SOFLA transportation - Tri-Rail applause, troubles and a Brightline debut

 

Tri-Rail commuter train at MiamiCentral Station
Photo:Phillip Pessar/Miami 02/07/24
See license info below*

 

By Jane Feehan

As of this post, Tri-Rail has operated for 35 years in South Florida. In 1989 it was the first commuter train created in the United States in 20 years. Though the new highspeed, long-distance Brightline train commands recent transportation headlines, Tri-Rail history and current status are worth a look and a comparison.

 As SOFLA population grew in the 1980s, so did traffic on I-95. Proposed lane expansion and reconstruction projects were expected to present huge snarls during typical morning and evening commutes in the next few years. In anticipation of the work, ideas for a tri-county train service transitioned to solid plans by 1986.

Rapid completion of a new railroad was critical. A $400 million interstate reconstruction project was slated to begin in Broward County in January 1989. Tri-Rail was promoted as an alternative to the anticipated I-95 traffic mess; commuting times were expected to increase by at least one third. Rail officials said they could provide their alternative service by 1988.

There were hurdles to jump in the three years before rail service was expected to begin. Many SOFLA residents resisted building Tri-Rail when it was proposed. 

Some cited an increase in taxes as a problem; others thought the service would not appeal to many and it would fail.  Funding was an issue – who was going to pay—federal, state or county? Other than start-up costs to fund, operations were expected to run nearly $11 million a year. (Costs, of course, have changed since then; so have financial responsibilities among government entities.) Also, what tracks would be used—Amtrack, CSX and at what cost? (Tri-Rail asked Amtrack to provide crews to run some of their trains; Amtrack passed on that idea.)

Stops were yet to be determined and station construction completed. It was a lot of work for a few years. Early Tri-Rail project estimated costs hovered at about $60 million but some news accounts settled on $75 million as a final figure. Work progressed but inaugural service was pushed ahead a few months to Jan. 9, 1989.

A soft opening for VIPs was held January 6. Two hundred officials climbed aboard Tri-Rail cars for the first ride from Boca Raton to Miami. Dixie Land music played while Chablis and cream puffs were served. Riders reported delays but assured reporters it would be a great alternative to I-95.

The real “fun” and perhaps more realistic reviews came with the actual service commencing Jan. 9. Traffic on I-95 was backed up for more than a mile north of Sunrise Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. For some reason, state officials decided to hold a ceremony to launch the I-95 reconstruction project … on the median. 

Drivers shouted obscenities at DOT officials as traffic crawled by. Tri-Rail riders saw the backup (track ran parallel to the interstate), laughed and applauded— even though they had experienced a number of connection issues and delays due to speed restrictions. South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s Gary Stein, who rode the train Jan. 10, wrote a column titled Tri-Rail Trip Rates Step Above Walking.

Disappointment was two sided. Tri-Rail officials had hoped for 7,000 riders opening day; only 1,500-1,600 showed up for a ride to work. By September 1989 rail and government officials were discussing a budget of $307.5 million to be used over five years to promote ridership of the “troubled Tri-County Railroad.”  

Mid-day service was added but in December that year, the Sun-Sentinel reported that “ridership has never met even modest expectations.” So it went. Service expanded yet ridership remained a struggle.

Today, publicly funded Tri-Rail is managed by the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (SFRTA), which was established in 2003.

Better times ahead?

Tri-Rail service was extended from West Palm Beach to downtown Miami in January 2024, a big plus for the railroad. Its terminus sits in Brightline’s MiamiCentral [sic] complex at Northwest 1st Avenue. Express service for that route begins July 1.

Today’s Tri-Rail fact sheet reports the following and paints an improved picture:

• Ridership up to 13,000, an average weekday count; that’s 3,735,897 a year
• 73.5 miles of service between Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties and 18 stations
• Fares run $1.25-$17.50.
• Fleet of 11 trains, 21 locomotives, 19 cab cars, 29 coach cars

See Tri-Rail for more information on schedules and fares (BTW, no food service).

On Brightline

Brightline service is too new to make an assessment, but here are a few points for comparison. Check company reports for ridership stats at GoBrightline.com

• Brightline is the first privately owned and operated inter-city passenger railroad built in the U.S. in 100 years
• Owned by Fortress Investment Group
• Local service began in 2018.
• High speed service began Sept. 22, 2023, from Miami to Orlando, raising ridership 250 percent for Jan. 2024, according to the Palm Beach Post.
• 52 percent of its traffic is now long distance.
• Brightline lowered ridership estimates in 2024 from 7 or 6.5 million to 5 or 5.5 million. (Source info varies). Refer to Brightline ridership reports at: GoBrightLine.com
• Brightline is the first rail service to use Elon Musk’s Starlink Internet Service.
• Brightline project ran $6 billion.

See GoBrightline for more information (some food service) See Brightline Florida March Revenue and Ridership reports. The one for March 2024  at https://emma.msrb.org/P21822196.pdf

A new wrinkle may be in the works for Brightline. Avelo Airlines announced April 25, 2024, that they will test a Miami to Orlando service for $46, a cheaper (in some cases) and faster service to Orlando. Competition is good.

Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

 * Photo license: Wikimedia Public Domain  

Sources:

GoBrightline

Tri-Rail

Sun-Sentinel,  Nov. 12, 1985

Sun-Sentinel, July 19, 1986

Sun-Sentinel, Oct. 23, 1986

Palm Beach Post, Dec. 10, 1987

Sun-Sentinel, Nov. 10, 1988

Palm Beach Post, Jan. 7, 1989

Sun-Sentinel, Jan. 7, 1989

Sun-Sentinel, Jan. 10, 1989

Sun-Sentinel, Jan. 11, 1989

Sun-Sentinel, Sept. 16, 1989

Sun-Sentinel, Dec. 6, 1989

Sun-Sentinel, Dec. 16, 1989

Sun-Sentinel, Apr. 25, 2024

Palm Beach Post, Jan. 12, 2024

Palm Beach Post, Mar. 8, 2024

Yahoo Finance News: "Brightline-lowers-florida-ridership-projections"

Tags: Tri-Rail history, Fort Lauderdale History, SOFlA transportation history, Brightline Rail, Florida train service, highspeed rail service, Starlink, Avelo Airlines

All aboard the Orange Blossom Special to Florida - a movable hotel

 

Postcard 1939 - Orange Blossom Special
Public Domain

By Jane Feehan

Some called visitors to Florida during the 1920s “the sunshine seekers.” Many hoped to cash in on the booming Florida real estate market. Most arrived by train.

Travel by train was also booming. Solomon Davies Warfield (1859-1927), president of Seaboard Airline Railroad (SAL) envisioned a formula for success in the Sunshine State: join service from the west to the east coast of Florida, provide premier, luxury services, and publicize.

Service from New York to Florida was provided along the tracks of several rail companies. But it was the train, the Orange Blossom Special, that received high praise.

“Travelers have become so sensitive and particular that they flutter with indignation if they can’t have their bath and their barber, hothouse strawberries and other such luxuries while on the train,” wrote The Miami Herald in early 1926.

The Orange Blossom Special operated as a “hotel on wheels” with maids, valets, manicurists, barber shops and hairdressers.  Also featured: a ladies’ observation car. Some Pullman cars used by SAL offered accommodations with bathtubs or showers. Service included bellhops (many Filipinos), and chef-inspired, fine dining in a car with paintings of orange blossom branches and other fruit on a background of gray paint.

Orange Blossom Special service officially connected the two coasts, terminating in West Palm Beach, January 28,1925 after a brief weather delay (reported The Miami News and The Miami Herald). Dates seem to vary on inaugural service depending on sources; accounts may have confused initial service to Miami in 1927. 

That first trip in 1925 involved six Pullman cars filled with representatives of Miami, including Coral Gables developer George E. Merrick, and West Palm Beach and SAL executives.

The Miami Tribune described the Orange Blossom Special as “one of America’s finest trains” traveling to and from New York in 35 hours with its trip through the Scenic Highlands {sic] of Central Florida. 

In August 1926, The Miami Herald reported the “Orange Blossom Special has become a famous train almost overnight.” 

Orange Blossom arrives in 
Miami 1927,
Florida State Archives

Whether by popular demand or seeking increased profits, Warfield arranged for the Orange Blossom Special to make its first through-trip from West Palm Beach to Miami on January 8, 1927. 

The train stopped in Fort Lauderdale that day for about 20 minutes. Mayor John Tidball greeted Governor John Martin, SAL’s Warfield and several hundred dignitaries at the train station off West Fourth Street. 

Big  crowds awaited the Orange Blossom Special in Miami: 15,000 residents were on hand at the Miami station and another 10,000 at Royal Palm Park, near the Seaboard Airline Railway office in the Lorraine Arcade on Southeast First Street.

Rail lines connecting
Orange Blossom Special (Florida State Archives) 1936

The winter-service only Orange Blossom Special hummed along for several decades. Service was suspended during World War II to accommodate military efforts. The train, originally a heavy steam-driven locomotive, was not fast. Nor was it economical to maintain with yearly interior and exterior painting. Travel times, however, improved to fewer more than 24 hours before its final trip April 13, 1953.

Today, the romance of the Orange Blosom Special lives through the lyrics and music of the bluegrass song by Ervin T. Rouse (1917-1981), the Orange Blossom Special (https://genius.com/Johnny-cash-orange-blossom-special-lyrics).  

Ride the train and lose those New York blues, to paraphrase the song. Contemporary lyrics might say “get to Florida any way you can to lose those New York, Chicago or Los Angeles blues."

 Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

The Miami News, Dec. 30, 1924

The Miami News, April 25, 1925

The Miami Herald, Jan. 17, 1926

Miami Daily News, Jan. 24, 1925

The Miami Herald, Jan. 26, 1925

The Miami Tribune, March 17, 1926

The Miami Herald, Aug. 20, 1926

Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Dec. 7, 1926

The Miami Herald, Jan. 9, 1927

The Miami Herald, Oct. 21, 1941

CorridorRail.com

TransportationHistory.org

Wikipedia

Tags: Orange Blossom Special. Florida railways, Seaboard Airline Railroad, Seaboard Airline Railway, S, Davies Warfield, 

Lumber schooners delivered what railroads could not to Fort Lauderdale

 

Abandoned lumber schooners, Miami 1926
State Archives of Florida

By Jane Feehan

 “A new era in water transportation for Fort Lauderdale” was heralded in 1925 with the arrival of schooners delivering lumber. The Florida East Coast Railway could not meet the delivery demands of the city’s construction boom; ships expanded its logistics.

To supplement rail efforts, schooners were pulled out of storage or quickly constructed as “lighters” to move lumber, other building materials, plumbing supplies or furniture from Charleston, Savannah, Jacksonville and other east coast ports. They traveled by ocean or inland waterway. Ships brought what the railroad could not.  It wasn’t necessarily the easiest solution.

In November 1925, the 73-foot Spanish schooner Padro Garcia hit electric wires strung across New River, causing city outages until Southern Utility Company came to the rescue. About 4,500 volts lit up and damaged the ship’s anchor chain and other metal parts. The crew of eight along with a tabby cat and brindle bulldog were rescued. So were 80 tons of expensive 100-year-old Spanish tiles.

Storms wrecked a few ocean-going schooners off the Florida coast (crews were all saved). When they arrived at the harbor of Fort Lauderdale, some ships encountered problems navigating the sand bar blocking Lake Mabel, which was not cleared and opened as a port until 1928 (later Port Everglades). Other schooners coming down the waterway needed power boat or tugboat assistance moving through Tarpon Bend on the way to city docks.

Ships also carried cargo to the Las Olas Sound in the Idlewyld area. In December 1925, the largest schooner to arrive in Fort Lauderdale, the 215-foot Richmond with its nine-foot draft, was temporarily grounded in 7.5 feet of water while trying to reach the sound. It carried 320,000 feet of lumber, but the crew had to offload 130,000 feet to raft ashore; it was bound for Broward Lumber Company who picked up the valuable wood near the Las Olas Bridge. (Opened in 1924, the company advertised its motto: “We invented service in Fort Lauderdale.”)

The three-masted Richmond, sailing from Savannah, stopped in Fort Lauderdale on August 25, 1926, just weeks before the devastating September hurricane. The ship had been temporarily sidelined by a storm near Jacksonville and carried 300 tons of Long Island gravel. The cargo was used for repair from another hurricane and construction of the city’s waterworks, including its sewers. Little did they know that Fort Lauderdale would soon need other recovery supplies.

Mills and Mills, the company that owned the Richmond, established offices at the Sunset Building on Andrews Avenue. They hoped the schooner would be making a Fort Lauderdale stop every three weeks. They anticipated that Fort Lauderdale would be developed into “one of the finest seaports in Florida.”

Mills and Mills was right about Fort Lauderdale’s status as a seaport. Nature and economics proved them wrong about the viability of lumber schooners. After the Great Hurricane of 1926, South Florida boom days turned into an economic retreat. 

Many schooners were abandoned, especially in Miami (see photo above) where there was far more dockage at Bayfront. But the reason to abandon wasn’t necessarily the devastating hurricane; seldom was there a return cargo. Most abandoned schooners were destined for lumber salvage.

Copyright © 2023. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

  Sources:

Miami Tribune, Nov. 30, 1924

Fort Lauderdale News, June 18, 1925

Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 13, 1925

Fort Lauderdale News, Nov. 3, 1925

Fort Lauderdale News, Nov. 4, 1925

Fort Lauderdale News, March 6, 1926

Fort Lauderdale News Aug. 26, 1926

Miami Herald, March 24, 1926

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, history of Fort Lauderdale, transportation history, Fort Lauderdale in the 1920s

South Florida's first automobiles: who drove what and when?

First car in Miami 
C.H. Billings, 1899
a Locomobile
 State  of Florida Archives

By Jane Feehan

Automobiles soared in popularity across the United States and into the Florida frontier by the late 1800s. I’ll leave the provenance of the automobile up to other historians as it seems to remain in dispute*. Below is a brief overview of the status of motorized vehicles during the first years of  20th-century South Florida. 

First, the national backdrop.

According to History.com, 30 American manufacturers produced 2,500 motorized vehicles by 1899. More than 480 companies entered the production fray a decade later. Henry Ford, though not the first car maker, produced the cheapest one, his Model T selling for $285 in October 1908 (preceded by his Model N for $500**). 

Cars were referred to as “horseless carriages” in the 1890s. By 1900, the word “automobile” entered our lexicon. Automobile enthusiasts had already formed clubs and held races during the late 1800s and first decade of the 20^th century.

Determining who owned the first automobile in Dade, Broward or Palm Beach counties is problematic. Owning first and registering first don’t match up and some records went missing. Some owned vehicles before registration was required.  A registration ordinance, proposed in Miami in 1904 and passed in January 1905, details many of the same obligations as the requirements codified by the state of Florida in 1905.

The umbrella requirement was that every auto had to be registered with the Florida Secretary of State (the overseeing entity transferred to the State Comptroller office in years following).

Some provisions will evoke a chuckle:

The vehicle registration number had to be displayed on a tag “in Arabic numerals of at least 3 inches by 2 inches.”

Every vehicle operating on the road must have a bell, horn or whistle and two lamps.

Motorists must signal when approaching horses or other draft animals and must stop immediately if signaled to do so by one driving or riding these animals.

Vehicles must abide by a reasonable speed and/or the state determined speed limit.

Boards of county commissioners are empowered to set times for speed tests or races on public roadways.

No vehicle can cross a street or turn a corner at more than 5 miles per hour (Miami ordinance).

Vehicle operators must be 16 years old (Miami ordinance).

                                                                      The first registration records were handwritten.

Florida Memory/Discover/historical records:
 https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/346940

So, who owned the first motorized vehicle in Miami?  News accounts indicate it was Mr. C.H. Billings, a construction "engineer," in 1899. He drove a steam-powered “locomobile (at top of this post)."The Miami Evening Record in 1904 described it as "fast" -- relevant to walking no doubt.

1906 Model E Glide - Author unknown (Not Bryan's car) 
Cycle and Automobile Trade Journal Oct.1, 1905

The first car registered with the state (and probably first owned) of Broward County belonged to Fort Lauderdale pioneer Reed A. Bryan in 1906.  He drove a Glide (produced 1902-1925), a four-cylinder, 45-horsepower automobile. It was later given to the city’s fire department for their use. There were far fewer cars in Broward County; paved roads were rare. Only two were available in Fort Lauderdale: Brickell and Andrews avenues. Both offered only single lanes.

George W. Potter, surveyor and illustrator from Boynton Beach in Palm Beach County beat Henry M. Flagler to the state registration records. Potter registered his 4-horsepower Waltham Orient Buckboard in November 1905. Flagler followed the next month with registration of his open-air, quiet, steam-powered touring car manufactured by White Motor Company.

An automobile section appeared in the Miami Herald in 1912 with “items of interest to automobilists everywhere.” After all, “the greatest future lies ahead in the auto industry.” Prescient, indeed.

 *See the fascinating timeline linked below from the Library of Congress about when the automobile was invented.

https://www.loc.gov/everyday-mysteries/motor-vehicles-aeronautics-astronautics/item/who-invented-the-automobile

** See Ford Company history at:

https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/artifact/50201/#:~:text=Most%20runabouts%20featured%20one%2D%20or,the%20bestselling%20car%20in%20America

__________

Copyright © 2022. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

Sources:

https://www.boyntonhistory.org

Broward Legacy – Hughes, Kenneth Survey of old cars. Vol. 21, No. 3-4, 1998 https://journals.flvc.org/browardlegacy/issue/view/3742

Miami Evening Record, Jan. 22, 1904

Miami News, Oct. 26, 1904

Miami Herald, Oct. 4, 1911

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, March 31, 2015

Tags: Automobile history, early automobiles in South Florida, early automobiles in Miami, early automobiles in Palm Beach County, Fort Lauderdale history, Miami History, Palm Beach history

Aeromarine Airways launches flying boat service in 1920s: breakfast in Miami, lunch in Nassau, dinner in Palm Beach?

 

Flying boat used by Aeromarine in 1920
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

By Jane Feehan

Flying boats. Flying luxury boats. That’s how Miami reporters described the new passenger planes of Aeromarine Airways in 1922.  One headline in the Miami Herald teased readers with the idea of “breakfast in Miami, luncheon in Nassau …. and dinner in Palm Beach.” The idea could be transformed into reality by the airline.

Described as “a Pullman on wings,” the planes offered writing and card tables, a bathroom and individual seats and windows.  Music was played from a radio to a loudspeaker in the cabin, which carried only 11 passengers. The planes, powered by two 400-H Liberty engines, were flown by two pilots and guided by one “radio man.”

A reporter described ascent from the water into the air as a swift, smooth glide to an altitude of 100-500 feet. Forty minutes later they viewed the clear waters (and large fish) of Bimini. After a 2.5-hour flight the flying boat landed in waters off Nassau, 187 miles from Miami.

Aeromarine Sightseeing and Navigation Company merged with Florida West Indies Airways (among the first to fly U.S. international passenger flights) in 1920 or 1921 (reports vary) to form Aeromarine Airways with a Miami office at 28 North Bayshore Drive. 

The new company acquired the old FWIA Key West to Havana mail route. Mail routes were contracted with and paid for by the United States Postal Service, providing most of the capital for the early passenger airline industry.  Aeromarine Airways’ maiden flight took place from Miami to Bimini in late 1920 or early 1921 (accounts vary) on the Christopher. 

The company's  fleet of 27 aircraft, manufactured in Keyport NJ, bore names of historic explorers or their ships (think Nina, Columbus, Santa Maria and Balboa). Aeromarine had flown much of the eastern seaboard area before the Florida initiative.

Flights were a hit with many in Florida, including a few in the movie/entertainment industry. The Miami News reported a film crew producing a movie for Paramount Studios took a trip from Miami to Nassau for the project. Another story featured an onboard party for a famous French dancer. It was probably the first time a chef whipped up and served a fancy inflight meal (excluding dirigible flights) for guests.

Cost? About $30-$80 a ticket depending on one way or roundtrip fare and whether to the Bahamas, Key West or to Havana. 

Company President Charles F. Redden and his colleagues proposed big plans for Aeromarine. They hoped for service between New York and Miami (only 20 hours!) and Miami and Havana. Redden visualized Miami as a “mammoth” transportation hub not unlike some in Europe. The company planned to build a flying boat with four engines for 26 passengers and a cabin twice the size as was in service. Not all came to fruition, but they did tout new technology that was deployed to enhance safety: a large signal kite equipped with a radio aerial that could expand the area to call for help in an emergency.

Though Aeromarine could boast about a stellar safety record before Florida, an accident occurred in the Florida Straits January 13, 1923. The Columbus experienced engine failure and crashed into the seas with 10 to 12-foot waves flooding the hull. Four people died; a ferry, the H.M. Flagler, rescued four or five including two pilots.

The accident, however, did not spell the end of Aeromarine Airways by 1924. The freeze or cancellation of their valuable mail route contracts did.  The name was not forgotten. Aeromarine West Indies was incorporated in Florida in  2007.

 Copyright © 2022 All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

Miami Herald, Dec. 2, 1920

Miami News, Dec. 14, 1922

The Herald, Dec. 31, 1922

Miami News, Jan. 15, 1923

Miami News, Jan. 30, 1923

Miami News, Jan. 31, 1923

Miami News, Feb. 12, 1923

Miami News, April 19, 1923

Miami News, Nov. 13, 1924

Miami Herald, Dec. 20, 1924

Miami News, June 22, 1925

Wikipedia

 Tags: Aviation history, Transportation history, Miami history, flying boats

Traveling in Florida before highways: age of the stern wheel

 

Lillie and the Roseada
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

Canals, lakes, and rivers comprised key transportation networks throughout South Florida in the early 1900s. The North New River Canal facilitated commerce and leisure travel from Fort Lauderdale to Lake Okeechobee and on to Fort Myers.

Several stern-wheel boats, including the Lillie, Napoleon Broward, and Suwanee, operated from Fort Lauderdale carrying winter vegetables, supplies and passengers to the lake. Leaving Fort Lauderdale late in the afternoon, excursion passengers could look forward to reaching Lake Okeechobee by the next morning. 

A trip to Fort Myers was more complicated. A traveler would start in Fort Lauderdale on the North New River Canal, cross Lake Okeechobee, take the Three Mile Canal to Lake Hicpochee, then the Caloosahatchee River to Fort Myers – a trip of several days. Today, car travel from Fort Lauderdale to Lake Okeechobee would take about two hours; from Fort Lauderdale to Fort Myers, about two and a half.

Elements of the great plan to drain the Everglades, the canals. could get very low in dry winter seasons. Cargo boats would sit in mud for a week at times. When they finally made their destinations, shippers would sell vegetable cargoes for whatever they could get - or sell their boats. Everglades travel made shipping an unpredictable business but leisure travelers took in a world of wildlife we’ll never see.

Drawing of the Lillie, circa 1900
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

Florida transporation, Florida History
_______
For Lake Worth travel, see: 

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2021/01/lake-worth-lagoon-early-florida.html

For Intracoastal as tollway see: 

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/12/intracoastal-waterway-toll-days.html

Tags: stern wheel travel, Florida in the 1900s, early Florida tourism, transportation

Sources:
Weidling, Philip J., Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press (1966)
Weekly Miami Metropolis, Sept. 8, 1916
Miami News, Jan. 11, 1922

Commercial Boulevard Bridge to Lauderdale-By-The-Sea once scorned, now vital

 

Commercial Boulevard Bridge
Florida State Archives/Dept of Commerce

By Jane Feehan


The beach town of Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, and particularly Mayor Gil Colnot, long resisted the building of the Commercial Boulevard bridge in the early 1960s. Colnot embraced “No bridge” as a plank in his winning 1958 election platform.*

A municipality of about 1,300 in 1960, Lauderdale-By-The-Sea held itself as the quintessentially small all-American town, insulated by its location east of the Intracoastal north of its much larger neighbor, Fort Lauderdale. A bridge would bring life-altering unwanted traffic.

But the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) moved forward with construction of a million-dollar bridge in 1964 (estimated $2 M at completion). Commercial Boulevard was a major east-west thoroughfare; the bridge was necessary. It was dedicated October 16, 1965 and opened to traffic a few days later; the impact was immediate and significant.

The number of visitors increased four-fold. Traffic jammed through the town. By 1970 FDOT counted 22,000 vehicles passing through Lauderdale-By-The-Sea in 24 hours. 

Records in 2010 revealed 37,500 drove through daily and by 2018 traffic was up to 42,000 daily. More than 56,000 are expected through its streets by 2027. For years there were no parking meters. Now, “bring quarters” or credit card may be a visitor’s mantra; pay to park is ubiquitous.

Tourists came, population grew - about 6,800 permanent residents by 2019 - as it did elsewhere in Broward County and business thrived.

The 350.4-foot-long bridge is classified today as in overall fair condition (superstructure and substructure).


Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.


_________
* Colnot held the mayoral seat for 20 years.


Sources:
Richard, Candace. Seventy-Three Years By The Sea. LBTS: The Community Church of Lauderdale-By-The-Sea (2000).
Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 17, 1965
www.Bridgehunter.com

Tags: Lauderdale-By-The-Sea history, bridges in South Florida, growth of South Florida in the 1960s, Lauderdale-By-the-Sea in the 1960s, film researcher, Fort Lauderdale 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.

 --------------

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

Miami's trolley system challenged by hurricanes, cars and parades 1906-1940

Trolley car in downtown Miami. 1926. 
 State Archives of Florida/Florida Memory

By Jane Feehan


Trolley systems had their ups and downs in Miami beginning in 1906. The demise of the trolley in 1940 was linked to hurricanes and an electorate confident in the future of buses. The Orange Bowl committee could not have been more relieved to see voters end the streetcar era.

The first trolley ran along Miami’s streets in 1906 (the city incorporated 1896). It operated for a year and a half until officials determined there weren’t enough riders; the city had fewer than 2,000 residents. A more successful trolley system – battery powered – was launched in 1915 and ran until 1919. It serviced a route from near the latter day Orange Bowl stadium south to downtown and from Northeast Second Avenue north to Thirty-sixth Street.

Miami’s land and population boom – and consistent need for public transport - was just around the corner. By 1922 residents numbered about 45,000.* The first electric trolley with overhead wires began operating in January 1922. The Brill Car Company of Philadelphia constructed the streetcars and painted them a dull grey, “more suitable for [Miami’s] weather than a light color.”

Viability of Miami’s streetcar system continued to be tested. Car ownership was on the rise during the 1920s. Then came the Great Hurricane of 1926 driving many out of the area. The hurricane of 1935 ended service from Coral Gables to downtown Miami. General Motors began lobbying cities throughout the country, including Miami, to consider their combustible engine buses for public transportation. A referendum held in October 1940 spelled the end of the streetcar. Miami’s electorate was swayed to vote for the seemingly more modern buses.

The Orange Bowl Committee was ecstatic about the referendum. The first bowl was held in 1935 and had grown into a huge event by 1940 with scores of moving “stages” bearing tall displays that would exceed the suspended 18-foot streetcar wires. About 5,000 cast members were slated to march in the King Orange jamboree parade along 27 blocks with more than 250,000 expected to line the streets.

“They [floats] are so large and so tall that we were afraid low-hanging trolley lines might interfere …,” said E.E. Seiler, business manager of the Orange Bowl committee. An end to trolley service brought the removal of the overhead wires just in time for that year’s parade.

It’s back to basics today. Miami promotes the use of its Metro Rail, a popular, energy-efficient rapid transit system of light rail throughout the city.

*By 1923 population reached 70,000; it jumped to 117,000 in 1925.

Sources:
Miami News, Nov. 25, 1921

Miami Daily News, Oct. 11, 1940.

Bramson, Seth H. Miami: The Magic City. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing (2007).

Tags: Miami trolley history, Miami history, Orange Bowl history, Orange Bowl, film industry researcher

First U.S. high-speed hydrofoil sails from Port Everglades

US Navy hydrofoil PHM-1Pegasus 1970 (not HS Denison)
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

The nation’s first oceangoing hydrofoil, the H.S. Denison, sailed out of Port Everglades February 2, 1964 for a sea trial. The vessel, first of its kind designed for high speeds over rough waters, was scheduled for passenger service between Fort Lauderdale and Nassau.

Capt. P.O. Clarke ran the vessel through an impressive test. At 23 knots, the 104.6 foot Denison began to rise from the water. At 30 knots it was free from the seas and at 50 knots it was “flying” on its foils with the hull five feet above the ocean.

Though its sea trial was impressive, the Denison remained an experimental vessel, a disappointment to many. The project, initially developed by the Marine Administration (MARAD) of the U.S. Department of Commerce, Aircraft Engine Corporation and General Electric, was coordinated by enthusiastic supporter Charles R. Denison in 1958. The group’s objective was to research possibilities for express cargo shipping and passenger travel at 200 knots. Dension died early in the ship’s design, which diminished impetus for and focus on the project in the years that followed.  

It was reported that 73 companies collectively invested more than $8 million to develop the hydrofoil named posthumously for its most ardent supporter. General Electric built a 14,000 horsepower gas turbine engine for the experimental 94-ton ship. The vessel was completed and launched June 5, 1962 by Grumman Corp. in Oyster Bay, Long Island. Sea trials commenced a few days later and were conducted along the eastern seaboard from Maine to Florida in ocean waters as high as nine feet.

The U.S. Navy withdrew its support of the project to pursue development of its own hydrofoil, which affected commercial plans for the H.S. Dension. In 2014, a ferry service from Port Everglades to Bimini operated at about 32 knots for passenger and cargo transport—considerably slower than Charles R. Denison envisioned during the 1950s. Maybe speed is why a solid business model for ferry service in this market seems elusive. 

Copyright © 2015. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

Miami News, Feb. 2, 1964

www.foils.org/denison.htm

https://foils.org/

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale historian, Port Everglades history, film researcher, hydrofoils, maritime history

Miami tops Los Angeles in cars per capita in 19...

By Jane Feehan

The Automobile Manufacturers Association reported in 1940 that Miami led the nation among major cities in the number of cars per capita. A count of 53,078 cars converted into an impressive 2.8 per capita, or a car for every 2.8 persons. That figure topped the 2.9 number in Los Angeles and 3.0 in Long Beach CA. The Magic City held the lead in the number of cars well into the 1960s.
The national auto per capita (per 1,000) the following decades reveals how impressive Miami’s 1940 statistic was:

1950      .28 per capita

1960      .37         "

1970      .48         "

1980      .62         "

1990      .72         "

1999      .77         "

With a metric that could point to prosperity or a climate well-suited for conspicuous consumption, came grim vehicle-related news a few decades later. In 1962, the Miami area—Dade County—held the distinction of reporting the highest number of vehicular deaths in the nation. It may not come as a surprise to some that in 2009 the Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Pompano Beach statistical area ranked among the nation’s top 50 in motor vehicle crash death rates at 11.1 deaths per 100,000. Jacksonville, FL counted 13.3 per 100,000, while Houston, Texas cited 12.9 deaths.

Copyright © 2013. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

-------
Sources:

Miami News, Dec. 30, 1962

Miami News, Nov. 16, 1964
Centers for Disease Control www.cdc.gov
U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, Highway Statistics 2007



Tags; Miami history, SOFLA auto ownership history, cars in Miami, auto deaths, vehicular motor crash stats, film researcher, historical researcher