Jim Morrison's birthplace

James Douglas Morrison was born on December 8, 1943, at the Naval Air Station in Melbourne, Florida. His father, George Stephen Morrison, was a Navy pilot who would eventually rise to the rank of Rear Admiral — and who, in 1964, commanded the fleet during the Gulf of Tonkin incident that escalated the Vietnam War. The contrast between father and son could hardly have been sharper.

The family's time in Melbourne was brief. Military families moved constantly, and the Morrisons were no exception — they would go on to live in Clearwater, Washington DC, Albuquerque, and eventually the suburbs of northern Virginia and Los Angeles. Morrison spent barely any time in Melbourne, but this is where the story begins.

The address on South Harbor City Boulevard is in a quiet part of Melbourne, a small city on Florida's Space Coast. There is nothing at the site to mark Morrison's birth — no plaque, no sign. The building that was once part of the naval station has changed use many times over the decades.

For Doors fans tracing Morrison's life from birth to death — Melbourne to Paris — this is the starting point. The quiet, unremarkable beginning of one of rock's most volatile and mythologised figures.