Daytona Beach City Map Poster

About Daytona Beach

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. During the Seminole Wars against the Creek people in 1836, General Andrew Jackson fought a battle near what is now Daytona Beach in February 1838 at a site west of Daytona called Camp Haley; this battle has been memorialized as "the Battle of Old Man's Lake". In 1871, Florida became an independent state and Volusia County was established; it encompassed all land from St. Johns County south to Brevard County (now part of Orange County). In 1886, William John Matheson acquired approximately along both sides of present-day Main Street for $10 () per acre ($250/km²) after learning that Thomas Edison planned to build an industrial plant there on his way north from West Palm Beach where he had recently opened another factory location at Fort Lauderdale (see also History section below).