Malabar, Florida History Guide

The Malabar History guide is the one deep page in this section, and the table below sets out the main questions about the Town of Malabar's past with the key fact and the guide that carries the detail.

The Malabar History guide covers the census households of the 1880s, the railroad-era churches and cemeteries and the 1962 incorporation in full. Two guides in other sections carry the later story: the Malabar Town Council and charter guide explains the 1985 charter and how it works today, and the Malabar census profile follows the town's population through the 2000, 2010 and 2020 counts.

Malabar became a town after a December 1, 1962 vote in which 108 residents favored incorporation and 11 opposed it (A Brief History of Malabar’s Mayors).

The same ballot filled the first Malabar mayor’s seat: S.B. Brown beat John Moeller 63 to 22 and held the office until January 10, 1966.

Early Malabar terms were short. After Brown's first term, he and John Moeller traded the office in terms of about a year between January 1966 and November 1969, and the council then changed the date for Malabar elections from February to November to coincide with the county (list of mayors). In 1995 the charter changed again, giving the mayor a three-year term for 1997 to 2000 and four-year terms after that.

Two Malabar mayors died in office, Thomas Eschenberg in 2012 and Carl Beatty in January 2016, and Phillip Crews served as interim mayor both times (mayor list). Steve Rivet, who took office on November 7, 2024, is the current Mayor; the town's council page lists his term as expiring in 2028 (Town of Malabar).

The town’s transcription of the 1880 census for Malabar lists stock raisers and herders, hunters and fishermen, men who carried the U.S. mail, and one entry with the occupation Police Of Port Capron (1880 schedule).

Birthplaces in the 1880 Malabar schedule run from South Carolina, Georgia and North Carolina to Wisconsin and the Azores. By the 1885 Florida state census, Malabar households include fruit growers whose birthplaces are New York, New Hampshire and Canada (1885 schedule).

Water was the first connection to the outside world. The Malabar comprehensive plan records that in the late 1800s mail was delivered to the fledgling community by a mail boat that docked along the banks of the Indian River Lagoon (Malabar Comprehensive Plan). The Brevard County Historical Commission notes that primary transportation between Titusville, Rockledge, Melbourne and the other Indian River communities was by water, and that in 1877 the steamboat Pioneer began an era of commercial steamboat service that lasted into the early 20th century (Brevard County Historical Commission).

Transcribed schedules are online for ten Malabar census years: 1880, 1885, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1935, 1940, 1945 and 1950 (Censuses of Malabar). The 1950 schedule, taken twelve years before incorporation, begins with dwellings on US Highway #1 (1950 schedule).

Four burial grounds from the early 1900s are known within Malabar, and the oldest belongs to the St John’s mission church on west Old Mission Road near I-95 (cemetery study).

In 1911 the Florida Indian River Catholic Colony Land Company built St John’s for the early settlers of its colony, on one acre that sat on the Hernandez-Capron Trail of the 1830s, the route between Fort Pierce and St. Augustine (cemetery study, page 1). Itinerant priests and missionaries served it; the first priest assigned to St John’s, in 1913, traveled from Fort Pierce on horseback once a month. Around 1915 the church was abandoned and the congregation moved to St Joseph Catholic Church on Miller Street, just south of Palm Bay Road (cemetery study, page 2).

Three more Malabar burial sites sit close to the railroad or Malabar Road. A deed dated March 24, 1915 set aside the Malabar (White) Cemetery land as a burying ground, though no public right-of-way reaches the site (deed record). The Piney Grove (Black) Cemetery adjoined Piney Grove Baptist Church until a fire destroyed the church in the 1950s, and the cemetery's actual location is still being investigated (Piney Grove record). The First Christian Church cemetery on the north side of Malabar Road is abandoned, and the people buried there are unknown (study, page 4). The study carries the name of the town's mayor at the time and is dated 9 September 2024 (study date).

Two early routes reach the Malabar area: the Hernandez Trail, a Second Seminole War era wagon road south to Fort Capron and Fort Pierce, and the Flagler rail line that later extended through the entire county (Brevard County Historical Commission).

The Brevard County Historical Commission records that Florida militia commander General Joseph Hernandez and his force built a wagon road southward to Fort Capron and Fort Pierce that became known as the Hernandez Trail (Brevard County history summary). The town’s cemetery study puts the St John’s mission on that same route, naming it the Hernandez-Capron Trail, which ties the Old Mission Road site in Malabar to the 1830s (cemetery study).

Rail came next. By the mid 1880s railroad service reached Titusville, and the Flagler line soon carried the tracks south through the entire county, bringing more settlers and thousands of winter tourists (Brevard County history summary). In Malabar, two of the four known cemeteries lie north of Malabar Road along the Florida East Coast Railroad tracks, one on each side (cemetery study). Brevard County itself took its current shape in 1905, after several boundary changes (Brevard County Historical Commission).

Malabar voters ratified the town charter in a referendum held November 5, 1985, and its preamble sets the goal of keeping Malabar a rural residential town (Malabar Town Charter, editor’s note).

The code prints the charter as adopted in that referendum, by ordinance number 2-04-86 on March 4, 1986, and as adopted on March 25, 2003, with later amendments shown in history notes (Malabar Town Charter, editor’s note).

In the preamble, the people of Malabar wish to keep the rural, residential quality of their town life and voice concern that uncontrolled growth could erode it (Malabar Town Charter, preamble). Section 3.06 of the charter, to preserve the rural character of the town, sets a density of no more than one unit for every one and one-half acres in single-family zoning. The town comprehensive plan echoes the same theme, describing Malabar as proud of its rustic and rural roots (Malabar Comprehensive Plan).

Voting rules have shifted more than once. Single district voting for the Malabar Town Council dates from a referendum on November 8, 2016 (Malabar Town Charter), and on November 3, 2026 Malabar voters decide Ordinance 2026-05, which asks whether Charter Section 2.02 should be amended to provide for at-large voting for council members (Brevard County Supervisor of Elections). The Malabar Town Council and charter guide follows the current rules.