The area was once inhabited by the Ais Indians, who gathered palmetto, cocoplum and seagrape berries. They also fished the Indian River, called the Rio de Ais by Spanish explorers. By 1760, however, the tribe had disappeared due to slave raids, disease and rum. Florida was acquired from Spain in 1821, but the Seminole Wars would delay settlement.
Originally called "Sand Point," a post office was established in 1859, although it closed a few months later. Confederate Colonel Henry T. Titus arrived in 1867 with the intention to build a town on land owned by his wife, Mary Hopkins Titus, daughter of a prominent planter from Darien, Georgia. He laid out roads and in 1870 erected The Titus House, a large 1-story hotel next to a saloon. He also donated land for 4 churches and a courthouse, the latter an effort to get the town designated as county seat. The community was named "Titusville" in 1873. It would be incorporated as a city in 1887, the year construction began on St. Gabriel's Episcopal Church, listed in 1972 on the National Register of Historic Places. At one point, Titusville would be nicknamed "The City of Churches."
The Atlantic Coast, St. Johns & Indian River Railroad arrived in 1885 from Enterprise, which was connected by a spur line to the Jacksonville, Tampa & Key West Railroad at Enterprise Junction in present-day DeBary. Henry Flagler would then extend his Florida East Coast Railroad south from Daytona, with the station built in Titusville in 1892. Tourists arrived, and the Indian River area would increasingly become an agricultural and shipping center for pineapple and citrus produce. A wooden bridge was built east to Playalinda Beach in 1922. In the 1950s, the creation of the space center on Merritt Island made the community's economy, population and tourism grow considerably.
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