Since many U.S. spacecraft have been launched from both the station and the Kennedy Space Center on adjacent Merritt Island, the two are sometimes conflated with each other.

[10][11] In December 1571, Pedro Menéndez was wrecked off the Coast of Cape Canaveral and encountered the Ais Indians.

[12] From 1605 to 1606, the Spanish Governor of Florida Pedro de Ibarra sent Alvaro Mexia on a diplomatic mission to the Ais Indian nation.

The mission was a success; diplomatic ties were made and an agreement for the Ais to receive ransoms for all the shipwrecked sailors they returned.

[12] The first Cape Canaveral Lighthouse was completed in January 1848 to warn ships of the coral shoals off the coast.

[13] The hurricane of August 1885, pushed a "wall of water" over the barrier island (elevation, 3.1 m (10 ft)) devastating Cape Canaveral and adjacent areas.

The beach near the lighthouse was severely eroded prompting its relocation 1.6 km (0.99 mi) west inland.

A number of distinguished visitors including presidents Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison were reported to have stayed here.

The Brossier brothers built houses in this area and started a publication entitled the Evening Star Reporter that was the forerunner of the Orlando Sentinel.

[19] Cape Canaveral became the test site for missiles when the legislation for the Joint Long Range Proving Ground was passed by the 81st Congress and signed by President Harry Truman on May 11, 1949.

Work began on May 9, 1950, under a contract with the Duval Engineering Company of Jacksonville, Florida, to build the Cape's first paved access road and its first permanent launch site.

It is also highly desirable to have the downrange area sparsely populated, in case of accidents; an ocean is ideal for this.

Johnson recommended the renaming of the entire cape, announced in a televised address on November 28, 1963, six days after the assassination, on Thanksgiving evening.

[21][28] Kennedy's last visit to the space facility was on November 16, 1963, six days before his death;[29][30] [31] the final Mercury mission had concluded six months earlier.