Highways

The rise of the automobile paved the way for the next transportation revolution in Florida. In 1915, construction began on the Tamiami Trail, a highway cutting through the Everglades in South Florida to connect Miami to Tampa. According to demographics researcher Scott Cody, by the 1920 census, a majority of Florida’s population lived outside the panhandle for the first time. In the decades that followed, road projects such as U.S. Route 1 (established in Florida in 1926), U.S. Route 41 (also established in 1926, and later extended to include the Tamiami Trail), and State Road A1A (established in 1945), provided highway access to virtually all of the state’s major population and industrial centers, as well as to the now-popular tourist destinations in Tampa, St. Augustine, and South Florida. Under 1950's Governor LeRoy Collins road development again became a point of emphasis, as key state highways saw renovation and the federal government passed the act creating the national interstate highway system, bringing another series of major highways into the state.