The extension of the Florida East Coast Railway through the Florida Keys was a momentous event in our cultural, economic, and environmental history. Henry Flagler's railroad provided a slender thread that linked our island communities to each other, and beyond. The railroad also brought us engineering marvels, tall legends, and harrowing disasters.
No one remembers how, or when, a complete set of railroad blueprints found their way into the Monroe County Public Library vault. Geographers, historians, and railroad researchers have used the blueprints to further their understanding of the Keys during the early 1900s. They portray a silhouetted landscape, vastly changed from before, and ever since.
Monroe County Public Library's set of 30 Florida East Coast Railway Right-of-Way survey blueprints were digitized by the University of Florida's Digital Library Center using a PhaseOne PowerPhase FX digital camera with a 10,500 pixel-by-12,600 pixel, 24-bit color capture capacity with a Rodenstock Rodagon 135 mm enlarging lens (f/5.6) with an AR-1 high aspect ratio filter.
Below are links to the blueprints in scaleable format derived from the master TIFF files. The University of Florida and Florida Center for Library Automation have mounted these images on the World Map Collection website. We thank them for their generosity.
A few notes: the blueprints were updated in 1935 to indicate damage caused by the Labor Day Hurricane. Notice that the maps are oriented with north toward the bottom of the page and east to west essentially left to right--upside-down from the expected view. Surveyors have mislabeled some bodies of water. The white patches over parts of the blueprints remain a mystery. You can view photographs and postcards from the building of the railroad at our website: www.mile-markers.org
Comments or questions about the blueprints may be emailed to: Anne Layton Rice Tom Hambright Library Administrator
Keys Historian |
