March 29, 1938: The Overseas Highway Opens

March 29, 1938: The Overseas Highway is opened to traffic, linking the Florida Keys to the Florida mainland. It runs 113 miles rom Key West to the mainland, 164 miles from downtown Miami.

The Florida East Coast Railway had made the City of Miami possible in 1896, and linking the Keys to the mainland by road or rail had been planned since 1917. Construction began in 1922, and continued past the end of the Florida Land Boom in 1926.

On January 25, 1928, the Highway opened from Key West to Key Largo, but there was still a ferry from Key Largo to the mainland, and that ferry took 4 hours. The Highway and the Ferry were bannered as extensions of U.S. Route 1.

In 1935, work began on a bridge to connect the Highway to the mainland. Then came the Labor Day Hurricane, which wrecked much of their work, not to mention many of the buildings in the Keys. Finally, the full Highway was opened for traffic on March 29, 1938.

In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Key West, the southernmost point in the continental U.S., helping to spark tourism to the area. His successor, Harry Truman, occasionally stayed at a house there that became known as the Little White House or the Summer White House. Writer Ernest Hemingway also owned a house there, known for an extended family of six-toed cats. And on April 23, 1982, in an event for which I have a separate entry, a dispute between the City of Key West and the U.S. Navy led to the City seceding from the Union, forming the Conch Republic, and declaring war on the United States, surrendering one minute later.

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March 29, 1938 was a Tuesday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. And the NBA hadn't been founded yet.

Two games were played in the Stanley Cup Finals. The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Boston Bruins, 3-2 at the Boston Garden, to complete a 3-game sweep and clinch a Finals berth. Gordie Drillon scored at 10:04 of overtime. And the New York Americans beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 3-1 at Madison Square Garden. But the Hawks would win the series, and then beat the Leafs for the Cup.