A-1-A: Florida state road with national status

 

Elliott Family on A1A in Palm Beach 1960
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory/Barron, C

By Jane Feehan 

Officially designated a state road in 1945, A-1-A or Atlantic 1 Alternate extends from Fernandina Beach to Key West, Florida. Numbering of the original roads included in this highway were replaced by the A-1-A designation in 1946. The longest highway it replaced was State Road 140.

Though not a continuous road, A-1-A runs parallel and close to much of state’s Atlantic seaboard, providing one of its most scenic vistas. A portion of it—from Ponte Vedra Beach to Flagler Beach—is among 15 roads in the contiguous 48 states designated by the federal government as a Scenic and Historic Coastal Byway. Florida can boast two such designations with the Big Bend Scenic Highway along the Gulf Coast as the other. State A-1-A includes some of the first paved road along Florida's east coast – Dixie Highway completed in 1915.

(see: https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/08/carl-fisher-links-florida-to-nation.html).

The Florida Department of Transportation established the Florida Scenic Highways Program in 1996 to showcase its roads to “enhance the overall travel experience in Florida.” Currently, it lists 27 state-designated scenic highways, six of them federally National Scenic Byways and two—the A-1-A segment mentioned above and the Florida Keys Scenic Highway—designated All-American Roads.

A1A (Atlantic Boulevard) circa 1960
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

State Road A-1-A runs through much of Florida’s east coast barrier islands; many of the bridges it crosses to these islands were built after World War II. This scenic road goes through Palm Beach island offering views of its renowned beachside mansions. It runs for 32 miles in Broward County, miles with unobstructed beach views in Fort Lauderdale. In Miami Beach A-1-A is also Collins Avenue.

 Sources:

New York Times, Dec. 14, 1986

Orlando Sentinel, Feb. 20, 2000.

https://floridascenichighways.com/about-us/

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/byways

https://www.fdot.gov/designsupport/highwaybeautification/scenichighways

https://scenica1a.org/

https://floridascenichighways.com/our-byways/southern-region/broward-county-a1a-scenic-highway/

 

 

Tags: Florida transportation, Florida tourism, Florida roads, Florida history

Carl Fisher links Florida to the nation with Dixie Highway

Dixie Highway opening in Dania 1915

Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

By Jane Feehan

Miami Beach developer and automobile industry pioneer, Carl G. Fisher, planned, financed and opened America’s first transcontinental motorway, Lincoln Highway, in 1915. At the same time, he visualized the benefits of a road that would link Florida to the rest of the nation.

That vision became Dixie Highway*.

“The Dixie highway should bring thousands of automobiles into the state,” wrote Fisher in 1915.

Indiana native Fisher, builder of the Indianapolis Speedway (1909), planned for the road to start at Lincoln Highway in Chicago with its terminus in Miami. The project was financed by individuals, businesses, and local and state governments organized as the Dixie Highway Association in 1914. Starting in Chicago, the road split into two routes at Indianapolis as it wended south.

“I consider the southern loop of the Dixie highway the most difficult to complete on account of the territory through which it passes and the lack of ready funds,” said Fisher.

Dixie Highway Miami region 1922
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

Nevertheless, the first car passed through Dania on Dixie Highway October 24, 1915 after a 13-day trip from Chicago. The car was part of a caravan headed by Carl Fisher.  A twisted mish mash of local roads, the highway was taken over by the federal government as part of the US Route system in 1927. Dixie Highway was the first paved road along Florida's east coast. 

And so they drove down Dixie Highway, people in “thousands of automobiles” with dreams of Florida sunshine and golden opportunities. Carl Fisher built a road and they came – in droves.

Dixie Highway along Indian River 1923
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

*Note: During September, 2021, parts of Dixie Highway in Miami were re-named Harriet Tubman Highway, in honor of the 19th-century abolitionist.

For Tamiami Trail, see: 

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/08/tampa-to-miami-on-tamiami-trail.html.

Sources:

Federal Highway Administration

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/back1102.cfm

Miami Daily Metropolis, June 11, 1915

Miami Herald, Oct. 26 1915

Weidling, Philip J., Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press (1966).

Tags: Florida history, Fort Lauderdale history, Dixie Highway history, Carl G. Fisher, Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental road, film research, early Florida investor 1900s,

Tampa to Miami on the Tamiami Trail

1923 Trailblazers
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

 

By Jane Feehan

The Tamiami Trail, linking Tampa and Miami, opened to great fanfare – 25 aerial bombs, an aerial marriage, live music and speechmaking - on April 25, 1928. It marked the completion of work begun in 1915 that was interrupted by a World War and funding shortages.

In 1922, Lee County ran out of money to complete its portion of the road. Advertising mogul Barron Gift Collier stepped up to the plate with a pledge to pay the shortfall if the state would carve out a new jurisdiction and name it Collier County. The state complied; work on the Trail continued. (Most know Collier today for its posh county seat, Naples.)

Completion of the east-west connection between Fort Myers and Miami Beach was nudged along by Miamian Capt. J.F. Jaudon who conceived the idea of a trail in 1915. A large holder of land in the Everglades and Miami who stood to benefit by the project, Jaudon organized a group of businessmen from West Florida in 1923 who rode in Model T Fords across the Everglades guided by two Seminoles. The “Trail Blazers,” as the group dressed in Safari khakis became known, dramatized the need to finish the Trail to Miami. Five and a half years after the Model T trek, the road connected Fort Myers and Miami Beach.

Dynamite was used for every foot of the way through the Everglades. The highest point on the road, which today serves as the northern border of Everglades National Park, is 12 feet above sea level. Tamiami Trail received U.S Highway designations in 1926. Portions are U.S. 90 , U.S. 27, U.S. 41 (hidden designations).The southeast part of the Trail extends through Coral Gables, downtown Miami, over S.W. Eighth Street (Calle Ocho), across the Venetian Causeway and to Miami Beach. It ends at Brickell Key Drive.

Unfortunately, the scenic road interrupted the flow of water through the Everglades, the “River of Grass,” compromising wild life and forever changing its ecosystem. Today, proposed reclamation initiatives include digging channels through parts of the Trail and building bridges to ease the flow of water. Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

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Sources:

Miami News, April 30, 1926

Miami News, April 25, 1928

Miami News, June 8, 1958

Douglas, Marjorie Stoneman. The Everglades, River of Grass. Miami: Banyan Books (1947). 

For the Florida Turnpike story, see: https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/06/floridas-turnpike-opens-in-1957-miami.html

Tags: Florida history, Florida roadways, Tamiami Trail, U.S. 90, U.S. 27, U.S 41, Collier County, Everglades National Park, film researcher