"Jay Masino" wrote in message
...

I don't even understand this statement, unless you're refering to the City
of Cape Canaveral.


I'm referring to Cape Canaveral, the land mass jutting out into the Atlantic
Ocean that was named Cabo de Canaveral (Cape of the Cane) by the Spanish
nearly 500 years ago.



The original Cape Canaveral, where early launches took place, was split.
The NASA side was renamed Kennedy Space Center. The Air Force side
retained the Cape Canaveral name (Cape Canaveral Air Force Station... part
of Patrick AFB).


Not long after President Kennedy was assassinated President Johnson decreed
that the NASA facilities on Cape Canaveral and Merritt Island would be
renamed the John F. Kennedy Space Center. But the previous name did not
contain "Cape Canaveral", it was just called the NASA Launch Operations
Center. Johnson also decreed that "Cape Canaveral", the geographic place
name, would be changed to "Cape Kennedy". A couple of months later the USAF
announced that Cape Canaveral Missile Test Annex would be renamed Cape
Kennedy Air Force Station.

Nobody objected to renaming the NASA and USAF facilities for Kennedy, they
were federal property and the federal government could call them anything
they wanted. There was considerable objection to the changing of the
geographic place name, however. It took some ten years, but in the early
seventies the geographic place name again became Cape Canaveral, and the
USAF facility was renamed Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.