Overseas Highway
Politician George W. Allen advocated for a roadway to bridge mainland Florida to the island chain in 1895. After daily railroad service was established north of Knights Key circa 1908, Upper Keys farmers, needing a better way to transport crops to packing houses established near Flagler’s right-of-way, began requesting the county provide improved roads. In 1919, representatives of the Miami Motor Club lobbied for a road connecting the Keys as a way of providing winter tourists a “suburban” fishing ground.
The road connecting the mainland to Key West would be designated State Road 4A.
Chairman of the Monroe County Commission J. Otto Kircheiner was a member of an automobile caravan from Key West who drove to the mainland on July 18, 1927. The road, more commonly known as the Overseas Highway, opened to the public January 25, 1928.
The first version of the highway did not travel all the way to Key West, but required a 40-mile ride aboard an automobile ferry between Lower Matecumbe and No Name keys. Circa 1934 plans were made to replace the inconvenient and sometimes unreliable ferry system with a series of automobile bridges. Labor for the project consisted of hundreds of WWI veterans stationed in three work camps. Two camps were located on Lower Matecumbe and one on Windley Key.
Work on the highway ended, as did Henry Flagler’s Over-Sea Railway on September 2, 1935 when the eye of a Category 5 hurricane swept across Lower Matecumbe.
