VERO BEACH RAILWAY STATION

In 1893, Henry Flagler’s railroad arrived in Sebastian, and reached Ft. Pierce in 1894, bypassing the tiny community of Vero. Flagler renamed his railroad the Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) in 1895. Because of agricultural growth in the area, Flagler returned and built the Vero Railway Station, which was a stop on the FEC by 1903. “Beach” was added to the city and station names in 1925. During the 1920s and the Great Depression, the community of Vero Beach continued to grow, and it doubled in size after World War II. Agriculture, especially citrus growing, kept the freight platform busy, but the Vero Beach Station closed when passenger service was suspended in the late 1960s. The passenger station was acquired from the FEC by the Indian River County Historical Society and moved to a city-owned parcel in Pocahontas Park, northwest of the original site, in 1984. This parcel had been deed restricted for the relocation of the station sixty years prior. The station is used as an exhibit center for Indian River County history, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. It remains important to Vero Beach.