The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1939-09-02

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sides of the cars Dashed in to
arms length where they had
been dropped on the rocks at the
west of the vanished right-of-
way. Seven miles of temporary
track were built to reach the res
cue scene. The job cost the East
Coast $4,000.
For half mile where the train
was swept from the roadbed the
ocean side of the original grade
remains pretty well in place like
a narrow wall. "a slice of mari
scanned into blocks by tropical
rains since the great disaster,
much as if lin miniature) you
were to set a cake of pale yell
low soap on edge and press a hot
grid against one side. stretches
of cross-ties stand appended like
tree trunks in an old-time In
dian stockade. There are two
places where the narrow wall is
vanished except for a flat-topped
pinnacle big as a hogshead. One
is remined of pictures of rock
formations in Colorado's Garden
of the Gods.
Fine new bridges carry the
Overseas Highway southwest
ward over Indian Key to Lower
Matecumbe. .Caloosa Indian
name for 1.-The place of sorrow"
and motor traffic sweeps on
from the monument erected
there to honor the hurricane
dead. The first bridge in the
project to build highway bridges
out of railroad spans across the
deep water gaps, is visible half
mile further on. On the via
ducts spanning channels, 22-foot
I-beams were let into the cement
tops of the original bridges built
by Flagler. These I-beams canti-
lever the new highway out over
the ocean and Gulf four feet Ell
ther side beyond the width of the
old railway bridges and stout, re-
inforced concrete balustrades
guard the motorist. Everything
is safe and solid, and the motor
iSt feels-should feel no timidity
in making crossing of the
bridges, even that great span at
Bahia Honda where the railway
bridge was too narrow and the
cost so great as to make use of
the arching top of the original
bridge trussesS necessary for the
building of the highway. There
the same cantilever principle is
used as down on the tops of the
other viaducts and bridges.
At the north end of the first
abutment of the first great
Flagler bridge to be made over
into highway bridge, there stood
for years a white cement Florida
East Coast Railway milepost, its
top finished like gravestone. On
it appear two sets of black-paint-
ed figures, one above the other
.449 and 95. One is the mile
age back to Jacksonville by rail;
the other on down to Key West
figures the locomotive engi-
neers will never read again-nor
Havana Special tourists, either.
involuntary marker on the route
of railway enterprise and tragedy
supplanted now by the modern
convenience of gasoline driven
vehicles, and to set the miles for
travellers over the new highway.
The bridges built at unbeliev-
able toll and cost by Flagler's
men and his millions, have never
suffered hurricane loss. What, we
wonder, may happen when those
magnificent structures, no longer
sheer-sided, but Hanged out four
feet with cantilevered steel and
concrete on either side, are swept
by the breath of Satan swirling
the Atlantic's waters across this
Garden of Daphne 125 miles an
I.1,,r0 ,,,;1I H. Es4oIl1lasl Hs1h
way" topple into the Gulf, strip
ped from its new reinforcing?
Or. and may we hope so. :.
will the new construction in that
sometime cauldron of hurricane
terror (where Winter smiles so
serenely) stand as the viaducts
have stood since Flagler's dream
became real?