Melbourne Beach Pier

The Melbourne Beach Pier runs about 650 feet west into the Indian River from the end of Ocean Avenue, where Riverside Drive ends, and its National Register nomination lists the Town of Melbourne Beach as owner.

The pier's National Register nomination describes the spot as central to the town: the western terminus of Ocean Avenue, the main east-west street, and the southern terminus of Riverside Drive. The same form lists the owner as the Town of Melbourne Beach at 507 Ocean Avenue, marks the ownership as public, and gives 1.37 acres as the nominated property (National Register nomination, Melbourne Beach Pier). The National Park Service catalog record shortens the location to Ocean Ave. and Riverside Dr., Melbourne Beach, Brevard County (NPGallery record 84000829).

The town still runs things from that address. Its website gives the Town Complex as 507 Ocean Avenue, Melbourne Beach, FL 32951, with the Town Hall office at 321-724-5860, and the town describes itself there as the oldest beach community in Brevard County, established in 1883 (Town of Melbourne Beach home page). Ryckman Park, where a state marker places the Melbourne Beach Improvement Company's 1908 office facing the lagoon, has its own Ryckman Park guide, and the town history guide tells the founding story at full length.

Last verified: October 21, 2026, by reopening the 1984 Melbourne Beach Pier nomination and its Park Service record, Florida markers 767 and 681, the town home page, a 2024 town newsletter, the November 2025 commission packet and the FWC license page.

The Melbourne Beach Pier is a twelve-foot-wide deck of wood planks on wooden stringers, carried by a mix of wood and steel-reinforced concrete pilings, with a hip-roofed shelter at the river end.

Section 7 of the nomination gives the measurements: the main portion is twelve feet wide and 650 feet long, and the shelter at the outer end is approximately 33 by 58 feet (Melbourne Beach Pier nomination, section 7). It also records two pieces of the old ferry landing. On the south side, 105 feet in from the shelter, stood what was left of a spur dock 8 feet wide, running 30 feet south before a right-angle turn of 39 feet west; its north-side twin was down to a few submerged pilings.

Those figures describe the Melbourne Beach Pier in 1984, when the form's preparers wrote that numerous wooden pilings by then replaced or reinforced the concrete ones (nomination, continuation sheet one). The form gives two years for the outer shelter, 1908 in its summary and 1918 in its building history, and it states that no records could be found showing the pier's original dimensions.

The Melbourne Beach Pier qualified under all three criteria the 1984 nomination claimed: the town's founding, its tie to the Beaujean family, and its standing as the oldest and perhaps only surviving pier of its kind on the Indian River.

The statement of significance says the pier fulfills criteria A, B and C. It ties the pier to the founding of the Town of Melbourne Beach, to the Beaujean family, prominent in the town's early development, and to its rarity as the oldest and perhaps only surviving structure of its period and type along the Indian River. The form adds that its wood plank, stringer and piling construction was typical of late nineteenth century commercial docks on the river, rates the significance as local, and was prepared at the Florida Division of Archives, dated February 29, 1984 (Melbourne Beach Pier nomination, section 8).

The Park Service catalog words it in its own categories. It lists the applicable criteria as Event, Architecture/Engineering and Person; the areas of significance as Commerce, Transportation and Exploration/Settlement; the periods as 1875 to 1899 and 1900 to 1924; and the significant years as 1888, 1889 and 1908, with a date published of 4/12/1984 (NPGallery record 84000829). The nomination's own line of specific dates also names 1918, the year of the concrete pilings, which the catalog's year list leaves out. In 1984 the form marked the Melbourne Beach Pier as deteriorated, unoccupied, accessible only on a restricted basis and in recreational use (nomination, sections 3 and 7).

A state marker credits the officers of the Melbourne Beach Improvement Company with planning the pier along with the town's lots, roads and railway, and another marker places the first house on Ocean Avenue in 1888.

The Florida marker for the Old Melbourne Beach Town Hall says the company's officers, Capt. Rufus Beaujean, his son Donald Beaujean and Lawrence Ryckman, made plans for the town that included the pier, lot sites, roads and a railway from the Indian River to the Atlantic Ocean, working from a 1908 office facing the lagoon in what is now Ryckman Park (Florida Historical Marker 767). The nomination's pier history begins earlier, with the Melbourne and Atlantic Railroad Company building the structure in the winter of 1888-1889 (Melbourne Beach Pier nomination).

The first house also stood on Ocean Avenue. According to the 2010 Myrtle Cottage marker on Ocean Ave near Pine St., Hannah Cummings and her daughter Grace put up Myrtle Cottage on that site in 1888 as the area's first house, with no roads or docks to help, while the family camped on the beach at the nearby House of Refuge, a shipwreck lifesaving station (Florida Historical Marker 681, Myrtle Cottage). The marker says church services were held in the cottage until the Community Chapel was built in 1892, and that the house burned to the ground in 1982.

Recent town records show the Melbourne Beach Pier in the town budget, with lagoon signage near it updated in 2024 and a 2025 commission discussion of a report that its boards need attention.

The town's May to June 2024 newsletter says the signage along the Indian River Lagoon near the Melbourne Beach pier was updated, a project sponsored by the town's Environmental Advisory Board (Town of Melbourne Beach newsletter, May to June 2024). Minutes of the October 15, 2025 meeting, printed in the November 19, 2025 Town Commission agenda packet, record a commissioner raising a report that the pier's boards need attention, remarking that the budget held only $1,500 for pier maintenance, and asking for more information and costs. The packet's budget report as of October 31, 2025 lists PIER MAINTENANCE at $1,500.00 in both its original and amended budget columns (Melbourne Beach Town Commission packet, November 19, 2025).

The Melbourne Beach Pier also still frames town events. The same packet's December events list described the Christmas parade route as ending with a turn west on Ocean Ave to the pier (November 19, 2025 packet). According to the 1984 nomination, a May 1983 determination judged the structure unsafe for unrestricted public use, and it was then closed to the public pending rehabilitation (nomination, continuation sheet one); the town records cited here do not state current access rules, and Town Hall answers at 321-724-5860 (town home page).

Florida's wildlife agency requires a saltwater fishing license to take saltwater fish, and its shoreline-only license, no-cost for residents, is valid from a structure affixed to shore; none of the Melbourne Beach Pier sources says which license the pier calls for.

For Melbourne Beach visitors, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission describes the Saltwater Shoreline-Only Fishing License as valid for saltwater fishing from the shoreline or a structure affixed to shore, not valid from a vessel, and lists the shoreline license only at a no-cost resident annual rate; the same page prices non-resident saltwater licenses at $47.00 for a year, $17.00 for 3 days or $30.00 for 7 days (FWC saltwater fishing licenses page).

Shark fishing adds a permit. FWC says that as of July 1, 2019, anglers 16 and older need a shore-based shark fishing permit, in addition to a saltwater license, to take or attempt to take sharks from shore, including jetties, bridges and piers; the permit is free after an online course (FWC saltwater fishing licenses page). The 1984 nomination describes the Melbourne Beach Pier's use since the mid-1920s as primarily recreational (Melbourne Beach Pier nomination).