Sebastian, Florida

Sabal palms, live oaks, egrets, pelicans, a river, a lagoon, a seashore – the abundant natural beauties of Sebastian are in large part why people move here. Most of early Sebastian was built on land between a river and a lagoon. And it was the proximity of those bodies of water that made the place so attractive to the early settlers.

The St. Sebastian River is a freshwater tributary, fed by rainfall and by smaller creeks and rivulets that drain the land between the Atlantic Sand Ridge, which runs more or less parallel to the present day location of US 1 and the Florida East Coast Railway.

With prongs running to the north and south, the river drains the basin between those sand ridges. It is the principal tributary of the Indian River lagoon in the Sebastian area. A western prong of the river, which existed when the area was settled, became part of the C54 drainage canal. The Indian River lagoon forms the eastern border of the Sebastian area, and the St. Sebastian River forms the western boundary.