Daytona Beach

Daytona Beach, city (1990 pop. 61,921), Volusia co., NE Fla., on the Atlantic coast and Halifax River (a lagoon); inc. 1876. Center of a rapidly urbanizing area, in a region settled by Spanish Franciscans in the 17th cent., Daytona Beach is a popular year-round resort, now noted as a spring-break mecca for collegians. Its economy has diversified to include aerospace industries. Noted for its hard, white beach, the city has been the scene of automobile racing since 1902; the annual Daytona 500 is an important event. Daytona USA, an interactive motor-sports museum, opened in 1996. Institutions of higher education include Bethune-Cookman College and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical Univ.

Other attractions devoted to auto racing include Daytona USA, featuring interactive racing displays, and the Klassix Auto Museum. The Museum of Arts and Sciences includes a collection of Cuban art. A greyhound-racing track is located near the speedway. Daytona Beach has long been a popular destination for college students on spring vacation. Educational institutions include Bethune-Cookman College (1872), Daytona Beach Community College (1957), Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (1926), and a branch campus of the University of Central Florida. Inc. 1876. Pop. (2000) 64,112; Deltona–Daytona Beach–Ormond Beach Metro Area, 443,343; (2010) 61,005; Deltona–Daytona Beach–Ormond Beach Metro Area, 494,593.

The area where Daytona Beach is today was once inhabited by the indigenous Timucuan Indians who lived in fortified villages. The Timucuas were nearly exterminated by contact with Europeans through war, enslavement and disease and became extinct as a racial entity through assimilation and attrition during the 18th century. The Seminole Indians, descendants of Creek Indians from Georgia and Alabama, frequented the area prior to the Second Seminole War.

In 1871, Mathias Day, Jr. of Mansfield, Ohio, purchased a 2,144.5 acre tract of the former Williams Plantation, on the west bank of the tidal channel known as the Halifax River. He built a hotel around which the initial section of town, today the Daytona Beach Historic District, arose. In 1872, due to financial troubles, Day lost title to his land; nonetheless, residents decide to name the city Daytona in his honor, and incorporated the town in 1876.

In 1886, the St. Johns & Halifax River Railway arrived in Daytona. The line would be purchased in 1889 by Henry M. Flagler, who made it part of his Florida East Coast Railway. The separate towns of Daytona, Daytona Beach, Kingston, and Seabreeze merged as "Daytona Beach" in 1926, at the urging of civic leader J.B. Kahn and others. By the 1920s, it was dubbed "The World's Most Famous Beach".

Daytona's wide beach of smooth, compacted sand attracted automobile and motorcycle races beginning in 1902, as pioneers in the industry tested their inventions. It hosted land speed record attempts beginning in 1904, when William K. Vanderbilt set an unofficial record of 92.307 mph (148.554 km/h). Land speed racers from Barney Oldfield to Henry Seagrave to Malcolm Campbell would visit Daytona repeatedly and make the 23 mi (37 km) beach course famous. Record attempts, including numerous fatal endeavors such as Frank Lockhart (Stutz Black Hawk, 1926) and Lee Bible (Triplex Special, 1929), would continue until Campbell's March 7, 1935 effort, which set the record at 276.816 mph (445.492 km/h) and marked the end of Daytona's land speed racing days.

On March 8, 1936, the first stock car race was held on the, located in the present-day Town of Ponce Inlet. In 1958, William France Sr. and NASCAR created the Daytona International Speedway to replace the beach course. Automobiles are still permitted on most areas of the beach, at a maximum speed of 10 mph (16 km/h).