Filed Under Early Settlers & Settlements
Titus House
![The Titus House was the first and the grandest of Titusville's hotels](https://history.titusville.com/files/fullsize/40d22f6fa048dc6d18a699fad3b4935e.jpg)
The imposing three-story hotel built at this site in 1870 by Col. Henry T. Titus was the first hotel built along the Indian River and served for many years as a local gathering place. After Titus’s death in 1881, the wooden structure changed hands several times. In 1890 it was refurbished and renamed the Dixie Hotel, remaining a popular winter resort for tourists until its destruction by fire in 1964.
Audio
How did Titusville get its name? A game of dominos, poker, or something else? Source: Antonio Rafael de la Cova, Colonel Henry Theodore Tius: Antebellum Soldier of Fortune and Florida Pioneer. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2016. Pp. 8-10.
Images
![The Titus House was the first and the grandest of Titusville's hotels](https://history.titusville.com/files/fullsize/40d22f6fa048dc6d18a699fad3b4935e.jpg)
![Col. Henry T. Titus (1823-1881), adventurer, entrepreneur, and founding father of Titusville.](https://history.titusville.com/files/fullsize/863afb16b5f6dcc58a63763f408d5470.jpg)
![Interpretive panel](https://history.titusville.com/files/fullsize/fedc02ab2d7948927dff4e49f075355d.jpg)
![Mary Evelina Hopkins Titus (1832-1911), daughter of a wealthy Georgia planter married Henry Theodore Titus in 1852 and inherited the land on which Titusville would be founded. After her husband's death in 1881, Mary was a prominent philanthropist and donated land for a number of important civic structures.](https://history.titusville.com/files/fullsize/60859112888abf73fa15fccf4b0713b5.jpg)
![After Col. Titus's death in 1881, the hotel changed hands and was renamed the "Indian River Hotel." It would later be renamed the "Dixie Hotel."](https://history.titusville.com/files/fullsize/ff6c6e1a3eeaae2bbec0ffcce1402670.jpg)
![A view to the east down Julia St. toward the Dixie Hotel.](https://history.titusville.com/files/fullsize/4de9abe9146daf74fa81506d477b262a.jpg)
![](https://history.titusville.com/files/fullsize/4b854c05dd9fc14fce5b8df68100ba65.jpg)