Short answers, pulled from the story.
Merritt Island is a peninsula in Brevard County, Florida, on the eastern Florida coast along the Atlantic Ocean. It is part of the Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area, and extends some 46 miles from the Volusia County line to Dragon Point near Melbourne.
Merritt Island owes its name to the King of Spain. The entire island was part of a land grant given by the King to a nobleman named Merritt.
The population of Merritt Island was 34,518 at the 2020 census, down from 34,743 at the 2010 census. The median age was 52.2 years, with 26.1 percent of residents aged 65 or older.
NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center sits on Merritt Island to the north of the town. The Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and Canaveral National Seashore provide an unpopulated protected buffer area for rocket launches there.
Merritt Island has about 356 species of birds, one of the most diverse bird populations in the country, along with alligators, manatees, dolphins, sea turtles, bald eagles, ospreys, bobcats, and the Florida panther. North Merritt Island also has about 12,000 feral pigs, of which licensed trappers catch roughly 2,000 each year.
Merritt Island's recent history dates to the mid-19th century and centers on citrus, especially oranges and pineapples. Spanish explorer Álvaro Mexía visited local tribes there in 1605, and after the Civil War freed slaves built small towns including Haulover, Clifton, and Shiloh, which vanished with the coming of the Space Age.