Crane Creek (Melbourne, Florida) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Crane Creek
Crane Creek & Crane Creek Promenade
Country	United States
Physical characteristics
Main source	Melbourne, Florida
River mouth	Indian River

Crane Creek is a 3.3-mile-long (5.3 km) stream in Melbourne, Florida, United States. It is a tributary of the Indian River, with its mouth in the vicinity of Front Street.

History

Evidence for the presence of Paleo-Indians in the Melbourne area during the late Pleistocene epoch was uncovered during the 1920s. C. P. Singleton, a Harvard University zoologist, discovered the bones of a Mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) on his property along Crane Creek, 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from Melbourne, and brought in Amherst College paleontologist Frederick B. Loomis to excavate the skeleton. Loomis found a second elephant, with a "large rough flint instrument" among fragments of the elephant's ribs. Loomis found in the same stratum mammoth, mastodon, horse, ground sloth, tapir, peccary, camel and saber-tooth cat bones, all extinct in Florida since the end of the Pleistocene 10,000 years ago. At a nearby site a human rib and charcoal were found in association with Mylodon, Megalonyx and Chlamytherium (ground sloths) teeth. A finely worked spearpoint found with these items may have been displaced from a later stratum. In 1925 attention shifted to the Melbourne golf course. A crushed human skull with finger, arm and leg bones was found in association with a horse tooth. A piece of ivory that appeared to have been modified by humans was found at the bottom of the stratum containing bones. Other finds included a spear point near a mastodon bone and a turtle-back scraper and a blade found with bear, camel, mastodon, horse and tapir bones. Similar human remains, Pleistocene animals and Paleo-Indian artifacts have been found in the general locale, consistent with these discoveries.

Early settlement

Crane Creek greatly influenced the development of the area. Prior to the development of Melbourne, hunters used Crane Creek to gain entrance into the interior. In 1867, the Wright brothers, Balaam Allen and Peter Wright, all ex-slaves, became the first pioneers in Melbourne. They settled in the area around Crane Creek, which became the present day Historic Downtown area on the east end of New Haven Avenue near Front Street.

The settlement was first named "Crane Creek" but was renamed after the American Civil War.

Until 1893, transportation to and in Bevard, was laborious, clumsy, and time-consuming. That year, Flagler built a railway through the county, which transcended all other means of transportation until the arrival of autos and paved roads in the 1920s.