
I thought it would be appropriate to start a blog on Florida highways with the route that is perhaps Florida's most famous. With its unique designation as the only state highway that starts with a letter, it's hard to imagine the Atlantic coast of Florida without including this highway in that thought process.
You cannot paint A1A with one brush. There are some stretches that are right on the beach, some that front seaside property and some that are a few blocks inland. There are also parts of A1A that turn inland for several miles. Also, A1A is not a continuous stretch of road. It is broken up into several segments running from Key West to Callahan, a small town north of Jacksonville.
This project will start with the newest segment of A1A, which is located entirely within the city of Key West. I drove this short segment on an overcast December afternoon.Through the entirety of this segment, A1A is known as South Roosevelt Boulevard.
The only landmark of note here is a roller hockey rink, which is the home facility of the Southernmost Hockey Club, an inline hockey organization for youth and adult play (below).
Roosevelt then opens up to a four-lane road, with one of Key West's few beaches, George A. Smathers Beach, on the right. I had a chicken gyro and BIG shave ice at the green stand in the picture below.
To the right, you now see Cow Key Channel, with its namesake island and a series of smaller coral islands. Not long after this, A1A crosses the Riviera Canal and enters a residential area. It continues for a short distance before coming to the end of the segment at the Intersection with US 1.
Coming up next: the second segment of A1A, which runs from Miami to Dania.
Fun facts:
- A1A was originally a set of older state highways that was combined into State Road 1 in 1945. However, it didn't take long for the state to realize that an awful lot of motorists were confusing the road with US1, which follows a similar path up the coast. About a year later, the state renamed the route A1A.
- Sen. Smathers voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964! Basically, that means he would have a problem with the beach that bears his name being open to members of every race. He was also a close friend of both John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, two politicians who were polar opposites of each other.
- Also, while Key West is known as a popular subtropical tourist destination, it does not have any natural beaches. Since there are barrier reefs off the coast, there is little surf bringing in the sand. This also accounts for the calm waves that you see there.
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