Skip to main content

Florida Friday; Old Florida State Road 50 in the Green Swamp

By
Back in 2014 I spent time tracking down former alignments of what is now Florida State Road 50 on the north side of the Green Swamp in Hernando County and Sumter County.






Prior to the 1945 Florida State Road renumbering FL 50 east of Ridge Manor to Mabel was part of FL 210.  Whereas the modern route of FL 50 is quite good through the Green Swamp and one of the few two-lane roadways in the state with 60 MPH speed limits the original alignment was much different.  This 1936 Road Map of eastern Hernando County shows FL 210 heading into the Green Swamp via Richloam-Clay Sink Road to the Atlantic Coast Line siding of Richloam.

1936 Eastern Hernando County Map 

FL 210 and later FL 50 turned east towards the Little Withlacoochee River on Riverland Road towards the siding of Riverland.  From Richloam looking eastward this is what former FL 50 looks like today.





At the Sumter County Line the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and FL 50 split from each other on separate crossings of the Little Withlacoochee River.  Riverland Road on the Sumter Side becomes County Road 757 and would have crossed the Atlantic Coast Railroad one more time.  Today the bridge connecting Riverland Road and County Road 757 is apparently gone but the general area can be accessed on the Sumter County side.  These photos below look on what was westbound FL 50 towards the Little Withlacoochee River.






County Road 757 ends at modern FL 50.  Apparently the route of FL 50 was shifted to the modern alignment sometime between 1945 and 1960 by comparing topographical maps on Historicaerials.com.


East of the former Green Swamp of FL 50 there are various sidings of the Atlantic Coast Line that still exist.  The Atlantic Coast Line was removed at some point in the past three decades and much of the former grade is now occupied east of FL 471 as Sumter County Road 772.

Some of the sidings are notable due to some historic structures that are still present.  An older railroad building in Tarrytown at the intersection of FL 50 and FL 471 still stands as of 2014.  At the time the building had just been reopened as a business and painted orange.  Tarrytown apparently predates the Atlantic Coast Line as a local sawmill out of the Green Swamp.


East of Tarrytown there is a large cemetery marque on County Road 772 in Linden showing the community was formed in 1842.


Linden still has a large church and a single commercial building on FL 50.






As stated above County Road 772 is the former grade of the Atlantic Coast Railroad.  I'm almost certain that FL 50 through Linden and Mabel was always routed north of the railroad lines to the left in the picture below.


Labels:

Comments

Unknown said…
Florida has a variety of old places still in existance.Their very interesting places to see and read about.I do this alot.
9:09 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bleriot Ferry - Alberta

By
  Alberta operates six ferries scattered throughout the province. Roughly twenty to twenty-five kilometers up the Red Deer River from the town of Drumheller is one of the most scenic ferry crossings in all of Wild Rose Country, the Bleriot Ferry. Using the North Dinosaur Trail (Alberta Highway 838, or AB 838), the Bleriot Ferry provides a scenic river cruise of sorts in the Canadian Badlands. The Bleriot Ferry started operating in 1913 as the Munson Ferry when a few bridges crossed the Red Deer River. The ferry was started by Andre Bleriot, the brother of famed early aviator Louis Bleriot, who became famous for being the first person to fly over the English Channel. At the time, the Alberta provincial government commissioned local residents to run the ferries. There were several ferries along the Red Deer River, and not only did they serve as vital transportation links, but they also served as local social hubs, since everyone had to take the ferries to go places. Over time, as the...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Pollasky Bridge

By
The Pollasky Bridge near modern day Friant is a ruined highway bridge which was completed during early 1906 as part of the Fresno-Fresno Flats Road.  The structure is one of the oldest known arch concrete spans to have been constructed in California.  The bridge briefly carried California State Route 41 following the destruction of the Lanes Bridge in 1940.  The Pollasky Bridge itself was destroyed by flooding during 1951, but the ruins can still be found on the Madera County side of the San Joaquin River.   Pictured as the blog cover is the Pollasky Bridge as it was featured in the 1913 book "The Concrete Bridge."  The structure can be seen crossing the San Joaquin River near Friant below on the 1922 United States Geological Survey Map.   Part 1; the history of the Pollasky Bridge The Pollasky Bridge site is near modern day Friant of Fresno County.  The community of Friant was established as Converse Ferry during 1852 on the San Joaquin Rive...
Post a Comment
Read more

Interstate 40's Tumultuous Ride Through the Pigeon River Gorge

By
In the nearly 60 years Interstate 40 has been open to traffic through the Pigeon River Gorge in the mountains of Western North Carolina, it has been troubled by frequent rockslides and damaging flooding, which has seen the over 30-mile stretch through North Carolina and Tennessee closed for months at a time. Most recently, excessive rainfall from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 saw sections of Interstate 40 wash away into a raging Pigeon River. While the physical troubles of Interstate 40 are well known, how I-40 came to be through the area is a tale of its own. Interstate 40 West through Haywood County near mile marker 10. I-40's route through the Pigeon River Gorge dates to local political squabbles in the 1940s and a state highway law written in 1921. A small note appeared in the July 28, 1945, Asheville Times. It read that the North Carolina State Highway Commission had authorized a feasibility study of a "...water-level road down [the] Pigeon River to the Tennessee l...
4 comments
Read more