Before I-95. Before Disney. Before the snowbirds and the subdivisions, there was a Florida that moved at a different speed. In the 1950s, US Highway 1 was the spine of Florida. Families drove it from Jacksonville to Key West, stopping at roadside motels with neon signs and kidney-shaped pools. These places had names like "The Flamingo," "The Sea Breeze," and "The Palms." They charged $6 a night and they were full every weekend.
By 1965, the interstate system had bypassed most of them. By 1975, half were shuttered. By 1990, most had been demolished or converted into something unrecognizable. The Florida that longtime residents remember, the one their parents drove them through in station wagons with the windows down, was quietly erased one motel at a time.
Nobody announced it. Nobody mourned it publicly. It just disappeared.
What do you remember about old Florida? Drop a comment.
Thanks to Florida Hillbilly for the inspriration.
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In summer of, what was it, 65 or 66, my dad insisted on taking the whole famn damily down to see the Weeki Wachee Water ballet, and I can still remember bits and pieces of that trip, including staying in a motel that looked a lot like the one in the pic up there...
ReplyDeleteI totally remember those days. Every year around Christmas my parents would take vacation and we'd all drive to Florida in the family car. I remember those hotel/motels along the way well. It was great fun and I would not I would not change a thing. It was a great childhood.
ReplyDeleteI remember some guy who was looking for the fountain of youth. Don't know if he found it.
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