The
Overseas Highway is a highway carrying
U.S. Route 1 through the
Florida Keys. Large parts of it were built on the former
right-of-way of the
Overseas Railroad, the
Key West Extension of the
Florida East Coast Railway. Completed in 1912, the Overseas Railroad was heavily damaged and partially destroyed in the
Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. The Florida East Coast Railway was financially unable to rebuild the destroyed sections, so the roadbed and remaining bridges were sold to the State of
Florida for $640,000.
The original construction of the Overseas Highway used many of the
bridges of the former
railroad, including
truss bridges, where the roadway was built on top of the trusses. Most of these older bridges built for railroads have been replaced by more modern bridges that are able to accommodate more than two lanes of traffic. The highway included the
Seven Mile Bridge, the
Bahia Honda Bridge and the
Long Key Bridge (although these three original bridges are no longer open to vehicular traffic, except for part of Seven Mile Bridge, they are listed on the
National Register of Historic Places and are currently used as fishing piers).
From its opening on March 29, 1938, until the destruction by fire of the
Card Sound Bridge in 1944, the Overseas Highway also had the signed designation
State Road 4A; after the realignment in 1945 to its current entry onto
Key Largo along the old railroad right-of-way (the new segment of Overseas Highway, from
Florida......
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