1928 Florida Grower Pictorial Promotional Map and Brochure, Florida West Coast

A charming, evocative c. 1928 promotional pictorial map and brochure of the Florida West Coast, published by the Florida Grower Press. It presents the state at the culmination of the post-WWII Florida Land Boom, which would crash precipitously in the following years due to the Great Depression and natural disasters.

A Closer Look

This pictorial map of Florida highlights the Tamiami Trail, an important highway (discussed more below) connecting the state's west coast and then cutting across the previously impassable Everglades south of Tampa. Illustrations refer to local attractions, economic (agricultural) activity, and recreation, including hunting, fishing, boating, beachgoing, and golfing. Short blocks of text to the left discuss individual cities along the Tamiami Trail, including Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, and Sarasota. Promotional text and images surround the map and continue on the verso. Among the features highlighted is the winter headquarters of the Ringling (Bros.) Circus outside Sarasota, along with photographs on the verso touting the West Coast as 'Florida's Carnival Center.' A title panel at the bottom-right on the verso includes an illustration of fun-loving twenty and thirty-somethings enjoying a day at the beach within view of Tampa's skyline. At the bottom-left is a map of the state's wider road (highway) and rail network, emphasizing the ease of travel achieved through new infrastructure.

Florida Land Boom(s)

In the late 19th and early 20th century, Florida experienced a series of land booms and crashes; the most well-known of these occurred in the 1920s. The collapse of a previous land boom that established Florida as a center for the citrus industry in the 1880s - 1890s allowed for the easy acquisition of large tracts of land at cut-rate prices. Industrialist and founder of Standard Oil Henry Flagler (1830 - 1913) seized the opportunity to build his Florida East Coast Railway and extend it to the region that would develop into Miami and other communities on the state's southeastern coast.

Flagler and other boosters successfully promoted Florida as a paradisical escape from the grimy cities and cold weather of New England and the Mid-Atlantic. Land prices shot up at an astronomical rate, and developers carved entirely new cities out of wetlands in mere months. In addition to Flagler's railway, the arrival of the highway system and associated businesses (gas stations, motels, restaurants, etc.) in the 1920s made the region more easily accessible. However, the speculation around land prices in Florida had reached irrational heights, and the damage caused by two hurricanes, followed by the financial crash of 1929, led to a collapse in the real estate market, ruining many investors.

The Tamiami Trail

Throughout the 1920s, Florida went on a road-building spree, with the Tamiami Trail (U.S. Highway 94, later U.S.-41) linking the state's north with Tampa and then Miami via Fort Myers and Naples proving to be the most challenging in financial and engineering terms. Conceived in 1915, construction began on a short section of the route in Dade County almost immediately. But money and enthusiasm quickly dried up, before, in 1922, the wealthy entrepreneur Barron Collier, a champion of the project, agreed to help fund it if Florida would name a county after him. At this point, two competing routes in southwest Florida were under construction, one through the new Collier County - the route as originally conceived - and one through Monroe County, which was nearly completed despite being an alternative to the original plan (this became the 'South Loop' of the trail). In either case, the most challenging part of the highway's construction across the Florida Everglades had not yet begun, and was only completed in 1928, with considerable additional funding (including from Collier) and a tremendous amount of dynamite (2.6 million sticks). Even today, the highway is a long trek with one lane in each direction through mostly uninhabited, protected state and federal land. In the 1960s, 'Alligator Alley' (state Route 84, later incorporated into Interstate 75) opened to the north of the Tamiami Trail with two lanes in each direction.

Publication History and Census

This map and brochure was designed by the promoters Trenton C. Collins and Associates and printed by the Florida Grower Press. Although not explicitly indicated here, it was likely prepared for the Florida West Coast Association, a short-lived alliance of cities and towns in the region in the mid-late 1920s. Although undated, the reference to the Tamiami Trail (opened April 1928) as newly-opened strongly suggests a date of 1928 or perhaps 1929. This map and brochure is only held by the Touchton Map Library at the Tampa Bay History Center (the OCLC notes an example at the University of South Florida, but this is actually a reference to the examples at Touchton). The Touchton holds three examples, all of which include the road map and verso content seen here, but each with a different illustration in the bottom-left quadrant of the verso.