Erna Nixon Park — Melbourne, Florida

Erna Nixon Park is a county nature preserve on Evans Road in West Melbourne, the city that borders Melbourne on the west. The Brevard County Parks and Recreation page (as captured in April 2026) describes it as a 53.93-acre community park named after the Melbourne Village naturalist Erna Nixon, featuring a natural Florida hammock and nature preserve. The listed park location is 1200 Evans Rd, West Melbourne, FL 32904, and the Erna Nixon Nature Center shares that address.

The preserve is a pocket of woods inside one of the busiest commercial corridors in south Brevard. An archived Brevard County park page revised in December 2007 placed it just south of NASA Boulevard and southwest of the Melbourne Airport, and noted that the hammock is surrounded by a commercial district. That same 2007 page gave the route from U.S. 192 at the Melbourne Square Mall: north on Evans Road for 0.9 miles, with the entrance on the left just before NASA Boulevard.

Brevard County, not the City of West Melbourne, runs the site. The county page assigns Erna Nixon Park to its South Area Operations, and the park telephone line, (321) 952-4525, is the number Brevard County gives for nature center tours, events and rentals.

The elevated boardwalk is the main way through the Evans Road hammock. Brevard County currently lists a 3,000 ft nature boardwalk and states that Erna Nixon Park contains a 3,000 foot elevated boardwalk winding through a natural Florida hammock. The Great Florida Birding and Wildlife Trail, run by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, describes the walk in West Melbourne as a 0.4-mile elevated boardwalk.

The older county figures help explain the difference. In 2007 Brevard County measured an interpretive nature boardwalk of 2,345 feet and a separate interpretive nature trail of 640 feet, which together come close to the 3,000 foot figure on the current Erna Nixon Park page. The birding trail listing also mentions an interpretive native plant trail beside the boardwalk.

Along the route, the county page describes evergreen shrubs and live oaks with hanging Spanish moss, and the current Brevard County listing adds a butterfly garden planted with native Florida plants and flowers near the nature center. In 2007 the county listed the boardwalk, pavilion, parking and restrooms at Erna Nixon Park as ADA accessible, and the birding trail page lists accessible parking and an accessible restroom.

The 2007 county page named three habitats at the park: Florida hammock, pine flatwoods and wetland. The FWC trail page describes the same ground in slightly different terms, as hardwood and sabal palm hammocks, flatwoods and freshwater swamp. For a 53.93-acre tract in West Melbourne, that is an unusually varied set of plant communities within one short walk.

Brevard County names the gopher tortoise, the indigo snake and the pileated woodpecker among the animals of Erna Nixon Park. The 2007 county page described the preserve as home to many birds and small animals, including the protected gopher tortoise and indigo snake, even though commercial development surrounds it on Evans Road and NASA Boulevard.

The park's bird list is the reason it appears on the Great Florida Birding and Wildlife Trail, a statewide network of more than 500 viewing sites. The FWC listing for Erna Nixon Park says that each spring and fall, migratory songbirds rest and refuel in the hammocks, flatwoods and swamp, and it names Gray Catbirds, Red-eyed Vireos, Ovenbirds, American Redstarts and Summer Tanagers as birds seen from the boardwalk in the morning.

Winter brings a different set of birds to the West Melbourne preserve. According to the trail listing, Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, Blue-headed Vireos and Eastern Phoebes arrive in winter, and Great Horned Owls are possible year round. Common residents listed for the Brevard County site include the Red-shouldered Hawk, Downy Woodpecker and Eastern Towhee.

The county's 2007 description of Erna Nixon Park already cited the birding trail listing, naming Summer Tanager, Eastern Towhee and mixed warbler flocks in migration as the birds of note. The overlap between the 2007 county text and the current FWC listing shows that the Evans Road hammock has kept the same core bird species for close to two decades.

Public records about Erna Nixon herself are thin. Brevard County identifies her as a Melbourne Village naturalist, and the county's 2007 page states that the park was dedicated to Erna Nixon in 1981. A fuller biography from a government, academic or newspaper source was not located for this page, so details of her life beyond those two county statements are left out.

Melbourne Village, the community the county links to Nixon, is a small town west of Melbourne with its own conservation outlook. Florida Tech historian Gordon Patterson writes in a Florida Tech News history that in 1947 Virginia Wood came to Melbourne looking for a site for the American Homesteading Foundation community, and found land just outside the Melbourne city limits on the Kissimmee (US 192) Highway. Patterson calls that purchase the beginning of Melbourne Village.

The same Florida Tech article shows that hammock preservation had local advocates in the Melbourne area well before the 1981 dedication. Patterson quotes Florida Tech founder Jerry Keuper crediting his pledge to maintain the natural hammock on the future campus as the factor that won Virginia Wood's support. Erna Nixon Park keeps a comparable hammock a few miles away on the west side of Melbourne, under Brevard County ownership.

Brevard County describes the Erna Nixon Nature Center as a small center with exhibits for viewing, classes and youth programming. The facility list on the county page includes a 300 sq. ft. nature center, a restroom and one pavilion measuring 35 by 88 feet. The Erna Nixon Pavilion is listed with 8 picnic tables and can be reserved, with additional fees possible for water, electricity and serving areas.

Parking at Erna Nixon Park is treated differently from the pavilion. The county page states that parking areas will remain open to the public and cannot be reserved, as it is still a public park. The Great Florida Birding Trail lists the West Melbourne site as free to enter, managed by Brevard County, and open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Education has long been part of the nature center's role in south Brevard. In 2007 the county offered free guided tours at 2 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays year round, and reported that Erna Nixon Interpretive Rangers presented Nature Adventure programs for grades K through 5 during the school year at several South Area locations. The FWC trail page still describes guided hikes on weekends at 2 p.m.

The best known event is the Moonlight Stroll, which Brevard County describes as taking place after dark with live music and food vendors. Space Coast Daily called it a semi-annual event in April 2013, when the stroll ran from 7 to 10 p.m. on April 20 at Erna Nixon Park in West Melbourne. Admission that night was $3, and the Brevard Astronomical Society brought telescopes for stargazing along the boardwalk.

The stroll returned on December 30, 2017, again from 7 to 10 p.m., according to Space Coast Daily. Admission had risen to $4 per person, cash only, with children 3 and under free. In both years parking was at the Melbourne Square Mall on the west side of the JCPenney store, and visitors were shuttled to the Evans Road entrance, since the preserve's own lot is small.

Other gatherings have used the same shuttle arrangement. Space Coast Daily reported that Brevard County Parks and Recreation and the Friends of Erna Nixon Park hosted the 3rd annual Art and Animals in the Park on February 23, 2013, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., with nature themed art, a silent auction and animal presentations. Admission was $1, with proceeds going to the Friends of Erna Nixon Park. The 2007 county page also listed an annual Crackerfest in October at the West Melbourne preserve.