NASA CELEBRATES Kennedy Space Center's 50th year. "KSC opened July 1, 1962, as NASA’s Launch Operations Center during the Space Race with the Soviet Union. The Merritt Island complex was renamed Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 29, 1963, one week after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated...."

I was first there in 1965. At that time, KSC was only a very small part of the U.S. Air Force's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.