The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1933-01-23
A DESERVING PROJECT
Ocean County Leader, Point Pleasant,
N. J.1


pending, contingent upon a loan from the
Reconstruction Finance Corporation at
Washington. The project is that of the
Overseas Bridge Corporation of Miami,
Florida, to construct two bridges in Mon
roe county, Florida, on u S. Highway No.
to enable automobile traffic to reach Key
West without the necessity of using ferries
between No Name Key and Grassy Key
and between Grassy Key and Lower Mate
cumbe Key. Except for the lack of these
two bridges the paved highway, U. S. No.
1, now extends to Key West parallel with
the tracks of the Florida East Coast Rail-
way. The highway has several long
bridges in its stretch p ready but ferries
are used at the two gaps where the water
is deepest, although the railroad has span
ned these gaps with their bridges of
archviaduct construction.
The Overseas Bridge Corporation is
requesting the loan on the basis of bridges
being self-financing from tolls.
This writer personally knows that
many automobiles every year attempt to
make the 165-mile drive south from Mi
ami to Key West only to turn back when
they reach the ferry gap and find the ferry
boat filled to capacity and that there will
not be another for six or twelve hours.
The trip is one of matchless scenic
beauty and Key West with it's half Spanish
population and its subtropical fruits and
oh TH II
other Florida city.
Hundreds of thousands who go as far
south as Miami wish to extend their trip to
Havana. Naturally most of them want to
approach Havana as nearly as possible in
their automobiles. The gain of 165 miles
from Miami to Key West is considerable
and leaves only 90 miles to make by boat
to Havana.
There is no doubt the bridges would
pay for themselves in few years.
The Pan-Amefican highway from New
England to South America is being con-
structed along two separate routes: The
one west to ST Louis and south through
Texas, Old Mexico, and Central America;
the other drops directly south along the
Atlantic seaboard through Florida to Ha-
vana, thence to the Yucatan Peninsula and
south through Central America. The East
will find this latter route several days
shorter despite the necessity for short
steamboat ferry trips from Key West to
Havana and from the west end of Cuba to
Yucatan.
The Importance of improving our
means of communication with South Amer
lea has been the practical theme which has
occupied the talent of Colonel Charles A.
Lindbergh The Pan-American Airway
line has It's most southern U. S. station at
Key West, Florida. The next stop is Ha-
vana. The planes make the circuit OF all
important South American capitals.
James S. Carson writing on Latin
America Today in the Industrial News
Review for January says: K
Latin America is the worlds greatest
storehouse of raw. material-and when
raw material prices crashed, the pufchas-
ing power of the southern countries
naturally crashed w.sh them. But Latin
America is on the way back, and inter-
American relations and trade loom larger
in Importance than ever before.
Longitdinally Point Pleasant, New
Jersey, is west of South America: Il Is
absurd for people of this section TO have
to drive west and down through Old Mex
leo to reach South America which actually
lies east OF us. The route south through
Florida is the direct route for a. tIis east
ern section where most of the people of
the United States live.
If every citizen east of the Mississippi
river eNerted himself to bring the project
to the favorable attention of the R. F. G.
he would be acting in behalf of his own
most enlightened self-interest The bridges
should be built now while the costs of
material and labor are at low point and
when public construction projects are so