"Before roads and bridges were everywhere, piers were how land met water. Steamboat piers, fishing piers, pleasure piers — they were the docks, the loading ramps, and the dance floors of old Florida. Almost all the old piers are gone now, but they were a huge part of life along the lagoon and the coast."
Why Piers Mattered
Why piers mattered: Piers were a essential piece of old Florida's waterfront — the connection between land and water for everything from shipping to recreation. What a pier does: A pier is a structure that extends out over the water, raised on pilings, with a deck you can walk or work on. Piers let boats dock in deeper water (without dredging a whole harbor), let cargo be loaded and unloaded, let fishermen reach deeper water, and let people walk out over the water for recreation. The types of piers: Brevard and the Space Coast had several kinds of piers: steamboat piers (where the steamboats landed), fishing piers (for commercial and recreational fishing), pleasure piers (for strolling, with pavilions and sometimes dance floors), and working piers (for boat docks, fish houses, and freight). Why they were everywhere: In the era before good roads and bridges, the water was the highway. Piers were the on-ramps. Every town on the lagoon had a pier or two — the steamboat pier, the fish house pier, maybe a pleasure pier. The coast had ocean fishing piers reaching out over the surf. The pier era: From the late 1800s through the mid-1900s, piers were central to waterfront life. As roads and bridges improved, and as the steamboat faded, many piers lost their purpose — but the fishing and pleasure piers kept going for a long time. The loss: Most of the old piers are gone — lost to storms, fire, rot, and changing times. A few modern piers survive, but the historic piers that once lined the lagoon and the coast are almost all gone. The piers are a lost piece of old Florida — a whole way of connecting land and water that's mostly disappeared.