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You might consider the big picture. Listening to reports of astronauts and space stations, today we think of South Florida as a single entity. A mere 80 years ago, within the span of a human lifetime, this same tableau would have rendered a vast expanse of wilderness, with a few dirt roads to local destinations and not much else.

If you wanted to travel to the emerging village of Miami, where Henry Flagler was busy pushing his East Coast Railway down the state, you had the choice of a water route or a long overland detour, via Jacksonville, that could take many days. Another big city to the north, Tampa, was still an adventurous expedition away. The mission and dream of Barron Collier was to unite these regions, so that Florida could realize its potential as the agricultural and economic powerhouse it is today.

When Collier decided to undertake the Herculean task, he likened it in scale to building the Panama Canal, which opened in 1914. There turned out to be many similarities to that project, including working in waist-high water and suffering the scourge of snakes, alligators and mosquitoes, laden with deadly yellow fever.

For the celebration of this 80th anniversary of the road’s opening, Collier County’s Museum of the Everglades has organized a vehicular procession from Naples to Everglades City on Saturday and Sunday, April 26 and 27, followed by a parade in town on Saturday. Museum Manager Tim England said, “We are mounting a month-long display in three sections: building the road; opening day ceremonies in 1928; and the people who played a part in the story.”

The hardships endured and vision required to realize the Tamiami Trail are well documented in print, cinema and television. What the casual visitor, or even seasoned residents might not consider is the social, political and economic climate that shaped the effort.

Collier’s roots

Barron Gift Collier was born in 1873, in Memphis; by the turn of the century he was 27. What a time that was: electricity, automobiles, light bulbs, telephones and motion pictures were all new, cutting-edge technologies. Just as the world of 2000 shone with the promise of computers and the Internet, so was that world ripe with opportunity and room for new ideas.

Although most chronologies of this portion of Collier’s life merely state that he quit school at 16 and worked for the railroad, he was no bumpkin. His family traces its American roots to 1650, in Virginia. Collier’s granddaughter, Judith Sproul, writes that the family can trace its roots to the first baby girl born there, Virginia Dare. Among the limbs of his family tree can be found several statesmen, including the governor of Alabama. Charles Collier, Barron’s grandfather, had holdings in Virginia, which he lost in the Civil War. His son, Barron’s father, Cowles Miles Collier, was a painter of note whose work is exhibited today. The entrepreneur we honor was not a babe in the woods. It’s easy to see how he might have come up with his first great idea, working on the railroad, but it was in part his breeding that allowed Collier to follow through and make it a reality.

Collier made his first fortune by putting printed advertisements on trolley and subway cars in Memphis, and then franchised the operation in more than 70 cities. By 1900, he had become a millionaire, creating what might be regarded today as “spam.” Moving to New York City, he was involved with the new technology of street lighting; had interests in shipping, hotels and newspapers; served as assistant police commissioner and is credited with originating the white center line on highways to control traffic. Collier also worked with the Boy Scouts of America and INTERPOL.

His fascination and that of both his sons, Sam and Barron, Jr., with automobiles is seen in a lifelong enthusiasm for racing. In 1907, he married Juliet Gordon Carnes, a debutante from a cultured Memphis family, whose father had told Collier they could not wed until he had a million dollars. Looking for new challenges, he had only to look at a map to see the potential that lay to the south. Visiting Useppa Island in 1916, he fell in love with the place, much as Naples visitors today are known to do; bought it and operated a resort there for the rich and famous friends of his social circle.

The plan

The Tamiami Trail began in the first decade of the 20th century as the brainchild of J.F. Jaudon, a Miami tax assessor, who formed the Chevalier Corporation to organize the necessary resources. At that time, Miami was embarking on the biggest land boom in modern history. Full-page newspaper ads and a billboard in New York City’s Times Square blared forth the wintertime message; “It’s spring in Florida.”

If you think the real estate boom of the last decade in Naples was hot, Miami properties were sometimes flipped more than once in a single day. The stock market craze was in full swing, too. Industrialist John Deering was building his palatial, 180-acre home, Vizcaya, using a tenth of the city’s population of 10,000 in its construction. That rampant speculation and hype in the heady days of the Roaring 20s would eventually prove its downfall, affecting the validity of the Trail’s justification.

Tampa, on the other end of the project, was developing nicely as a major seaport, having proved invaluable in the Spanish-American War. Many industries, including cigar manufacturing, caused the city’s population to swell from 37,000 in 1910, to 50,000 in 1920 and 101,000 in 1930. It was only natural for the state to seek a link between these two commercial centers.

The original project hit a few stumbling blocks, the biggest being the outbreak of World War I. By 1922, the pressure was on again. Collier purchased more than a million acres at the southern end of the state for as little as 25 cents an acre, making him Florida’s biggest landowner. A proposed deal for him to take over the Tamiami Trail project hinged upon two of his demands: that a new county be created from Lee County, of which he would own 90 percent, and that the road’s route be changed to run almost entirely through his new territory.

Public and political controversy was fierce over both issues, and the route change was bitterly opposed by several Florida legislators, especially those from Lee County. The Seminoles didn’t like it, either. As recorded in Gene Burnett’s “Florida’s Past” (1988/Pineapple Press), a fateful meeting occurred at Collier’s home. Florida Governor John W. Martin and State Road Board Chairman Fons Hathaway, opponents of the plan, were both invited to dinner. The next day an announcement was made, accepting Collier’s proposal.

Construction begins

Now, the project started in earnest. Ten Model-T automobiles, dubbed the “Trailblazers,” trekked their way in 1923, under incredible conditions, along the proposed path to Miami, showing the public that it could be done. After issuing $350,000 in bonds, a construction entity finally took shape.

The arduous surveying job had begun earlier, but many of the markers had eroded or disappeared. Road building could not advance through the Everglades’ four feet of muck, so excavation was the first order of business. Not unlike the manmade lakes we create today in building a housing development, a canal, 24 feet wide and 12 feet deep, was dug as the first step. Cedar poles were cut by hand, tethered and laid across the goo, so that specially-constructed drills could be rolled out to make 12-foot-deep, perfectly vertical holes in the three feet of solid lime rock beneath. The holes were filled with sticks of dynamite (close to 3 million pounds) that blasted the rock so it could be piled on the bank for the roadbed’s foundation.

Progress was painfully slow, sometimes measured in only yards per day, working in two 10-hour shifts, costing an estimated $25,000 per mile. Working conditions were so bad that the labor turnover rate approached 50 percent a month. Many workers were lured from the Tampa area without an adequate appraisal of the nature of the job and housed in portable shelters that advanced with the machinery. Women accompanied them, to cook and perform other maintenance chores. Tales of seven-foot rattlesnakes and panther attacks were commonplace among the crews, who earned about 20 cents a day for their efforts. Some hazards were self-inflicted, with deaths attributed to the constant dynamiting operations. Medical facilities were often a long trek from the construction site.

A small fishing village quickly grew to become Everglades City, the seat of government for the new Collier County and nerve center for directing the effort. It must have been much easier to get things done without having to go to Lee County commissioners for every little permit.

Disasters strike

Back in Miami, the real estate speculation bubble was violently bursting, with federal inquiries into some of the deceptive practices developers used to flog prices higher and higher. The death-knell arrived in 1926, when the Category 4, “Great Miami Hurricane,” the strongest on record, hit the city squarely, with 130-mph winds and a 12-foot storm surge, causing the New York Times to say that, “Southwest Florida has been wiped out.” Elsewhere, it was reported as “The blow that broke the boom.” In addition to busting the dam on Lake Okeechobee, the storm also damaged some of the roadwork and bridges already constructed.

The result was that, when the road opened in 1928, not many cars were ready to use it. The next year famously ushered in the Great Depression. Collier, who donated 32,000 acres to the newly-formed Everglades National Park, and was by most accounts a fair and honest man who respected his employees, died in 1939, a pauper by his own standards. His family retained most of the land and has prospered from it.

The legacy

Today, Everglades City is once again a quiet village, with most of its grandiose infrastructure from the 1930s blown away by decades of storms. Alligator Alley, conceived in 1959 and built by 1969, carries almost all auto traffic between the coasts. The Trail interrupted the flow of water through what Marjorie Stoneman Douglas called, “The river of grass,” upsetting the area’s fragile ecology. The Federal government committed close to $8 billion in 2000 to restore the Everglades, but the effort has bogged down and no one expects the area to ever be returned to its original condition. Even Sproul notes, “The Tamiami Trail couldn’t be built today.”

As for Southwest Florida, a TamiNaples Trail would have been sufficient to spur growth in this part of the state. The haste to cash in on a fleeting dream, based upon the shifting sands of greedy exploitation, proved to be a folly. A link like the Alley would have been inevitable, but paced to coincide with a natural pattern of development and growth.

The future

What lies ahead for the Trail? In 2003, a coalition of environmental and local governmental groups banded together to propose the Everglades Skyway, making an 11-mile section of the road into a causeway over the NE Shark Slough, one of the deepest and most important water pathways to Florida Bay. So far, federal funds have not materialized.

In 1925, Collier wrote, “The to-morrow of Florida is dawning. In its soft light we see the forms of men literally hurling back the wilderness, draining large tracts, building homes, planting great gardens and orchards. Soon will come the blaze of the full midday. Picture, if you can, the scene as it will be then!”

Honor then, the heroics of those who labored mightily and those who paid dearly. Celebrate the astounding skill and determination of the architects who did the impossible in building the Tamiami Trail. As Florida continues to outpace the nation in developing what is left of its natural heritage, keep in mind the ironic consequences we struggle with even now, with the observance of Earth Day on our minds. Those who do not heed the lessons of history are, regrettably, doomed to repeat them.