Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail

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The Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail is a 106-mile (171 km) paved rail trail in development in the Florida Keys, a multi-use bicycle and pedestrian facility. The completed trail will connect Key Largo to Key West, allowing travel through the Keys separate from U.S. Highway 1. It has been made part of the East Coast Greenway, a 3,000-mile (4,800 km) system of trails connecting Maine to Florida, forming its southernmost portion.

The trail incorporates most of the railbed of the former Overseas Railroad built by the Florida East Coast Railway. Rail service began in 1911; the effects of the 1935 Labor Day hurricane ended service that year.^[1]

Once fully completed, the trail will be a world-class, multi-use bicycle and pedestrian facility that will traverse the Florida Keys from Key Largo to Key West. The trail will include an integrated system of educational kiosks, roadside picnic areas, scenic overlooks, fishing piers, water access points, and bicycle and jogging paths. The development of the trail will provide a mechanism for the preservation and use of the historic Flagler Railroad Bridges, 23 of which still exist and are mostly intact. Several alternatives exist for trail alignment, including cutting down the 22-foot-wide (6.7 m), 1940s-era roadway to its original 12-foot (3.7 m) spandrel width, or using the 22-foot-wide (6.7 m) roadway as is, particularly in multi-use areas. In all cases, original bridgework will be repaired or rebuilt, and the breaks created during the 1980s and 1990s fishing pier conversion will be reconnected. Where the original roadway no longer exists, the trail will be temporarily cantilevered on the side of the current US 1 highway bridge, until new 12-foot-wide (3.7 m) trail bridge sections can be built. The new sections will be built to match the historical character of the original bridges.

The Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail was designated a National Recreation Trail in 2004.^[2]

References[]

^ "Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail". Archived from the original on 2009-04-29. Retrieved 2009-11-27.
^ "Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail". National Recreational Trails Database. The National Recreation Trails Program. Retrieved 2012-05-22.

External links[]

Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail - Florida State Parks
Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail at 100 Florida Trails

Protected areas of Florida

Federal level

National parks	Biscayne Dry Tortugas Everglades
National memorials	De Soto Fort Caroline
National monuments	Castillo de San Marcos Fort Matanzas
National seashores	Canaveral Gulf Islands
National forests	Apalachicola Choctawhatchee Ocala Osceola
National wildlife refuges	Archie Carr Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee Caloosahatchee Cedar Keys Chassahowitzka Crocodile Lake Crystal River Egmont Key Florida Panther Great White Heron Hobe Sound Island Bay J.N. 'Ding' Darling Key West Lake Wales Ridge Lake Woodruff Lower Suwannee Matlacha Pass Merritt Island National Key Deer Okefenokee Passage Key Pelican Island Pine Island Pinellas St. Johns St. Marks St. Vincent Ten Thousand Islands
Other national protected areas	Big Cypress National Preserve Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve
National Estuarine Research Reserves and National Marine Sanctuaries	Apalachicola NERR Florida Keys NMS Guana Tolomato Matanzas NERR Rookery Bay NERR
National Wild and Scenic Rivers	Loxahatchee River Wekiva River

State level

Parks	Amelia Island Anastasia Avalon Bahia Honda Bald Point Big Lagoon Big Shoals Big Talbot Island Bill Baggs Cape Florida Bulow Creek Caladesi Island Camp Helen Cayo Costa Collier-Seminole Colt Creek Curry Hammock Delnor-Wiggins Pass Devil's Millhopper Don Pedro Island Dr. Von D. Mizell-Eula Johnson Eden Gardens Egmont Key Falling Waters Faver-Dykes Florida Caverns Fort Clinch Fort Cooper Fort George Island Fort Pierce Inlet Fred Gannon Rocky Bayou Gasparilla Island George Crady Bridge Fishing Pier Grayton Beach Henderson Beach Highlands Hammock Honeymoon Island Hontoon Island Hugh Taylor Birch John D. MacArthur Beach John Pennekamp Coral Reef Jonathan Dickinson Little Talbot Island Long Key Lovers Key Mike Roess Gold Head Branch North Peninsula O'Leno Oscar Scherer Perdido Key Sebastian Inlet Skyway Fishing Pier St. Andrews St. George Island St. Joseph Peninsula Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center Stump Pass Beach Tomoka Torreya Windley Key Fossil Reef
Botanical garden parks	Alfred B. Maclay Gardens Dagny Johnson Key Largo Hammock Lignumvitae Key Ravine Gardens Washington Oaks
Lakes, rivers and springs parks	Deer Lake Lake Griffin Lake June in Winter Scrub Lake Kissimmee Lake Louisa Lake Manatee Lake Talquin Alafia River Blackwater River Dunns Creek Econfina River Hillsborough River Little Manatee River Myakka River Ochlockonee River Oleta River Suwannee River Blue Spring De Leon Springs Edward Ball Wakulla Springs Fanning Springs Homosassa Springs Wildlife Ichetucknee Springs Lafayette Blue Springs Madison Blue Spring Manatee Springs Ponce de Leon Springs Rainbow Springs Silver Springs Three Rivers Troy Spring Weeki Wachee Springs Wekiwa Springs Werner-Boyce Salt Springs Wes Skiles Peacock Springs
Recreation areas	Dead Lakes Gamble Rogers Memorial
Museums, historic sites, and archaeological sites	Cedar Key Museum Constitution Convention Museum Forest Capital Museum John Gorrie Museum Ybor City Museum The Barnacle Bulow Plantation Ruins Dade Battlefield DeSoto Site Dudley Farm Fort Foster Fort Mose Fort Zachary Taylor Gamble Plantation Indian Key Koreshan Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Homestead Natural Bridge Battlefield Olustee Battlefield Orman House Paynes Creek San Marcos de Apalache Yellow Bluff Fort Yulee Sugar Mill Ruins Crystal River Lake Jackson Mounds Letchworth-Love Mounds Madira Bickel Mound Mound Key San Pedro Underwater
Preserves and reserves	Allen David Broussard Catfish Creek Anclote Key Cedar Key Scrub Charlotte Harbor Crystal River Disney Wilderness Estero Bay Green Cay Wetlands Fakahatchee Strand Hal Scott Kissimmee Prairie Lower Wekiva River Paynes Prairie Pumpkin Hill Creek River Rise Rock Springs Run San Felasco Hammock Savannas Seabranch St. Lucie Inlet St. Sebastian River Tarkiln Bayou Topsail Hill Tosohatchee Waccasassa Bay Yellow River Marsh
State trails	Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Gainesville-Hawthorne General James A. Van Fleet Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida Greenway Jacksonville-Baldwin Nature Coast Palatka-Lake Butler Tallahassee-St. Marks Historic Railroad Withlacoochee
State forests	Belmore Big Shoals Blackwater River Carl Duval Moore Cary Charles H. Bronson Cottage Hill Deep Creek Etoniah Creek Four Creeks Goethe Holopaw Indian Lake Jennings John M. Bethea Lake George Lake Talquin Lake Wales Ridge Little Big Econ Matanzas Myakka Okaloacoochee Slough Picayune Strand Pine Log Point Washington Ralph E. Simmons Memorial Ross Prairie Seminole Tate's Hell Tiger Bay Twin Rivers Wakulla Watson Island Welaka Withlacoochee

Category
Commons

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