#1 NUDE BEACHES AT A NATIONAL PARK?
Canaveral National Seashore has not one, but two nude beaches. Yes, you heard that right. Nude beaches at a National Park! The National Park Service follows state and county laws in regards to nudity since there is no federal law addressing the subject, and both nude beaches were established before Canaveral National Seashore was created in 1975. At Apollo Beach, which is at the north end of the park in Volusia County, nudity is legal, and an agreement was made between the nudists and the National Park Service to keep suits on until 150 yards south of the last parking area (though not everyone follows the rules). Playalinda Beach at the south end of the park is in Brevard County, and nudity was legal there until anti-nudity laws were enacted in 1995. While some arrests were made sporadically in the 1990s, the sheriff made it clear that he and his men had better things to do than arrest naked people. When doing research on the topic, articles on arrests and enforcement dry up after 2000, and today, from what I gather, unless you start having sex or are involved in other lewd behavior—violations that are more common than you might think—nobody is going to bother you. In fact, the nude beach at Playalinda is much more popular than the one at Apollo, though this is mainly due to more parking than at Apollo Beach.
The way Canaveral National Seashore is set up is that there is a road at both the north and south ends of the park that runs parallel to the ocean. Along the roads are various parking lots for beach goers: thirteen lots at Playalinda Beach and five at Apollo Beach. The roads do not connect, so there is a large expanse of beach between Playalinda and Apollo that is only accessible on foot called Klondike Beach. The two nude beaches are accessed from the very last parking lots at Playalinda and Apollo. Walk a ways into Klondike Beach and you’ll find that clothing is optional.
#2 DOLPHIN TALE
If you’ve seen the movie Dolphin Tale, then you are familiar with Winter, the dolphin that lost its tail after getting entangled in a crab trap line. In the movie, Winter was found washed up on the beach by a young boy, but in reality, she was found by a fisherman in Mosquito Lagoon about 100 yards offshore and rescued by professionals. Mosquito Lagoon is part of Canaveral National Seashore.
#3 ANCIENT INDIAN GARBAGE DUMPS
There are multiple shell middens within Canaveral National Seashore. A midden is defined as a garbage dump, and in this case the dumps belonged to the Timucuan Indians who lived in the area between 600 and 1400 AD. The Timucuan mainly subsisted on a seafood diet. After preparing shellfish, the shells were dumped in a pile, thus the term “shell midden.” Over the years these dumps of shells grew into substantial hills. I always picture some poor Timucuan kid having to haul the night’s dinner garbage to the top of the mound, and the parents saying, “When I was your age I had to haul garbage to the top of middens ten times that tall.”
Middens can be found at Seminole Rest on the west side of Mosquito Lagoon and at Turtle Mound on the east side of the lagoon near the ocean. There are multiple middens at Seminole Rest, with the largest consisting mainly of quahog clam shells and covering a 740-foot by 340-foot area. It is 13 feet tall. While the midden was mainly used from 770-1100 AD, pottery found on the site dates back to 2000 BC, indicating that the land was used long before it became a shell dump.
During modern times, many middens were leveled and used as fill for construction sites, railroads, and roads, so there are not many left intact. The mounds at Seminole Rest were saved by a private citizen who purchased the property and built his home on top of the mounds instead of selling the shells to the railroad companies that wanted to use them for landfill. I suppose the draw of having a home on a hill—a rarity in Florida—was important to Hatton Tumor, who lived on the property with his family from 1890 to 1911. The large home at Seminole Rest, called the Instone House, and the Caretaker’s House were not built by Tumor, but were purchased by him and possibly moved to their current locations from another place in the area. Tumor sold the property to Wesley H. Snyder in 1911, and the Snyder family lived in the home until the late 1980s. The property was purchased by the Nature Conservatory, which in turn sold it to the National Park Service. Instone House is open to visitors.
#4 ELDORA
Within Canaveral National Seashore is all that remains of the abandoned town of Eldora, a former winter resort that saw its heyday from around 1900 until the late 1930s. Prior to being a winter destination for wealthy home owners, Eldora was a farm community, with oranges being the main crop. However, by the early 1900s the agriculture business was dead and the island quickly became a resort. This change came about for two reasons. First of all, in 1895 a freeze hit and ruined the entire citrus crop. As the bankrupt farmers left the island, those seeking a winter get-away were able to buy up the land cheaply. Second, by the turn of the century the railroad had come to the Florida mainland, and the island farmers simply could not compete with the mainland farmers due to the cost of having to transport their oranges by boat.
The only home left standing from the original Eldora community is now open to the public. Called the Eldora State House, it was built around 1912 on the shore of Mosquito Lagoon and remained in use through the late 1950s, then sat abandoned. In 1989, the non-profit organization Friends of Canaveral started a campaign to raise money to renovate the building. Ten years later the newly christened Eldora State House was opened to the public.
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Last updated on July 30, 2020