LIVING HISTORY
VERO’S FORGOTTEN
HOUSE OF REFUGE
VANDIVEER COLLECTION AT INDIAN RIVER COUNTY LIBRARY
No longer standing, the Bethel Creek
House of Refuge protected life along
the shore but also claimed it
BY SANDRA THURLOW
Few people are aware that House of Refuge No. 1
22
once overlooked the ocean where Jaycee Park in
Vero Beach is today. In 1876, when it was completed,
it was the most substantial building in the
region that is now Indian River County. It was a
governmental presence on an uninhabited coast. First designated
Indian River House of Refuge and later named Bethel
Creek House of Refuge, it was manned by a keeper who
lived in “station,” as it was called, with his family. It was an
isolated existence.
Houses of refuge — five built in 1876 and five more in
1886, were part of the U. S. Life-Saving Service and were
unique to Florida’s east coast. Here, when vessels stranded
they usually came close enough to shore that sailors had
little difficulty reaching land. However, since the region was
almost uninhabited, survivors needed the Houses of Refuge
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Wash hangs out on the west side of the Bethel Creek House of Refuge around 1908.