Exploring New Smyrna Beach
In 1768, Dr. Andrew Turnbull established a colony near the mouth of Mosquito Inlet using 1,255 indentured servants he recruited from Greece and Asia Minor. Working and living conditions were harsh. Nine years later, most survivors left for St. Augustine and did not return.
New Smyrna, named for the region where Turnbull’s servants and wife came from, persisted, with sugar plantations producing sugar until the Second Seminole War, when the Seminoles destroyed the sugar mills. Settlers returned in earnest after the Civil War with the arrival of the railroad, cultivating orange groves. The 1920s land boom created the core of the downtown district still in place today.
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NEARBY: Daytona Beach, Deland, Edgewater, Mims, Oak Hill, Osteen, Titusville | PART OF: Central Florida