Back on Track: The Building That Put Vero on the Map Reopens
- Vero Minute
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
After being closed for six years, the old train station you've probably driven past and wondered about has officially reopened.
The Indian River County Historical Society reopened these doors to the Vero Beach Railroad Station & Exhibit Center on July 9.
Flagler's railroad blew right past this stretch of coast in 1893, stopping in Sebastian and Fort Pierce and skipping the groves in between. It took about a decade of citrus piling up before Flagler's crews turned around and built a station here in 1903. For the pioneer families who'd settled this stretch of the coast, that depot meant their crops could finally get to market and supplies could get in, and it's the reason "Vero" ended up on a map at all.
Passenger trains stopped running in the '60s, the FEC had no use left for the building, and in 1984 the all-volunteer historical society bought it off the railroad for a dollar, moved it onto a city lot set aside for exactly this purpose back in 1924, and rebuilt it themselves. It made the National Register in '87, one of several saves for the same crew, alongside the Hallstrom House farmstead, the old Diesel Power Plant, and the Jungle Trail greenway along the Lagoon. County Historian Ruth Stanbridge summed it up simply: growth was always coming for this county, and somebody had to decide what was worth holding onto along the way.
President Jonnie Mae Perry thanked reopening chair Julia Wiggins and curator Penny Chandler's crew, who put in over 100 volunteer hours to get the place ready. The Vero Beach Model Railroaders showed up with hats and whistles, and the guest list read like a joint session of local government: Mayor John Cotugno and Councilman John Carroll for the city, Commission Chair Deryl Loar and Vice Chair Laura Moss for the county.
If you go: 2336 14th Avenue. Free, self-guided, and, perhaps most importantly, air-conditioned.
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