Sebastian Trivia and Firsts — Sebastian, Florida

Sebastian's best-documented first is Pelican Island. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, on March 14, 1903, with the encouragement of Frank Chapman and the Florida Audubon Society, President Theodore Roosevelt established Pelican Island in the Indian River Lagoon as the first federal bird reservation, giving birth to the National Wildlife Refuge System. The Service calls Pelican Island the nation's first national wildlife refuge, and reports that over 567 refuges have been created throughout the nation since its designation in 1903.

The first refuge also had the first warden. The Service records that Audubon hired Paul Kroegel as the first warden of Pelican Island, and that by the end of his presidency Roosevelt had named nine more reservations in Florida and a total of 55 bird reservations and national game preserves. Because Pelican Island was the first federal area set aside specifically to protect wildlife, it was later designated a National Historic Landmark.

Pelican Island holds a second national distinction in the opposite direction from its fame. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service states that the Pelican Island Wilderness is the smallest unit of the National Wilderness Preservation System. Congress established Pelican Island as wilderness in 1970, when it encompassed 5.5 acres.

The island has been shrinking. The Service reports that in 1903 the island's area was 5.5 acres, that around 1943 it began to erode from natural and human-induced wave action, and that by 2000 it was less than half its original size. Pelican Island Proper is now roughly 3 acres due to years of boat-induced wave action and sea-level rise, according to the Service, which completed a shoreline enhancement project at Pelican Island in 2001.

Settlement came before the name. The 2022 state Park Family Cemetery marker records that August Park settled in the Sebastian area in 1865, the first permanent resident of European descent, and that after his death in 1895 his family donated the burial land that became the Sebastian Municipal Cemetery, where Paul Kroegel is buried.

The town itself took a saint's name. According to Sebastian Daily, the community was originally named St. Sebastian when founded in 1882; the town later dropped the St. from its name and became an official municipality in December 1924. Sebastian marked its 100th anniversary of incorporation with a year-long centennial celebration in 2024 that culminated in a weekend event on December 7 and 8, 2024 at Riverview Park.

The railroad arrived three decades before incorporation. A state marker at the Vero Beach Railway Station states that in 1893 Henry Flagler's railroad arrived in Sebastian, and reached Fort Pierce in 1894, bypassing the then tiny community of Vero.

Sebastian Inlet is a cut through the barrier island, and it took decades to keep open. The Sebastian Inlet District records that at least six substantiated attempts to open a cut were made by 1905, and all were closed by sand, storms and other natural causes almost as soon as they were opened. Historians believe the first known attempt took place in 1872. On May 23, 1919, the Sebastian Inlet District was formed with a charter of maintaining the navigational channel connecting the Indian River and the Atlantic Ocean, and the inlet was opened in June 1923 at its current location.

The final opening used wartime explosives. The District reports that a nor'easter closed Sebastian Inlet in 1941 and it stayed closed through most of World War II, and that in 1948, using surplus U.S. Navy demolitions left behind, local commissioners blasted the inlet open again. It has remained open ever since.

The inlet also moved a county line. When the bridge over Sebastian Inlet opened on February 27, 1965, connecting A1A from Brevard to Indian River County, Brevard County ceded almost 3 miles of land south of the inlet to Indian River County in return for help completing the bridge and paving A1A, according to the District. A North Jetty extension from 1968 to 1970 created a wave the surfing community dubbed First Peak, and Sebastian Inlet State Park was established in 1971 after the State of Florida acquired the surrounding land. Sebastian Daily notes the park sits at the border of Brevard and Indian River counties and is unique for its 24/7/365 open status.

Fellsmere, a neighboring Indian River County town, holds a statewide first. The 2004 state equal suffrage marker records that Fellsmere's 1915 town charter quietly granted women the vote in municipal elections, and that in the June 19, 1915 city election, Zena M. Dreier was the first woman to cast a ballot in Fellsmere, in all of Florida, and south of the Mason Dixon Line, four years before the U.S. Constitutional amendment of 1919 that the marker cites.

Roseland, at the St. Sebastian River next to Sebastian, has a botanical name. The 2014 state Roseland marker credits settler Dempsey Cain, who arrived in 1877, with naming the community on the south side of the river Roseland after the wild roses that grew there in abundance.

The beaches across the Indian River Lagoon from Sebastian carry a world ranking. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service states that the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge, which runs from Melbourne Beach to Wabasso Beach around Sebastian Inlet, was designated to protect habitat for the most significant area for loggerhead sea turtle nesting in the world, and the most significant area for green turtle nesting in North America.

Sebastian also sits at the top of a regional name. The Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council describes its region's coast as a total shoreline of 110 miles from Boca Raton in the south stretching northwards to the Sebastian Inlet. The name itself, according to a 2011 WQCS essay, was popularized in the 1960s by Vero Beach Press Journal publisher John J. Schumann Jr. and editor Harry Schultz after treasure hunters found gold and silver from the Spanish fleet wrecked off Indian River and St. Lucie Counties in 1715.