America’s highways are marvels of engineering. There are roads to take you just about anywhere in this country, and these surfaces support everything from motorcycles to leviathan trucks up mountains, through cities, and even in tunnels underwater. But one highway stands out as especially ambitious, and it’s Florida’s iconic Overseas Highway. This 113-mile highway and its 42 bridges aren’t just a road, but it’s a lifeline connecting the Florida Keys to the rest of America, and building it was a monumental effort.
I’ve had a list of dream road trips ever since I was a kid. Back then, I learned there was a highway that wrapped around the cliffs of the California coast and another, even more famous highway that stretched from Chicago to California. Then there’s a highway in Nevada that goes on for hundreds of miles through apparent nothingness, salt flats you can race your car on, and a bridge that runs an incredible 23 miles across a lake in Louisiana.
One of the blessings of being an automotive writer is that I’ve been able to make many of these dreams come true. I’ve driven California’s legendary Pacific Coast Highway, America’s historic Route 66, and even parts of Nevada State Highway 50. Yet, one of my holy grails of American road trips had remained elusive. In all of my years, I had never come close to driving Florida’s iconic Overseas Highway.
Earlier this year, I finally achieved that dream, and it was cooler than I had imagined. The folks of Polaris invited me to Miami to drive its fancy Slingshot Grand Touring and Slingshot Signature Edition three-wheelers down the Overseas Highway to the Southernmost Point of continental America, Key West. I wasted no time in telling my press contact yes. If you’re interested in reading a review of the fancy Slingshot, click here.
An Unforgettable Drive
Our journey started in Miami’s South Beach, where we got a police escort to I-95. The interstate took us south before quickly transitioning to U.S. Route 1.
Contrary to the image I had in my mind, the Overseas Highway did not start immediately after leaving South Beach. Instead, we got stuck on Route 1 in heavy traffic for what felt like an eternity. Our surroundings weren’t the ocean, either, but urban sprawl.
Eventually, the road did open up, civilization thinned out, and natural Florida came into view. Once the city is behind you, there are two routes that will get you to the Overseas Highway. If you take the main route, which is built on an old Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) right-of-way, you stay on Route 1.
If you take the detour, it brings you onto Card Sound Road (above), which is a part of the original alignment of the first Overseas Highway.
This route saw us stop at a little roadside bar called Alabama Jack’s, named after local legend Jack Stratham, a fisherman from Georgia who set up shop on Card Sound in 1953.
The original bar was built out of an abandoned railroad building and had been rebuilt more than once over the years after hurricanes pummeled Card Sound.
The bar is a tranquil place to stop, and it’s a fun challenge to find a license plate from the farthest away place.
When the Slingshots got done with a snack stop, we hit the road, taking the Card Sound into North Key Largo. Once on the key, we turned south and headed toward the Overseas Highway.
It’s said that the Card Sound route to the Overseas Highway is a sort of path less traveled. Indeed, there was practically no traffic on the sound that day, even as nearby Route 1 roared with cars. Eventually, we reconnected with Route 1, and the Overseas Highway road trip was on.
Early on, the Overseas Highway surprised me with how much of it didn’t really involve an ocean or water at all. When you’re driving across a key, it looks like pretty typical Florida, with businesses and resorts dotting the street. There aren’t a lot of people here, at least compared to a real metro area, but enough buildings that you can’t even see the water much of the time.
The good news is that the many islands that make up the Florida Keys are small, so there won’t be much time at all before you’re crossing a bridge over the ocean to hop to the next key. Once I got south of the Upper Matecumbe Key, the bridges got longer and more complex. I also spent more time looking at the seemingly endless ocean.
The drive of the Overseas Highway wasn’t challenging at all. In fact, it’s comparable to driving down any country road in the Midwest. There’s a good reason for that, which we’ll get to later. Instead, the Overseas Highway is a scenic route. It’s one you take at a slower speed. Ideally, you won’t even drive the whole 113 miles in one shot because you’ll be stopping to take in ocean views, checking out the wildlife museums, or maybe even going fishing.
If you love bridges, the Overseas Highway will blow your mind. Yes, I said that there are 42 of them. Aside from the Seven Mile Bridge, most of the modern bridges on the route aren’t much to write home about. What will captivate you is the fact that Florida left so many of the original bridges from the older incarnation of the Overseas Highway still standing, and you can walk on and fish from many of them. Many of these structures are also distressed, so you might have great fun looking at them if you enjoy abandoned things.
I hope you like bridges and the ocean, too, because that is most of what the Overseas Highway will provide. You will find a pretty reliable cycle of restaurants and resorts on each key, a very long bridge, a beautiful, clear ocean, and then right onto the next key to start it all over again. If anything, the most amazing part about the Overseas Highway is that it’s easy to forget that you’re basically driving across an ocean.
The highlight of the drive, at least for me, was the Seven Mile Bridge and the Bahia Honda Bridge. These two marvels of engineering will get their own separate piece, but I will show you how majestic the Bahia Honda Bridge is. Your eyes don’t deceive you, that really is a roadbed on top of a rail bridge!
When we reached Key West, one of the influencers in the Slingshot group remarked about how straight and boring the roads were. There is a reason for this, as well as a reason why you can find rail bridges with roads on them in the Florida Keys. It’s because the Overseas Highway did not start life as a highway.
Henry Flagler
Henry Morrison Flagler was a force in business in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. He was a founding partner of the Standard Oil Company and also made money in the grain business and in the distillery market.
According to Florida Keys historian Jerry Wilkinson, Flagler’s relationship to Florida began in 1878 when his wife, Mary, had fallen ill with Tuberculosis. It was winter at the time, and Mary’s doctor recommended that she rest up in a warm clime. The Flaglers had properties in Cleveland and New York City, which were just too cold for the ailing Mary. So, the family set their sights south for Jacksonville, Florida.
As Wilkinson writes, Florida was nothing like Flagler expected. Florida’s most populous town was Key West, which had 10,000 people living in it. Second to that was Jacksonville with 7,000 people. Miami was a settlement, nothing like the major party city it is today. The Flaglers hated how there wasn’t much to do in Florida, no resorts, and no roads to really go anywhere. Sadly, Mary would pass away in 1881 at the age of 48.
Flagler would never really forget about his time in Florida. In 1883, he married Ida Alice Shourds. By now, he was the president of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, and thus didn’t have the time for a summer honeymoon. But there was a place the newlyweds could go, and once again, Flagler found himself in Florida. This time, it was St. Augustine.
Flagler couldn’t get Florida out of his mind. He would pull back from his duties at Standard Oil to focus on a new obsession with tourism. Just two years later, Flagler would buy a small hotel, the Sunnyside, in St. Augustine, and build the Ponce de Leon and the Alcazar hotels to accompany it. Flagler became so deeply invested in turning the Atlantic Coast of Florida into a resort paradise that he then purchased a fourth hotel to add to his portfolio.
The Overseas Railroad
Of course, hotels are worthless if people can’t get to them, so Flagler bought a railroad. That line was the Jacksonville, St. Augustine & Halifax River Railway, which was a 36-mile narrow-gauge short line that didn’t even connect to America’s national rail network.
Flagler wasted no time in improving the railroad, converting it to a standard gauge. Then, Flagler bought the Jacksonville, Tampa, and Key West Railway. Soon enough, his railroad constructed 117 miles of trackage between New Smyrna and Lake Worth. These expansions finally properly connected the rest of America’s East Coast with Florida’s northeast and Flagler’s resorts, which he likened to being “a new American Riviera.”
Then, Flagler’s rails went south, hitting Ormond Beach, Palm Beach, and then Miami. Wilkinson notes that Flagler didn’t just build train tracks, either. Flagler erected entire towns around his trains, building everything from schools and hospitals to fire stations and courthouses. If there was a competing railroad in his way, Flagler bought it and kept building. When Flagler reached Miami, it was still just an unincorporated settlement, but bringing trains there changed that. Flagler’s railroads would later become the Florida East Coast Railway.
It’s because of this that Flagler is sometimes called the father of Miami and the architect of much of Florida’s resort industry. It was Flagler’s obsession that led to the creation of the hotels and the expansive rail network. Flagler was never satisfied, either. In 1893, three years before Flagler’s railroad reached Miami, he was already considering expanding as far west as Tampa and as far south as Key West.
This idea caught like wildfire within Flagler as the Panama Canal started taking shape in the early 1900s. To Flagler, Key West and its naturally deep seaport were the perfect location to link the United States to trade from South and Central America, as well as Cuba.
Flagler’s idea to expand to Key West wasn’t novel. There had been practically countless suggestions for a railroad to Key West from as far back as 1831. However, every other idea faltered either because engineers believed that a railroad over the sea couldn’t be done, or that nobody could afford to build such a plan. Here’s a whole documentary about Flagler’s efforts:
That didn’t deter Flagler, who hired engineer William J. Krome to find him the best path to Key West. In 1905, Flagler was given the green light to build his railway. By now, he was 74 years old. He practically built Florida’s east coast, but he wanted even more. Keys Life Magazine describes the Herculean effort to build the Key West Extension, also known as the Overseas Railroad:
For the overseas project, Flagler purchased, leased or built most of the heavy marine equipment in the east. It was a massive operation. Land had to be donated, purchased or leased, as Flagler did not receive land grants in the Keys other than water passages. He did own land previously granted to other railroad companies that he had bought. So many of the transport ships in the Atlantic were employed solely to transport supplies and materials for Flagler that it created a minor shortage for transporting other goods. Using Krome’s survey, overland clearing throughout the Keys began. Functional seaports and rail terminals were built at Knight’s Key and Key West. The large bridges could not be started until huge floating concrete mixers could be constructed. Concrete mixer number 1 was towed out of Miami on June 27, 1906. Work began throughout the Keys. Over 130 acres of land was to be dredged/pumped in for the Key West Terminal. The work camps were numbered from north to south from Homestead. Key Largo was camp 1 and Key West was camp 82.
By the spring of 1905, construction teams were dispersed throughout the Keys. From the mainland, in April, two of the ten traveling dredges set out from what would become Florida City across Cross Key to Jewfish Creek. One dredge worked on each side of the right-of-way, piling up fill to form a track rail bed in the center. Rock was transported and spread. Tracks were laid on top of this rock foundation. The Woodall and Everglade stations were built on side tracks located where the vehicle passing lanes of the 18-mile stretch are now. This was time-consuming work, but not difficult. Jewfish Creek presented them with their first bridging challenge. It had to be a drawbridge to permit boat traffic even in those days. The crew used 150 huge barges to ferry supplies to shore.
Labor was a constant problem. The pay was $1.25 a day with food, lodging and medical care. Lack of fresh water and mosquitoes constantly haunted the project. An average of 4.5 million gallons of fresh water was required each month. It is said a total of 40,000 men, but never more than 5,000 at any one time, were employed.
The 128-mile Overseas Railroad was built over the course of seven years, costing Flagler over $50 million ($1.7 billion in 2026), and workers had to suffer through three major hurricanes. In 1912, the Key West Extension opened. The road, which was once called “Flagler’s Folly” because few thought Flagler could do it, was considered the eighth wonder of the world.
Flagler’s expected freight traffic never really came, as Key West did not become America’s trade hub. Instead, passenger trains mostly brought people to the Keys, and the freight trains brought in food, water, and building materials to support that expansion.
Ultimately, the Overseas Railroad was partially destroyed (below) by the Category 5 Labor Day Hurricane of 1935.
The storm claimed over 420 lives, wiped out the FEC’s Long Key Fishing Camp, destroyed the railroad’s locomotives, and destroyed 40 miles of track. The railroad had already gone bankrupt and simply couldn’t afford to fix the damage. The state of Florida and Monroe County bought the right-of-way for $640,000 ($15,671,529 today).
The First Overseas Highway
The disaster became an opportunity to expand the original Overseas Highway, which provided access to the Keys by automobile, but still wasn’t a complete highway. From Wilkinson:
A hint of a highway to the mainland was uttered in a political address by George W. Allen in 1895. To the author the first major step in modernizing land transportation in the Keys as we know it was the railroad. Along with the railroad came post offices with daily deliveries of people and goods. Many of us today think of the Overseas Highway as a direct result of the 1935 hurricane that destroyed Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway. In many ways this is true; however, the highway actually started evolving earlier. The meager beginning takes us back to 1917, when Monroe County floated a $100,000 bond issue to build roads, or trails, on Key Largo, Big Pine Key and a bridge from Key West to Stock Island. […]
Dade County was to build 11 miles of road from Florida City to Little Card Point, a point of land between Card and Barnes Sound. Monroe County was to build a drawbridge and connect the Dade road to the existing North Key Largo road. Before it could be completed, the roadway and bridge were severely damaged by the hurricane of 1926. It was decided to raise the bridge height from five to nine feet. Tidewater Construction Company was the original bridge contractor, but S. J. Groves Co. did the final modification and repair. Awaiting for its completion, in March of 1927 a barge-type ferry towed by a powerboat transported cars from Florida City to the east end of the Card Sound bridge. This was known as the Key Largo Ferry and the point was known as Pelican Harbor. Meanwhile, Jenner Construction made the road serviceable as far as Islamorada. Another feat was using the car ferry to cross to the mainland, J. Otto Kirchheiner, chairman of the Monroe County commissioners, was the first to drive a car from Key West to the mainland on July 18, 1927.
By 1928, the rebuilt and higher off the water 2,800-foot wooden drawbridge across Card Sound was completed. The additional road and bridges were completed to Lower Matecumbe Key. The Upper Keys were connected to the Florida mainland. In the meanwhile, Key West had built a road as far as No Name Key. Construction of a ferryboat pier began at Lower Matecumbe and No Name Key.
The first Overseas Highway did not reach Key West. In order to bridge the 41-mile gap between roads, three ferries were purchased for $850,000 ($16,362,254 in 2026) and used for the 41-mile journey between Lower Matecumbe Key and No Name Key. Each ferry trip was about four hours long and carried only 20 cars. Vehicles under 14 feet paid $3.50 ($67 today) while vehicles over 15 feet paid $6.50 ($125 today). Passengers had to cough up another $1 ($19.25 today) each. By 1931, the ferry route was supplanted with a 13.5-mile addition to the Overseas Highway, reaching ferry terminals on Grassy Key and Hog Key. Instead of one 41-mile trip, now the ferries handled two shorter 14-mile trips.
While it was possible to get a car from the mainland to Key West, it wasn’t a pleasurable journey. The ferries were slow, unreliable, had a limited capacity, and were expensive. They also had a problem with running aground as the water often wasn’t deep enough. It wasn’t long before plans were drawn up to replace the boats with bridges.
Following the 1935 hurricane, most of the old tracks were torn up, and roadbeds were put in their place. Since most of the rail bridges were still in good condition, engineers converted the rail bridges into road bridges.
This is why the Bahia Rail Bridge looks so goofy. It was really a rail bridge that engineers slapped a road on top of. To add a road to the bridge, engineers added concrete slabs to the trusses of the rail bridge, then smoothed out the climbs and descents of the trusses so cars could traverse them.
Even the famous Seven Mile Bridge started life as a rail bridge, and to save money in converting the Seven Mile Bridge for road traffic, the former tracks were mounted sideways and used as guardrails. Most rail bridges were converted by laying steel beams across the bridge, then encasing them in reinforced concrete.
Converting rail bridges to road bridges had their weird drawbacks, like narrow lanes – the roads were 20 feet wide from curb to curb – and no shoulders. But it worked, and on March 29, 1938, when the Overseas Highway opened, it finally connected Key West to the mainland by road and was considered one of the most ambitious road engineering projects in America at the time.
The Overseas Highway Got Upgraded
Much of the future of the Overseas Highway became about maintenance and improvement. During World War II, the federal government believed the highway had great military importance. Several bridges were replaced with stronger versions, and sharp curves were eliminated. Parts of the highway that did not follow the old FEC right-of-way were bypassed. This is why Card Sound Road and Route 1 both lead to the same place, but Card Sound Road takes a longer route to get there. As a result, the Overseas Highway became more than a dozen miles shorter. In 1953, the tolled portions of the Overseas Highway became free.
The next major upgrade happened in the 1970s through the 1980s. By now, the bridges – which were originally built during the early 1910s – were in a sorry state after decades of heavy traffic, hurricanes, and living in a salty ocean. Chunks of concrete began falling from the Bahia Honda Bridge while it was still in use. That bridge was the first of the remaining old bridges to be replaced when a modern bridge was built next to it, which opened in 1972. The modern version of the Seven Mile Bridge opened in 1982.
Many of the old bridges were never removed. Instead, unsafe sections were severed, and usable sections remained open to foot traffic. When you drive on the Overseas Highway today, you’ll frequently see these old bridges directly next to the newer ones.
Sadly, those old bridges continue to deteriorate, and they drop concrete into the sea. But they are majestic reminders of the past.
The Bottom Of America
While the Polaris trip officially terminated at a hotel in Key West, I couldn’t stop there. I hopped back into a Slingshot and drove one mile deeper. My destination was the Southernmost Point Buoy. It’s silly, but I’ve seen other people reach the Southernmost Point of America so many times throughout my life. For me, being the person in the photographs was a goal worth having. Maybe I thought that if I could somehow be there in Key West, it meant that I had made it in life. I’m not really sure why that buoy became such an obsession for me.
I never thought I’d make it. There was always some sort of time, financial, or work constraint that kept me away. Yet, there I was, the best version of myself, standing next to a replacement version of the iconic buoy. The only way the moment could have been better was if my wife could have been there.
None of it would have been possible had it not been for the obsession of Henry Flagler and the genius engineers who converted a railway into a highway. It’s frankly amazing that it’s possible to drive over 100 miles over an ocean like it’s nothing, and it’s another example of the marvels that people can create. I think the Overseas Highway is a part of the American road trip experience that I think everyone should try at least once. I loved it so much that I can’t wait to do it again, but in my own vehicle.
Top graphic images: Tinsley Advertising; Mercedes Streeter
Most days I don’t consider myself old. Thankfully still active and healthy. Drove to Key West in 86. Dang! 40 F’n Years Ago!
I’ve done the drive to Key West a few times, the first one, 10 years ago, I did straight through, 1300 miles, ca 21 hours, it was a horrible, horrible idea and was not at all safe, particularly south of Miami (you have this idea in your head that Miami is nearly the end, but, really, there’s another 170 miles to go). Subsequent times, I split it up with an overnight in Georgia, which is much better
Flew into Miami, and was culture shocked that half the billboards and radio stations were Spanish in 86. Don’t get me wrong, I’m super anti-Dumpty, and have been since the 90’s when I stared him down with utter disgust, and he quickly left.
I finally got to drive Rt 555 in Ohio on Memorial Day. Now I want to find other interesting road trips.
Mercedes hints at some of Flagler’s eccentricities. The Dollup (episode 247) did a biography of Henry Flagler. Unfortunately, Flagler was a bit of a sociopath when it came to worker safety. The precise number is unknown, but construction of the bridge cost the lives of hundreds of workers to accidents, disease and tropical storms. Like other construction in Florida, Flagler also engaged in bribery and intimidation to receive approval for his many projects.
The original draft of this was something like 5,000 words. I have to rein myself in sometimes and cut things down so you don’t get an actual novel. 🙂
No criticism intended. I just wanted to contribute a little historical flavor.
A sociopathic billionaire? Now where have I heard that before…
It’s not a bug. It’s a fearure
I’m not surprised. I read that between the lines pertaining to the problems of keeping labor.
Going under the Bahia Honda bridge makes you question the sanity of anyone driving over it.
I’ve driven this several times, and it is so gorgeous! But with non stops from EWR to EWY I stopped driving. Great write up!
Oh, and yes, I did once travel to the southernmost point of Canada, walk to its very tip, and shout out “BOTTOM OF THE WORLD, MA!”, as one does.
I’d love to say the drive from Detroit was picturesque, but it’s really just a bunch of pretty boring farmland. Worth it to get to the bird preserve, though.
Middle Island or Fish Point? My wife and I swam from a friend’s sail boat to Middle Island and assed a bottle of wine once. It’s the thing to do.
You get an OK view of Cleveland from there. If there is such a thing as an OK view of Cleveland. /s
Fish Point. I wasn’t willing to swim to the other spot.
I guess Cleveland doesn’t have what you’d call an iconic skyline.
Curious, why can’t you just take your boat over to middle island? What’s with the swim?
There’s nowhere to land a boat, at least one with a keel. You have to drop anchor offshore. Besides, it was fun!
Always wanted to make that trek.This is the next best thing.
Thanks, Mercedes.
If you found this article interesting (and it is!) I encourage you to pick up “Last Train to Paradise” which gives details about the construction and about Flagler. It’s a quick and easy read.
This is like my dream area to live in.
Unfortunately, I’m allergic to both hurricanes and Florida in general.
MORE BRIDGETOPIAN! THE STREETS DEMAND IT!
Anyway my neurodivergent side has always been fascinated by bridges. I’m not an engineer myself (in fact I suck at math) but ever since I was a kid I found them captivating. Crossing the Delaware Memorial Bridge, the Bay Bridge in Annapolis, and the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel multiple times when I was a wee NSane were probably what planted the seeds.
Anyway when I was a kid I’d spend hours drawing longer and longer bridges by taping pieces of construction paper together, and when I was at the beach (the Outer Banks, a great place for bridges in its own right) I’d make bridges out of driftwood and pieces of dune fences that would go on for 50+ feet. I’d even get other kids involved, but they would usually lose interest while I remained hyperfixated for hours on end.
Anyway I convinced my parents to take the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel home from the Outer Banks once. It literally added 2 hours to our trip but I was absolutely fascinated. I still have a soft spot for bridges today and naturally the Overseas Highway is a bucket list drive for me and, while I’ve heard its story many times over at this point, I never get bored of reading about it again.
I’m very jealous that you got to drive it, but also very happy because I don’t think there’s anyone better to write about it and I can feel your enthusiasm in every word! I’ve probably rambled enough, but GREAT article, this is the type of stuff I come here for 🙂
I’ve always had a thing for bridges too. When I was probably 10 or 11, my family drove from MN to Las Vegas. Portable video games didn’t exist yet, so we were each allowed one toy, a couple of books, and a notepad. I sketched dozens of different bridges to pass the time through the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona.
I’ve done the Overseas Highway, and if I get a chance to do it again, I’m going to take more time on the way down to explore the old bridge segments that run parallel to the highway.
I was just down touring the expansion of the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel. It’s a monster project, whole new tunnel heading “eastbound” (it’s really southbound) along with a host of new bridges which will expand I-64 from 2 lanes in each direction to 4. Will eventually make the lives of those people commuting suck a whole lot less that’s for sure.
Bridges are obviously the Michael Jordan of infrastructure projects, so to be captivated by them is normal (says this civil-structural engineer).
Very cool. I love me a good road trip, and I too have done Highway 1 from Oregon to L.A., Route 66 from Chicago, and planned to drive across Lake Pontchartrain but sadly that trip got Covided. The Keys and the Overseas Highway are the only things that would get me to step foot in Florida again.
Perhaps like occupied Wisconsin, the UP, the keys are not really Florida and therefore get a pass regarding setting foot in that pretend paradise called Florida
So I’ve heard, hence why I still want to visit there.
I live here. Like anywhere else there are marvelous people and places. But it is hot 5 months of the year.
Is it true about the pie? Is it good?
It is, but to clear, by here I mean near Clearwater on the Gulf Coast.
It still cracks me up that the entire Florida peninsula tops out at 312 feet above sea level. There’s one place up in the panhandle that is a towering 345 high, but it’s practically in Alabama.
(Rhode Island, even with a tiny fraction of Florida’s territory, achieves a lofty 812 feet.)
Then again, if Florida wasn’t so flat there wouldn’t be the River of Grass that is the Everglades. And that would be a shame.
South Point, on the Island of Hawaii, would beg to differ. Great article!
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Kalae/@18.9136502,-155.7039329,6492m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x795130b0b4266cd3:0xe937be331dd575b6!8m2!3d18.9136111!4d-155.6833332!16zL20vMDYzc3Zm?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDUyNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
Continental US.
Like any good Guinness record, there’s stipulations to make sure they can claim the record.
That’s still only the southernmost point in the 50 states, American Samoa is the furthest south inhabited territory in the US, and Palmyra Atoll is the absolute furthest south US soil (there are maybe a half dozen or so scientists and researchers stationed there at any one time, but it doesnt technically count as inhabited)
Built in 7 years. I watched them widen I-40 near Jackson Tennessee for 25 years. I guess that’s the difference between private investment and government slush fund.
No, it’s the difference between building pre-1930s versus in post 2000s.
Those aren’t cutoffs, there’s a continual increase in labor costs, technical requirements, area impacts of construction due to population densities, materials cost, etc. which have continually increased both time and project costs.
Hoover Damn was a federal government project and was built in 5 years.
Hundreds of people died during Florida East Coast Railway’s construction. Today, bridge construction is still a dangerous occupation, but nothing like it was 125 years ago.
By comparison, either 11 or 19 people — depending on the source — died during construction of the Golden Gate Bridge in the 1930s. The lead builder placed an emphasis on worker safety, which resulted in fewer fatalities.
Jb996 brings up good points but you also have a good point that widening a highway shouldn’t take 25 years.
There is a road work and paving company out here that will slow/stop working because if construction rollls into the next fiscal year they earn more money. Also somehow they bribed some county commissioners to give them contracts despite not being the lowest bidder.
My wife and I flew to Miami and drove to Key West probably 15 years ago in a really crappy rental PT Cruiser. The Overseas Highway, especially the lower Keys was probably the coolest drive I’ve ever taken.
Now that you’ve gone to the southernmost buoy, you need to go to the northernmost buoy in the lower 48. https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/57366
Delicious local quirk – there is, or at least there used to be, some random guy or gal in the village of Marathon whose phone would be picked by Google maps as representative of the whole area.
Resulting in monster time to destination estimates when said guy or gal sits idle, when setting up trips from Miami to Key West in Google Maps.
Got us two days in a row a few years ago. The first day we got on our way and a few miles in our time to destination started increasing, eventually hitting 20 hours, with a gridlock showing from Marathon spanning 55 miles north. It was storm season, we were fresh out of one, so it made sense for the road to get closed. So we returned to Miami.
Same trip the next day, same behavior. Time to destination went from the regular one to six hours to 15 hours within a few minutes.
This time I decided to split the trip in two – one to Marathon, and one from Marathon to Key West. Magically, times returned to normal.
A Slingshot in the Keys. Mercedes, you may be the youngest person ever to do that.
The PA Turnpike was originally built on railroad ROW as well.
Florida’s population history is pretty remarkable. To think a state on the east coast of the country would have such a small population in the 1880s is really something. Of course, it’s history is very different from the rest of the east coast.
And then there’s the fact that it’s population’s doubled since the mid-80s.
Malaria is a thing. So is AC
Interesting related point in history, and why today, living in tropical climates doesn’t have the same downside that it used to.
Yellow Fever and Dengue Fever were endemic in the US.
Yellow fever killed 10% of Philadelphia’s population in 1793. The 1878 epidemic killed 13,000 to 20,000 across the Mississippi River Valley. Malaria was as far north as Massachusetts, and killed 10,000 in the Civil War.
And for the anti-government, anti-overseas investment, anti-government health system crowd:
In 1947, both the National Malaria Eradication Program (CDC and state cooperation) and the Pan American Sanitary Bureau (largely spraying in Panama), both acting through the 1970s largely eradicated these diseases from North America.
Stopping the use of DDT was a good thing, but stopping these programs, is why we today have a recurrence of mosquito-born tropical diseases (Zika, Dengue, Chikungunya) in the US.
Like vaccines, they were so effective that people forgot about their effectiveness and forgot to fear the things that they successfully prevented!
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/24/5/17-1609_article
You might have found some common ground…. Everyone hates mosquitoes.
I remember hearing about a study that found if mosquitoes went extinct (the ones that bite us) nothing would happen to the food chain, nothing eats them exclusively.
Florida was considered the southernmost frontier for a very long time, even when James Deering built Vizcaya, Miami was still such a sleepy little outpost with such little infrastructure, that he had to build his own power plant and also a support village to provide housing and services for the estate workers. There was almost nothing there, even as late as the early 1920s
Bob Dylan’s also a fan it seems – one of his better late career songs is (at least partly) about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-oOCo1Y1bw&list=RDG-oOCo1Y1bw
Great article as always!
I have to ask because it’s driving me wild: does anyone know if that little island in the header picture was used in the “Roman asking Brian where is” scene towards the end of 2 Fast 2 Furious?
It looks familiar but I just don’t know.
Don’t remember that scene, but that’s Pigeon Key in the photo:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigeon_Key
Those are some great pictures and a fun history lesson. Glad you enjoyed it and I’m doubly glad I could just read this and not have to go to Florida.
Florida itself is fine and quite enjoyable in a lot of places. Floridians are another story entirely…
Totally fair point. And it’s not even all Floridians, but the bad ones kinda ruin the whole experience when I find myself there.
I am sadly aware of the lamentable development in the last decade, but I found the vast majority of Floridians incredibly friendly and helpful when we visited 15 years ago. A big shoutout goes to the nice elderly lady guide who took a “group” of just four people (two from Germany and two from NJ) on a tour of the Little White House in Key West.
When we reached Key West, one of the influencers in the Slingshot group remarked about how straight and boring the roads were.
Yes, there are some stretches without a bend in the road, but a highway crossing the ocean is definitely NOT boring. WTF is wrong with people? Speaking of stereotypes and prejudices, this reinforces mine against “influencers”. Get a haircut and get a real job.
I typed a long diatribe about why Florida seems to have a relatively overwhelming number of the sorts of people who yell at strangers in public (example) but I deleted it because it was probably meaner than necessary. All I know is that the worst people among my family and friends, after committing some sort of atrocity, almost always flee to Florida. It’s uncanny, really.
Apologies to those in Florida who aren’t a part of this demographic. We’re not trying to send these people to Florida, it’s just where they choose to go to on their own.
Your family and friends commit atrocities? How do you know so many murders?
This Floridian will beg your pardon 😉
Fun! I enjoy this drive but I miss the Key West of 30+ years ago. It is just not the same anymore.
Sadly, it has turned into a land of Air BnB and a playground for the rich.
yep I was there when the cruise ships docked to offer high end shopping. Gone are the days of quirky people living in tin roof shotgun houses.
I posted this elsewhere. 2003 was my last time.
That drive is absolutely fantastic, and in a car with the top down/off is the only way to experience it. Glad you got to enjoy it.
You look great, Mercedes.
One day when I was 8, my dad came home from work and announced that the old Seven Mile Bridge was closing the following Monday, so we got in our Delta 88 the next day and drove down. My mom was terrified on the narrow bridge, but it was so cool. We could look out the car windows and see rays in the water below.
We left Miami in ’86, but (almost) every time I go back I make a run down to Key West. One time there were massive (non-hurricane) storms; we waited on one of the islands until the worst had passed, then white-knuckled it the rest of the way. Duvall Street was flooded when we got there. Another time, 25 years ago, I got engaged.
Next time I go, I’m renting a bike and riding the old Seven Mile Bridge again.
Is this the one they shot missiles at in True Lies?
Yes, but they were all bad.
Yes, and one of the little islands was nuked. Should have done it from orbit, just to be sure.
Yeah, that was the old Seven Mile Bridge, which had been mostly closed and bypassed by the current, new bridge in 1982. However, there is still a short section of the old one that’s open to traffic, connecting to Pigeon Key, since the new one bypassed that island
The bridge is out!!