Library of Florida History is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

In April of 2019 it joined the thousands of historically significant structures and places around the state and country allowed to sport the official designation issued by the National Parks Service and the Department of the Interior.  It is not an easy designation to get. The Register was created under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. Anyone can nominate a site, but the application has to go first to the state Historic Preservation Office to see if it qualifies under any of four criteria: Is it linked to a historically significant time or event (say a battlefield or the Apollo launch pad); is it linked to a historically significant person ( say Lincoln’s birthplace or someplace George Washington slept); does  it embody a specific period or style of architecture or construction (well, the library); or does it offer information about a period of history, or pre-history for that matter (say the remains of a colonial mansion or slave quarters.)

The Library qualifies on a couple of points. It links directly to the time of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), an employment and infrastructure program begun by Franklyn Roosevelt’s administration in 1935, the depths of the Great Recession.

Built in 1939 and opening as a post office in April, 1940, it served as the Cocoa post office until the mid-1960s and then housed various federal offices, such as Army Recruiting (visitors still arrive talking about how they were inducted into the service in this building) and the F.B.I., until the 1990s when the Florida Historical Society occupied it.

The Library’s architectural characteristics link it to the WPA era, a ‘late art deco’ design with straight, clean modern  lines that draw the eye upward to make it a more imposing Federal presence.

Almost 80 years after it opened and began serving the community, ( L to R) Henry Parrish III, former Mayor of Cocoa and current member of the Brevard County Historical Commission, Florida Historical Society Executive Director Ben Brotemarkle and Library of Florida History Archivist Ben DiBiase cut another ribbon to commemorate the building’s new designation.

Then several dozen FHS members, attending the annual FHS Conference, streamed into the historic building for a reception.

In the following days the building returned to normal, offering a quiet place for scholars, researchers and interested individuals to visit the past.