"Let's talk about the name. Mosquito Lagoon. It's not exactly a great tourism name — but it's an honest one. This end of the lagoon was famous for mosquitoes. Not a few. Clouds of them. The kind that'll cover you in minutes. That's why the people who lived here named it that."
A Mosquito Coast
Why it's called Mosquito Lagoon: The northernmost section of the Indian River Lagoon is called Mosquito Lagoon. The name is old — and it's not a joke. A mosquito paradise: Mosquito Lagoon is shallow, warm, and surrounded by salt marsh and mangroves — the perfect breeding habitat for saltmarsh mosquitoes. Before development, the mosquito population here was astronomical. Early accounts: Spanish and American explorers, surveyors, and settlers wrote about the mosquitoes being unbearable — so thick you couldn't breathe without inhaling them, so relentless that cattle and horses were driven mad. The name 'Mosquito Lagoon' (and the nearby 'Mosquito Inlet,' now Ponce de León Inlet) comes from these accounts. An honest name: For the people who lived here and worked the water, the name was simply descriptive. The lagoon was beautiful and rich — but it was also one of the mosquito-iest places on the whole east coast. The name stuck, and today it's one of the oldest place-names in the region.
