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Vero Beach, Florida

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Vero Beach has been the Spring training home of the Los Angeles Dodgers since 1948. The Dodgers will be leaving Vero Beach in 2008.

Vero Beach is a city in Indian River County, Florida, USA. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2004 estimates, the city had a population of 17,209. It is the county seat of Indian River CountyTemplate:GR. The 2005 estimate for Indian River County is 128,594.

The city is divided by the Indian River into the mainland on one side and the oceanfront barrier island on the other. The island is comprised of wealthy vacation dwellers and well-to-do year-round residents. Restrictive zoning has allowed the island to repel attempts to develop high-rise hotels and large commercial centers, so it maintains a quiet, residential atmosphere.

Vero Beach may be best known as the location of Dodgertown, where the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team have held their spring training camp since 1948, and where the minor league Vero Beach Devil Rays play during their regular season.

Piper Aircraft Inc. builds aircraft here. Major industries include citrus fruit packing and tourism.

Geography and Climate

Vero Beach is located at 27°38′31″N 80°23′28″W / 27.64194°N 80.39111°W / 27.64194; -80.39111Invalid arguments have been passed to the {{#coordinates:}} function (27.641817, -80.391105)Template:GR.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 33.5 square kilometres (12.9 sq mi). 28.7 square kilometres (11.1 sq mi) of it is land and 4.8 square kilometres (1.9 sq mi) of it (14.31%) is water.

Monthly Normal and Record High and Low Temperatures
Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Rec High °F 88 89 93 94 99 99 99 98 98 94 92 87
Norm High °F 73.3 74.1 77.6 81.4 85.2 89 90.4 90.2 88.7 84.3 79.1 74.7
Norm Low °F 52.7 53.6 57.8 61.6 67.2 71.8 73 72.9 72.7 68.5 61.9 54.7
Rec Low °F 21 28 32 42 47 57 67 64 64 46 38 23
Precip (in) 2.89 2.45 4.2 2.88 3.8 6.03 6.53 6.04 6.84 5.04 3.04 2.19
Source: USTravelWeather.com [1]

Demographics

As of the censusTemplate:GR of 2000, there were 17,705 people, 8,516 households, and 4,777 families residing in the city. The population density was 617.5/km� (1,598.9/mi�). There were 10,286 housing units at an average density of 358.8/km� (928.9/mi�). The racial makeup of the city was 92.73% White, 3.42% African American, 0.20% Native American, 1.24% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 1.40% from other races, and 0.99% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 5.79% of the population.

Location of Vero Beach, Florida
Location of Vero Beach, Florida

There were 8,516 households out of which 17.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 44.4% were married couples living together, 8.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 43.9% were non-families. 36.4% of all households were made up of individuals and 16.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.02 and the average family size was 2.59.

In the city the population was spread out with 16.0% under the age of 18, 7.0% from 18 to 24, 23.6% from 25 to 44, 24.1% from 45 to 64, and 29.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 48 years. For every 100 females there were 92.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 92.0 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $38,427, and the median income for a family was $50,260. Males had a median income of $31,217 versus $24,022 for females. The per capita income for the city was $30,940. About 6.4% of families and 9.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 11.6% of those under age 18 and 4.5% of those age 65 or over.

Industry

Vero Beach caters to retirees and beach-going tourists. It is also home to general aviation manufacturer New Piper Aircraft [2], which is the largest private employer in Indian River County. For a more detailed listing of Vero Beach businesses and industries visit VeroBeachBusinessDirectory.com. The Florida East Coast Railway's mainline bi-sect's Vero Beach, and there is an old passenger depot located next to the trackage, though there is no regularly scheduled passenger service to Vero Beach via Amtrak, at present. FEC serves a local lumber/building materials customer in Vero Beach itself that receives boxcars and flatcars, and a sand/aggregate customer just to the north of Vero that receives hopper cars, including FEC's signature Ortner aggregate hoppers. These are visible to railfans when they travel on the roadway that parallels the FEC right-of-way. Most FEC trains, and NS run-throughs with trackage rights, pass through Vero under cover of darkness. FEC is fully-CTC, and extremely well-maintained. Indeed, employment with FEC is one of the most coveted railroad industry jobs in the South-east United States. Just to the north of Vero, in the vicinity of the sand/aggregate customer, the now-disconnected spurs that once served citrus-packing companies in the area can be seen. These companies now ship their product by truck. It is unknown, at present, if FEC intends to try to recapture this business by reconnecting the various spurs and offering regular local service that can move the product to market faster.

Points of interest

Beaches

Vero Beach is known for its outstanding beaches. Part of Florida's Treasure Coast, the beaches combine excellent sand quality with significant surf and tidal action. Vero's main public beach is known as South Beach, accessible at the eastern end of Causeway Boulevard. Vero also features Humiston Park and Jaycee Beach as its other primary public beaches.[citation needed]

Communities

Vero Beach includes many wealthy seasonal and year round communities. Among them are Riomar, The Moorings, John's Island, Windsor and Orchid Island.

Golf

Vero Beach holds some of Florida's most exclusive private clubs. They include Red Stick, John's Island, Hawk's Nest, Vero Beach Country Club and others.

National Register of Historic Places

Vero Railroad Station
McKee Jungle Gardens

Notable residents (full time and seasonal)

Parks

The city includes several parks, most notably Riverside Park, which is the location of Riverside Theater and the Vero Beach Museum of Art [3].

Vero Man

Vero Beach was the site of a major archaeological discovery by local resident Frank Ayers in 1915. Known as the 'Vero Man', the find created an international controversy for it provided the first evidence that human beings had inhabited the 'new world' prior to the end of the Wisconsin glaciation (c. 10,000 BCE). Over the next thirty years, the remains were shuffled back and forth between the Smithsonian Institution and the Florida State Museum of History in Tallahassee. Experts could never reach an agreement and the remains were eventually lost just prior to the invention of Carbon-14 dating in 1947. Interest in Vero Man gradually waned, though more recently there was some renewed interest in finding the remains.[1]

References

  1. ^ Vero Beach Magazine "How Vero Man was lost - and found again" September/October 1998.
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