History 101

Taking a break from my ramblings about the quality of the food here in South Florida I think I'll post a few words about the construction of the Tamiami Trail across the Everglades. In driving around the Everglades and other places in south Florida I noticed that all the major roads have a wide ditch that runs along them filled with water. I started poking around about the construction of these roads and the answer was simple. They used steam shovels to scoop out the dirt alongside the roadway and dump it on the roadway to build up the roadbed. When we got to Chokoloskee I started seeing all kinds of references to the " walking dredge " used in the everglades. The tracked steam shovels worked fine from Tampa to Naples but when they hit the Everglades they promptly sank into the mud. They brought in a shovel from Michigan called the " walking dredge " to solve the problem. The walking dredge sat on 6 large wooden pads. The center pad had a system pulleys that would allow the shovel to raise itself up and then slide forward on rails about 5 feet. They would then drop it down so that it would sit on all 6 pads and commence digging. In the Everglades there was only about 3 foot of muck to dig out for the roadbed and below that was limestone. In crossing the Everglade they used 2 million sticks of dynamite to shatter the limestone which they then scooped out and placed on the raised roadbed to make a hard surface. They have a display in one of the National Parks with the original walking dredge on display. I took a couple of pictures which I will post below.

Head on view of the walking dredge

Diagram of how the think " walked "

Side view

2 cyl kerosene burning engine