WATCH: City of Titusville Friday Nite Live Downtown Street Party Celebrates Sesquicentennial Kick-Off

SPACE COAST DAILY TV LIVE REMOTE

SPACE COAST DAILY TV: Titusville Mayor Walt Johnson opens a time capsule that was filled 50 years ago in 1967 when Titusville was called “Space City USA” and talks about the city’s 150th-anniversary celebration tonight in Downtown Titusville.

ABOVE VIDEO: Titusville City Manager Scott Larese, Councilwoman Jolynn Nelson and Councilman Dan Diesel talk about the city’s 150th-anniversary celebration tonight in Downtown Titusville.

BREVARD COUNTY • TITUSVILLE, FLORIDA – The City of Titusville invites all Brevard County residents to come and celebrate the kick-off of the city’s 150th-anniversary celebration Friday night in Downtown Titusville.

Titusville Mayor Walt Johnson will give a proclamation announcing the sesquicentennial, and at 7 p.m., will open a time capsule that was filled 50 years ago in 1967 when Titusville was called “Space City USA.”

Festivities get underway at 6 p.m. and the event is being held in historic downtown Titusville on Julia Street and Washington Avenue.

Some of the city’s downtown shops will stay open until 9 p.m. and there will be live music, vendors and an antique car show, including the City’s 1925 restored La France Fire Truck.

The antique fire engine served the city from the fall of 1925 until February 1962. The engine sat for nearly four decades until restoration began in September of 2001.

Completed four years later in September 2005, the old fire truck is a favorite at parades and events like tonight.

Titusville Has Unique, Rich History

The name of the city comes from its founder, Confederate Col. Henry Theodore Titus, who in 1867 stepped ashore on the banks of the Indian River.

Col. Titus came to Sand Point with the idea of building a town on land owned by his wife Mary, and overlooking the Indian River where they had first stepped ashore, they built the first hotel and named it “The Titus House.”

The Colonel and Mary donated land for the first courthouse, four churches, laid out many of the town’s streets and established a link to the outside world by connecting the St. Johns and Indian Rivers with mule-drawn wagons.

Today’s Titusville might have been known as “Riceville,” except for the craftiness of Col. Titus who won a challenge match of dominoes against Capt. Clark Rice to determine which player got to rename the town.

Thus, the outcome of a domino game resulted in Sand Point becoming Titusville, Florida in 1873.

ABOVE MAP: The corner of Julia Street and South Washington Avenue, site of tonight’s festivities.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE BREVARD COUNTY ENTERTAINMENT

Similar Stories