Though the Suruque Indians lived along the inland waterway and on the islands from what's now Titusville to Fort Pierce, along Florida's central east coast, not much else happened there until the late nineteenth century when southern farmers immigrated to the area to plant citrus trees and raise cattle. Most of the coastal towns grew slowly as distribution ports for produce and fresh fish until the late 1940s when postwar families began to vacation near the area's beaches. It wasn't until the 1960s and the creation of NASA's Space Center that Cocoa Beach began to blossom. Today, over nine million people visit the Space Center annually, injecting millions of dollars into the local economy.