THE VERITIES OF VERO BEACH

BY JANIE GOULD

Like many latter-day retirees who visit towns up and down Florida’s east coast before deciding to settle in Vero Beach, a Vermonter named Henry T. Gifford checked out Titusville, Fort Pierce and swamps now known as Miami before moving to Vero in 1887, when it was unnamed, unknown and mostly uninhabited.

“He came down here for his health, and there was nobody here but Indians and folks running from the law,” said third-generation native Charles Gifford, 75, Gifford’s great-grandson. “He liked this area, so he went back, packed up everything — horses and everything — and came down on a deck barge. The family pitched a tent on the Indian River to start off with, then built a log cabin.”

The elder Gifford, who had been sheriff and a selectman in Vermont, was the first official resident of the new settlement. He planted pineapples, helped build Dixie Highway, and was responsible for lighting the channel markers in the river every night, his great-grandson said. In 1891, he applied for a post office and became the first postmaster for the town now known as Vero. The name, from the Latin form of a word meaning truth, was suggested by Gifford’s wife, Sarah. A teacher who knew Latin, she apparently envisioned the new community as a place of truth, according to Pam Cooper, genealogy and Florida history librarian at the Indian River County main library.

Later, the Giffords’ son, who had the curious name Friend Charles Gifford, became the postmaster. And when the Florida East Coast railroad opened a station in Vero in 1903, he became the ticket agent. He farmed 160 acres now in the middle of town and planted the area’s first citrus grove. The family’s two-story farmhouse survives, near State Road 60 and U.S. 1.

“They liked the river and land,” Charles Gifford said. “That’s probably one reason why they came — all the vacant land that they could homestead.”

A MILESTONE

The settlement that Henry Gifford put on the map by establishing a post office was incorporated as a town 90 years ago, in 1919. Vero Beach celebrated that milestone with a downtown festival in October, though the incorporation actually became official in the month of June. The town’s name was changed to Vero Beach in 1925, when Indian River County was created.

Early settlers were drawn by the prospect of being able to grow crops nearly all year, because of the region’s temperate climate. The Vero Weekly Bulletin newspaper announced in 1917 that “Rice is Another Excellent Vero Crop.” Early placards touted the region with the slogan “Grow Two Crops a Year!” and Henry Flagler’s railroad enabled farmers to ship their produce north faster than by boat.

In 1911, James Hudson Baker was living in Jensen, in what is now Martin County, when Judge J.E. Andrews of Fort Pierce hired him to build a home west of Vero. The stately two-story house was a landmark for decades on State Road 60 at 58th Avenue. Baker moved to Vero and built numerous downtown structures, too, including the Pocahontas Building, Vero Theatre, Farmers Bank, Sleepy Eye Lodge and Redstone Hardware and Building Supply Store.

He built a home for his family squarely in the middle of downtown, at what is now the intersection of 14th Avenue and State Road 60.

“When he found out he was building the town around his house, I guess he figured it was too close, so he moved it,” said his grandson, J. Douglas Baker Jr., 85, who grew up in the house. “They moved buildings around a lot in those days.”

The Baker house survives, and is owned by others. It faces eastbound State Road 60 at 15th Avenue. The Andrews house didn’t fare as well. It was acquired by Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute several years ago, was moved to the Harbor Branch campus, and was destroyed by the
2004 hurricanes.

Baker says he doesn’t remember hearing his grandfather reminisce about Vero’s beginnings.

“Other than the fishing trips I had with him, I really didn’t have any conversations with him about his early days in Vero,” Baker said.

ISLAND LIVING

The barrier island was slower to develop than the mainland. Considered remote and inhospitable and choking with mosquitoes, it was inaccessible to all but the hardiest folks until the first bridge was built in 1920. Old-timers remember hunting hogs and bears there as late as the 1940s.

Cooper recently received letters indicating that a hermit known as Captain Estes lived in a riverfront shanty on the barrier island in the 1850s. He had no neighbors until the Bethel Creek House of Refuge was built two decades later. One of Estes’ rare visitors wrote that Estes captured two live manatees and took them to the nation’s Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, Cooper said, but after that, Estes’ trail grows cold.

“I think he died on the barrier island, and it was months or even years before anyone found him, if they ever did,” Cooper said.

Development of the island began several decades later, with Riomar, a winter colony for wealthy Midwesterners. Alex MacWilliam Sr., the builder, had been wounded in World War I and was hospitalized in Cleveland.

“A group of doctors, when he got well, convinced him to go to Vero Beach and develop a winter resort,” said his daughter, Helen MacWilliam Glenn, 82.

He moved to Vero in 1919. Because there was no bridge, he had to transport workers, mules and building materials across the river by barge, she said. He built Riomar’s first five cottages and the golf course. The nine MacWilliam children, all born at home, grew up in a nearby farmhouse. One brother, Pete MacWilliam, still lives in the home at the south end of Cardinal Drive.

“We had chickens and cows and pigs and horses,“ Glenn said. “We had those Tarzan-style swings on the big oak trees, and of course the ocean was within walking distance. We had a wonderful childhood.”

Alex MacWilliam later served as Vero’s mayor and as a state representative. “He was always insistent that we have good zoning,” Glenn said.

A SPECIAL PLACE

Community leader and Vero Beach native Alma Lee Loy, 80, says the city is special because of its early settlers.

“They had so much vision and worked hard to build this city,” she said, “and they were always willing to help each other. If the Methodists were building a church, the Baptists went over to help, and vice versa.”

Another thing that makes Vero Beach distinctive, she said, is its restriction on building heights. Indian River County set a three-story height limit in the 1950s. In 1968, Vero Beach voters agreed to reduce building heights in the city from five stories to three.

Groups such as Main Street and the Heritage Center are working to enhance the historic downtown. Nearby residents are also seeking ways
to preserve the historic qualities of their neighborhoods, Original Town and Osceola Park. The city has adopted a historic preservation ordinance, and preservationist Anna Brady has updated historic resources surveys of both neighborhoods.

“It is incredibly important for future generations to have authentic history that they can see,“ Brady said.

Now, of course, Vero Beach has grown from its historic core, with the addition of shops, schools and subdivisions in all four directions. If Alex MacWilliam could see what the city has become, “I think he’d be very pleased,” Glenn said.

“I think he’d be amazed too. When we were growing up, Beachland Boulevard didn’t exist. There were just two little dirt roads.”