Conexion December Web

Opinión - Columnistas & Blogs
Opinion - Columnists & Blogs
A Piece of the Puzzle
America’s Road Trip in Florida on
the Old Spanish Trail
By Deborah Desilets, Tallahassee based Author, Historian & Architect
I was raised in Tallahassee Florida, 6
miles down from the State capital on
a section of farm land where the red
clay road met Hwy 27 and the backyard
bordered on the swampy edge of the
Old Spanish Trail. The cow pastures
beyond in all directions let me know
I was on a farm. Mother let me roam
these haunts and soon I walked to
Nichols store where I could better see
the road—feel her energy—and view
license plates that held place names
that became a living geography for
me. People came here on a shared road
like mine. And on that road people
smiled waved blew a horn to my
wave or gesture. The roads were alive
and electric, they held energy. And I
wondered – How did all these roads
come to be?
Over the years, road trips took me from
Florida to Rhode Island, or South to
Fort Myers. And Mom would take us on
a summer vacation or spring break at
Panama City boardwalk. The nuns took
me to see St Augustine and Pensacola.
As an architect I travelled to see
Disney: more roads to follow and then
interstates and by the mid 80’s when I
took a job at ARQUITECTONICA in
Miami, where we were working on the
Florida Marriott turnpike stations! All
these roads grew up as living arteries a
blood line for me and kin and for all of
us. But still how did it all come to be?
Over a ten-year period, I met various
men who helped me answer this.
By 1995, in my Miami Beach office
on Lincoln Road, my wise old friend
Morris Lapidus, surprised me with,
“Don’t forget Carl Graham Fisher!”
Of course, he was talking about THE
Carl Graham Fisher who following
his success with the Lincoln Highway
– the first transcontinental road in the
North U.S. – Fisher began the making
of Miami Beach, and his petite version
of the nations Lincoln Road. He named
his new city streets after his and his
wife’s home town of Indianapolis.
Soon a bridge to Miami from Miami
Beach was finished and for the future
www.conexionflorida.com
avocado King John Collins could share
his crop. By 1915, America’s need
for good roads South was mounting
interest. Carl Graham Fisher with
“A Call to Patriots” at a Governors
convention proposed the 5,575-mile
beltway through Middle America. This
ultimately would include the states of
Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky,
Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. With
two Governor Appointees from each
state, they ALL planned together a
unified route south. This road which
might have been called The Cotton Belt,
but instead was nostalgically named
the Dixie Highway to honor President
Lincoln’s favorite song. For America—
The Dixie Highway –signified by “DH”
between red and white stripe markers
was placed on route telephone poles
by the Boy Scouts of America. The
Dixie Highway became the interior
communication and transportation
routes under the slogan “Making
Neighbors of us all.” Entrepreneurs,
general stores,” mom and pop shops’,
mechanics, car drivers, industrialists,
automotive suppliers, business men, car
salesmen and hobbyists joined the race
for Good Roads in America. At that
time the World Almanac noted it a as
the “worlds most pretentious project” a
project that would impact 40,000,000
people and cross 163 counties through
eight states. So clear was this vision of
Carl Graham Fisher, that 10,000 people
came from all over Florida to hear
Governor Jennings speak in favor of it;
Governor Trammel would support it and
later Governor Martin endorse it with
the Florida Road Department money
paying for it from the new legislated gas
tax.
Now it is important to point out how did
Carl Graham Fisher do this?
America’s Road trip began with Ford
and on every Ford were two of Carl
Graham Fisher’s acetylene headlights.
Perfecting with Jim Allison the use of
compressed gas in headlights, Prest-
O-Lite, led the nation in headlight
continued page 26
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