In June of 2000 the Tamiami Trail was designated a "National Scenic Byway."
In May 2005 the Collier Metropolitan Planning Organization MPO voted to remove the Scenic Highway designation.
No action has been taken; apparently they are waiting for Naples, Marco and Everglades City to take stands on the issue.
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Only in the Golden Age of the early 1900s would a private individual have the resources to dream of financing a vast highway system linking Florida's east coast to west coast through miles of wild, unexplored land all out of his own pocket.
Barron Gift Collier, who made his fortune in streetcar advertising, became enchanted with Florida after visiting Useppa Island.
Collier didn't want to buy developed land that anyone could take and improve.
"I want wild country that no one else wants ... that I can make into a place where people can live," he told Walter Fuller of St. Petersburg.
Fuller worked with Collier the next 20 years to find such property. Much of Collier's genius was based on his use of experts in the fields that interested him.
In another stroke of genius, he hired David Graham Copeland, a brilliant civil engineer who had served 14 years as an officer in the United States Navy. Copeland served Collier well, directing most of the Collier land acquisitions. He remained as resident manager of the Collier properties until 1947.
A million acres
In two years - from 1921 to 1923 - Collier bought just over 1 million acres, all in Lee County, most of it swamp and overflowed land that he wanted to open up by providing drainage, paved roads, railroads, transportation, steamship and communication lines.
It was a tall order and he needed to work closely with the county government to achieve his goals. He didn't believe that Lee County officials would go for it after seeing Tommie Barfield's struggle for funds outside the boundaries of Fort Myers. In his opinion, Lee County commissioners had proven themselves to be lacking in business acumen and foresight about leaving large areas outside the county seat undeveloped, without the barest infrastructure in the way of roads, bridges or ferries, or communication lines.
Collier asked the Florida Legislators to carve out a piece of Lee County under the "Rule of Senatorial Courtesy."
This rule would allow the legislators to decide rather than a lengthy uncertain referendum of property owners. In return, he promised to finish the Tamiami Trail that had been languishing in the clouds since 1916 and forge it across the peninsula, a monument to engineering. The Rule of Senatorial Courtesy is still on the books today.
When residents found out that he was "going around the backdoor," there was a firestorm of protests. According to Charles Harner's "Florida Promoters," "the furor that followed bore something to the happenings of Fort Sumter some 60 years earlier.
"What this New Yorker was suggesting was the breaking up of Lee county, sir, the largest county to be found anywhere in the United States east of the Mississippi. Not only that: this proposal was a virtual insult to the memory of Robert E. Lee whose name it bore."
Barron Collier did not go to the state House himself, he asked Tommie Barfield to go to Tallahassee to lobby for Bill 305 and speak on his behalf. She was to speak about the difficulties she had experienced working with Lee commissioners over the past 10 years asking for schools, roads and ferries needed in the outlying areas. He chose her as his spokesman because he admired her "tactics, strategy and tenacity." His faith in her abilities paid off and she won the day.
According to the Fort Myers Press May 17, 1923:
"The house last Thursday night gave Mrs. J. M. Barfield of Caxambas much credit for the passage of the bill. Mrs. Barfield, hotel proprietress, head of several clubs, head of a fruit canning concern, and numerous other conspicuously successful undertakings, arrived at the capital about a week before the passage of the bill, and worked untiringly in its behalf, presenting the side of the people who were distant from the one center of the 'county,' and who find their distance a tremendous handicap in the transaction of their business and the development of their section. As a lobbyist, Mrs. Barfield has few equals, although her experience at the session this year she said was her first."
Collier County was created by vote of the Florida Legislature in 1923 and Everglades was made the county seat.
The county commissioners, hand picked by Collier, promptly issued $350,000 in bonds to help build the Trail through the county. Collier, as promised, guaranteed the bonds. That was chicken feed for him; he had already sunk several million dollars of his own money into construction of the highway.
Next: Tamiami Trail becomes a Scenic Highway.
Betsy Perdichizzi, a 14-year island resident, is past president of the Marco Island Historical Society and past president of SWFAS Southwest Archaeology Society. She is a winner of a Golden Quill, a journalism award given by the Florida Historical Society for excellence in writing about Florida's history. She welcomes comments and questions at
betsyperd@naples.net.
