Alpine Freeway

The **Alpine Freeway** was a major 84.15-mile-long freeway in the city of Kokomo. The freeway, as the predecessor to the **Beach Boys Expressway**, connected **Gulfway** to Perry and the **Mississippi Culture District** while encountering many amenities along the way. The freeway served as a major artery to many of Kokomo's many attractions, such as **Paradiseland** and **Journey of a Band Named Journey**.

The expressway began at a junction with FL-24 near Cedar Key and went through the middle portions of the city, such as the former location of **Givinia** in **Little L.A., Soundwave Park** in **Town Square**, and the **Independence Hall** in the **Kokomo Historical District**. It ended in Perry at a junction with U.S. Route 19 and U.S. Route 27.

On May 19th, 2018, the freeway was demolished due to it being obsolete. Its similarities with the Beach Boys Expressway garnered less and less visitors to the freeway due to the Beach Boys Expressway just being more popular overall.

## Route Description

The Alpine Freeway followed a similar route to the modern-day **Beach Boys Expressway**, with its southern terminus formerly residing on Florida State Route 24 and ended in Perry, just outside of Kokomo's city limits. The freeway passed through the city in a similar manner to the Beach Boys Expressway, diverging to the middle east limits to the city. Before its demolition, it ran adjacent to the Beach Boys Expressway in some parts.

The Alpine Freeway began at a junction with Florida State Route 24 right next to the Cedar Key Archipelago. It then proceeded to move north, running inland while also turning along the way. After a while, the freeway intersects with Beachline Avenue, thus entering the city limits.

Once the freeway entered **Gulfway**, it intersected with Beachline Avenue and went on towards the central to eastern boundaries of the city, as it proceeded to intersect with many different streets, and even contained a connection to **Interstate 475** / **Surfboard Freeway**. After entering **Little L.A.** and departing from Gulfway, the Alpine Freeway proceeded to run concurrently with the **Beach Boys Expressway** for about five miles. It passed through the current location of **Givinia** as well. Its entrance to **Town Square** was rather spectacular, due to the fact that it had a flashier style than the rest of the local throughfares in the city, even to this day. It ran through the district as a twelve-lane, urban highway that ran through the central business district. Tour Center was also interesting for the freeway, as it ran around the True Tour Stadium and connected to Drue Parkway.

Both the Kokomo Historical District and the Mississippi Cultural District weren't really as interesting as the four previous districts, as the Alpine Freeway simply ran through them with a few junctions here and there. A few miles later, it intersected with U.S. Routes 19 and 27 in Perry, which marked the freeway's end.

## History

### Conception

By 1980, Kokomo was in desperate need of a new freeway to relieve traffic in the city, as its main throughfare at the time, Beachline Avenue, was receiving constant holdups and traffic jams, therefore cementing the highway as controversial to most Kokomoans. As a response, the mayor of Kokomo requested what would become Kokomo's first ever freeway, involving a connection from Gulfway to the Kokomo Historical District. The freeway was approved on July 4th, 1981, was announced on the 7th, and began construction on August 1st.

### Construction

Construction went by smoothly, despite a few revolts halting the construction for a while. Despite their best efforts, the freeway marched onward and was completed on April 9th, 1982. On the same day, it got its name of the **Alpine Freeway**.

### Becoming Obsolete

In 2004, construction began on a spiritual successor of the **Surfboard Freeway** called the **Beach Boys Expressway**. It followed a similar route to the Alpine Freeway, to the point where both freeways shared a concurrency in **Little L.A.** for about five miles. The Alpine Freeway was at risk of becoming obsolete due to this, and there was nothing it could do about it. The Beach Boys Expressway was finished on December 4th, 2012, officially marking the Alpine Freeway's status as obsolete, as another route had already taken its idea. Fewer tourists and residents traveled on the Alpine Freeway, knowing that another route would do the same job as the Alpine Freeway, yet more optimized. As soon as the city realized the harsh truth, they knew that one of its most iconic freeways would be stripped from the city's layout.

### The Process of Demolition

On April 5th, 2013, the Alpine Freeway was revealed to be demolished at an unrevealed time. To this day, no one really knows why the date wasn't revealed until later on, but a likely theory was that the city head wanted to preserve the freeway for as long as possible before its inevitable removal. Just two years later, on June 19th, 2015, the freeway was officially slated to be demolished after the **100 Years of Kokomo!** event, which was announced very recently at the time. This meant that the Alpine Freeway was set to be demolished sometime after **July 14th, 2016**. Two days after the event's end, on July 16th, 2016, the Alpine Freeway was set to be demolished "sometime in 2017", a very vague date, but it meant that the city's residents would have to bid farewell to the freeway pretty soon. Once 2017 came, the freeway had an official demolition date of **July 31st, 2017**. As a farewell to the freeway, most of Kokomo's residents drove the Alpine Freeway instead of the Beach Boys Expressway as it the latter never existed. On July 30th, 2017, the freeway closed to the public to begin the demolition process, but not before one passionate driver drove the entire way through the Alpine Freeway a day earlier. The freeway was fully demolished on May 19th, 2018, officially marking the end of the Alpine Freeway.

### Legacy

Despite the physical demolition of the Alpine Freeway, it is still thriving through word of mouth. It is seen as one of the best freeways (of all time) in the United States, due to its major value to the city of Kokomo and its robust history. Kokomoans mention the Alpine Freeway in 72.14% of their conversations from a 2024 survey, which really went to show how much the Alpine Freeway meant to them.

The Beach Boys Expressway paid homage to the Alpine Freeway in one way. The original concurrency with the Alpine Freeway in Little L.A. still retains its twelve-lane width, possibly to compensate for the business area's insane traffic.