One final Florida-related post here and tomorrow I promise to return to the usual Buzzyblog subjects of booze, bad jokes and other b.s..
Today though we are gonna take a trip across the second most famous bridge in America – Florida’s Seven Mile Bridge. (The most famous? Only South County folks will know that I am talking about our Cornfield Harbor Bridge!)
The Seven Mile Bridge started as part of Henry Flagler’s efforts to build a railroad to Key West. After a couple hurricanes wiped out large portions of the railroad, in 1935 the Seven Mile Bridge was rebuilt to accommodate vehicles. What is now known as the Old Seven Mile Bridge had the former railroad tracks reutilized as guard rails for the rebuilt and widened bridge:
In the late 70’s/early 80’s, a new Seven Mile Bridge was built and 2.2 miles of the old one retained for pedestrian and bicycling use. There is also a trolley ride that you can ride on out to Pigeon Key.
This video will give you an overview of both the old and the new Seven Mile Bridges.
I knew when I started this post that I was going to conclude by playing the Eagles’ Seven Bridges Road song here. What I didn’t know is that the song was originally written by Steve Young about an Alabama road named Woodley Road and yes it contained seven bridges. Check out this video where the driver covers all 7 miles and bridges in the 3 minutes it takes to play the song. That boy was rolling along Dickie Cullison-style!