Old Palm Bay

What was Palm Bay called before it became Palm Bay?

For about forty years it was called Tillman. The name came from John Tillman, the first prominent European-American settler in the area, who arrived in the late 1870s and built a wharf at the mouth of Turkey Creek that became a steamboat stop. The Tillman post office opened in 1885 and kept the name until 1925.

Why was the town renamed Palm Bay in 1925?

Tillman's residents wanted to participate in Florida's 1920s land boom, and the name "Tillman" meant nothing to the northern buyers the boom depended on. Locals petitioned to change it, and the post office officially became Palm Bay in 1925. The new name referred to a sabal-palm-bordered cove in the Indian River Lagoon near the eastern foot of present-day Palm Bay Road.

Who turned Palm Bay from a small town into a city?

General Development Corporation, run by the Mackle brothers of Miami, bought roughly 41,000 acres of flatwoods and swamp west of the Indian River in 1959 for about $1.7 million. GDC platted the land as Port Malabar and sold lots by mail to out-of-state buyers, typically a quarter-acre for around $10 down and $10 a month. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1990, and three executives pleaded guilty to fraud that same year.

Who lived at Turkey Creek before European settlers arrived?

The Ais, a non-agricultural coastal nation, used the freshwater springs at the head of Turkey Creek for centuries, leaving shell middens still visible at the creek's mouth. They were present when Ponce de León's expedition passed in 1513 and lived on fish, shellfish, and lagoon resources rather than farming. The Ais were gone as a distinct people by roughly 1760-1763, ended by epidemic disease and slave raids.