In February 1889, Captain Alfred Wilcox took delivery at this site of a shipment of steel rail for the building of the Melbourne & Atlantic Railroad. Over the coming months, track was laid to connect the Indian River with the Atlantic Ocean, beginning at the western end of the Melbourne Beach Pier, running the length of the pier, and then continuing along a straight path to the ocean where Ocean Avenue would later be built. The railroad greatly improved ocean access for the growing numbers of citizens and visitors in Brevard County. On July 17, 1889, Major Cyrus E. Graves signed paperwork laying out the streets of Melbourne Beach and allowing the railroad company to lay and operate a railroad throughout the center of Ocean Avenue forever unmolested. Captain Rufus Beaujean, and later his sons Don and Claude, provided motorized tram rides for a fee from the pier to the ocean.