The second piece of infrastructure that connected Naples to the rest of the United States is the Tamiami Trail.
The American landscape was transformed with the introduction of the automobile, and a new breed of man was born - the tourist. In 1912, less than a million cars traveled on the road compared with more than thirty million on the eve of World War Two.
When the shiny new steamers or gas vehicles took over the road families headed
COLLIER'S RESERVE COUNTRY CLUB
south in search of the warm Florida
climate. A series of newspaper articles stressed the construction of good roads as essential to the material advance- ment of the state. Florida could attract tourists for a winter vacation if two main highways were built, on down the West Coast and on down the East Coast.
In 1915, a group of businessmen from
Miami, Naples, and Fort Myers met with
state officials in Tallahassee to discuss
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the feasibility of a cross-state highway from Miami to Tampa via Naples, Fort Myers, Venice, Sarasota, and Bradenton. At first, the proposed roadway was referred to as the "Miami to Marco Highway" or the "Atlantic to Gulf Boulevard." Sometime later at a meeting in Tampa, the name "Tamiami Trail" was fashioned from the combined names of its terminal cities, Tampa and Miami. It delighted the public, and was accepted for the name of the proposed highway.
In 1921, when the Legislature created Sarasota County, the fate of the cross-state segment of the Tamiami Trail appeared uncertain. The Lee County portion of the trail was stopped for lack of funds. Rumors circulated that this lower section of the trail would never be completed, especially not across the "impassable" Everglades. After Lee County ran out of money to complete their portion of the highway in 1919, James F. Jaudon, business man from Miami, proposed to fund the continuation of the highway if the road would be re-routed to Monroe County near land owned by his Chevelier Corporation. The proposal was accepted and the Chevelier Corporation laid out the new route for the road and construction resumed. This portion of the new route is known today as the Loop Road.
Tamiami Trail