Historic Cocoa Village
Right: It cost a dime to
cross the Banana River to
Cocoa Beach in 1931.
Below: Postal home deliv-
ery was launched
at Patrick Air Force Base
in 1955.
THE WILD CAT SALOON
BY CHARLES W. SKELLY AND DONNA SHERIFF (MOSTLY FACT)
RANDPA HARDEE SAYS birds you wouldn’t believe-canaries,
G
that when Cocoa was still mockingbirds and parakeets.
a settlement called Indian Anyway, Grandpa Hardee says
River City, there was no- this wild cat would snarl and lunge
where a man could get a at anyone entering he saloon. Men
drink to lift his spirits unless he went would tease him, but they never got
all the way to Titusville. The trip alone too close. Whether the business had
deserved a healthy drink, but then you a name before this or not, I guess is
had to come all the way back. unimportant, because from then on it
Rightly enough, some enterprising was the Wild Cat Saloon.
young man began to bring a supply Now, as I say, I swear I can remem-
of liquor back home with him and ber seeing that cat chained there,
sell a drink or two in the store on barely restraining his wild animal
Delannoy Avenue. instincts, but A.C. Fiske thinks
Now who it was that thought a otherwise. Not to embarrass me in
place of this kind needed protection front of my captivated audience
I don’t know. Or perhaps some wife when he once heard me tell this
was trying to discourage patrons from story, he waited until we were alone
entering the building. In any case, to set me straight. It seems Mr. Fiske
somebody went out into the scrub and bought the Wild Cat Saloon building
captured a wild cat and chained him in 1903, tore it down, and rebuilt it
in front of the door. as it now stands, owned by Robert
Wild cats as big as a German shep- Gould. In 1903, I had not entered
herd roamed the woods and could be this world yet.
heard screaming in the night. There Appropriately enough, that building
were bears and deer out there, too, and is now an antique store.
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