business, moved here in 1912 and later built a large home on Sunny Point Dr. After he died, his widow donated an island in the harbor to the city, which was then connected to the mainland and is now the site of Ballard Park.
Located in the park is a monument to Thomas Barbour, one of the world's most renowned naturalists. He made visits to Walden Cottage, his grandmother's house located on the Eau Gallie waterfront, and based on his experiences here wrote That Vanishing Eden.
In 1912, former Kentucky lieutenant governor S. Thurston Ballard moved here and in 1915 built a $40,000 three-story mansion, a guest house, a boathouse, servants' quarters, a gazebo, and lushly landscaped gardens. The third floor of the house burned and what remained was made into six apartments. He named the peninsula on which it sits after his wife, Sunny.
On the site during the 1860s was a high pot in which water was boiled to produce salt, which was then spread on cypress log slabs for drying. It was run by John Houston, who referred to the place as his "salt mine".
Civil and Spanish-American War veteran John B. Castleman and his wife, Alice Barbee, of Louisville, Kentucky, moved to Eau Gallie in 1908 and lived in this pre-1900 large clapboard winter home. He and others from Kentucky were attracted to this area by the Kentucky Military Institute.
Castleman had served as a spy during the war and attempted to have Confederate prisoners released from Union prisons. He was banished from the U.S. as a spy, but in 1866 president Andrew Johnson revoked his punishment.
He later served in the Spanish-American War, was promoted to the rank of general, and also served as the adjutant-general of the State of Kentucky. In 1907, he and others founded the Eau Gallie Yacht Club.
Arlington was the name given to the settlement which sprang up around the cabin of John C. Houston. A relative of Sam Houston, he arrived here in 1859 after serving as a scout during the Third Seminole War. He walked here from Enterprise with his sons and about ten slaves on the Hernandez/Capron Trail. He was joined by his wife, Mary Virginia, when the cabin was completed in 1860.
The cabin sat on his homestead of 160 acres, including all of the land lying north of Elbow Creek (now called the Eau Gallie River), east to the Indian River, and west perhaps all the way to Lake Washington. His home was built of crude logs chinked with clay and burnt oyster shells. Palmetto roots and green boughs were burned at night to create an anti-mosquito smoke screen. They had a sugar cane mill propelled by a horse or oxen, and also raised rice.
At the end of the Civil War, Confederate Secretary of War Breckenridge attempted to flee to Cuba by boat. Unfortunately for him, his boat developed a leak and he landed at Houston's dock. Houston, a Southern sympatizer, helped him on his way to Cuba.
Arlington had the second post office in Brevard County, established on June 30, 1871, with John Houston as its postmaster. Henry Titus had the contract to deliver the mail.
This cemetery was established in 1865 and was closed by the city prior to 1920, replaced by the Eau Gallie Cemetery. It was deeded by the Houston family to the Eau Gallie Garden Club in 1947 and the club erected a marker to honor John C. Houston and his family.
This is a Frame Vernacular style house built in about 1901. It features fish scale ornamentation and shiplap siding. It was the home of William R. Roesch, editor of the newspaper The Eau Gallie Record and the first mayor of Eau Gallie. In 1945, the house was bought by one of William Rosseter's daughters, Caroline, who donated it in 1992 to the Florida Historical Society. It was made the society's state headquarters.
In 1902, James Wadsworth Rossetter, Sr. and his family moved here from Jacksonvile. He became the Standard Oil distributor for south Brevard, shipped fish on ice to northern markets, and built a home here. In 1903 or 1904, he bought this land and the pre-Civil War home that was built by carpenters who built boats, and added a two-story addition to the front.
The first Catholic masses in Eau Gallie were held in this home. The two Rossetter daughters, Caroline and Ella, donated the house to the Florida Historical Society in 1992. The site previously was the quarters of the slaves of the Houston family.
This land was donated for church construction by William Henry Gleason. In 1887, Mr. Miller donated money for construction materials. The building was complete in 1888 and the congregation officially organized in 1889. Its first Baptist minister was Rev. H.M. Prince.
As Eau Gallie's first church building, it was shared by the Baptists for use by the Methodist and Episcopal congregations. In it, the community's school was located in the late 1880s and early 1890s, and for a time it was the town hall. It was located east of the present sanctuary, and was razed in 1976 for an extra turn lane of traffic on the connector road to the Eau Gallie Causeway.
The tin-walled theater was located here in 1922. It stayed hot in the summer and cold in the winter.
Brevard County, by Elaine Murray Stone (Windsor Publications, Inc. 1988)
Crossroad Towns Remembered: A Look Back at Brevard & Indian River Pioneer Communities, by Weona Cleveland (Florida Today 1994)
Eatonville, Florida: A Brief History of One of America's First Freedmen's Towns, by Frank M. Otey (Four-G Publishers, Inc. 1989)
Florida Historical Markers & Sites, by Floyd E. Boone (Gulf Publishing Company 1988)
Florida: The Long Frontier, by Marjory Stoneman Douglas (Harper & Row 1967)
Florida's Fabled Inns, by Louise K. Frisbie (Imperial Publishing Company 1980)
Guide to Florida Historical Walking Tours, by Roberta Sandler (Pineapple Press, Inc. 1996)
Guide to Florida's Historic Architecture, (University of Florida Press 1989)
History of Brevard County (vols. 1 and 2), by Jerrell H. Shofner (Brevard County Historical Commission 1995)
Melbourne: A Century of Memories, by The Melbourne Area Chamber of Commerce Centennial Committee (National Printing, Inc. 1980)
Melbourne Bicentennial Book, by Noreda B. McKemy and Elaine Murray Stone (Brevard Graphics, Inc. 1976)
Melbourne, Florida Postal History 1880-1980, by Fred A. Hopwood (Kellersberger Fund 1980)
The Mission of St. John's: A History of St. John's Episcopal Church, Eau Gallie, Florida, by Miriam K. Hicks (Yates Publishing Co. 1982)
Program From Town of Eatonville Centennial 1887-1987, (Town of Eatonville Centennial Celebration Committee 1987)
Tales of Old Brevard, by Georgiana Kyerluff (The Kellersberger Fund of The South Brevard Historical Society, Inc. 1972)
Zora!, by N.Y. Nathiri (The Orlando Sentinel 1991)
Click here for a copy of the trail rules.