The modern Overseas Highway travels over the right-of-way that delivered Henry Flagler’s train to Key West – for the most part. It wasn’t always that way.
When the first version, State Road 4A, opened in 1927, it paralleled the tracks in places but also traveled a much different route – especially through the Lower Keys.
After crossing Cudjoe Key and Bow Channel Bridge, the old road arrived at Sugarloaf Key and went through what is today the parking lot of Mangrove Mama’s restaurant. From there, it did something the road only did twice. It crossed the railroad tracks and continued down the island toward the Atlantic Ocean. It passed Pirates Cove before bending right, hugging the Atlantic coastline and crossing Sugarloaf Creek to Saddlebunch Key.
After traversing Saddlebunch, the road crossed a couple of wooden trestle bridges, Bird Key and Saddlebunch Harbor on the way to Geiger Key. While sections of the old road, now identified as 939, are still in use, driving over Sugarloaf or Saddlebunch Key like you could in the old days is no longer possible. To reach Geiger Key, a favorite out-of-the-way spot for cold beer and good food, it is necessary to drive along the modern highway to Big Coppitt Key. From there, it takes a turn to the oceanside at Boca Chica Road to get to the old fishing camp.
Saddlebunch is an interesting name. J.W. Norie, in his “Piloting Directions for the Gulf of Florida, Bahama Banks, and Islands (1828),” wrote, “Saddle Bluff – About six miles to the eastward of Boca Chica there is a small island, with remarkable high bluff trees, appearing in most points of view, in shape of a saddle.”
In 1849 sketches created by cartographer F.H. Gerdes, the “bottom” section of the island group was identified as the Sally Bunces and the top part Saddle Bluff. In 1861, the Bache Coast Survey named the same group of islands the Saddlebunch Keys.
The opening paragraph to a story titled “In A Sea-Garden,” published in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat on Sept. 18, 1910, stated: “The violet makers of the Boca Chico were all a-shimmer with myriad morning sunbeams, when the graceful yacht Naiad swept through to the Saddle Bunch Keys, that, like a cluster of rare emeralds, encircle the loveliest sea-garden in all the length and breadth of the Mexican Gulf.”
The Sarasota Times reported on Oct. 6, 1910: “An English syndicate has started a sponge nursery in the waters surrounding Saddle Bunch Keys. The infant sponges are attached to a series of iron bars and then lowered into the water. When the time for planting arrives they are raised and transplanted in the sponge beds of the company.”
The English syndicate was the Chase Company and their Florida Keys Sponge and Fruit Company. It operated on Sugarloaf Key, headquartered at MM 17, in the area that is today the Sugarloaf Lodge.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, four temporary ground-to-air HAWK missile sites popped up in the Lower Keys: the Salt Pond in Key West, Boca Chica, Fleming Key, and Saddlebunch Key.
While the missiles were removed, some of the bases remained, as was reported in the Miami Herald on Jan. 17, 1965. “Key West – ‘Nearly 1.5 million dollars will be spent here soon to beef up Navy communications and to improve the equipment with which this country listens to communist Cuba,’ government source said Saturday. ‘The communications project involves modernization of facilities in Key West in support of fleet and the shore establishments,’ a Naval Station spokesman said. Specifically, it involves construction of a new transmitter station at Saddle Bunch Key and modernization of existing facilities at the Naval Station and the Boca Chica Naval Air Station.”
According to multiple 1985 newspaper stories: “Saddle Bunch Keys – Naval low and high-frequency communications station transmitting to Caribbean, South Atlantic areas.” The footprint left by the HAWK missiles and the transmitters is visible in aerial photographs. Driving down the highway, after crossing the Lower Sugarloaf Channel Bridge and reaching Saddlebunch Key, a quick right leads down a road to the old military installation – it is not accessible.
On the left, however, is a true Saddlebunch Key gem, Baby’s Coffee. The local coffee beanery at MM 15 has been roasting coffee beans and serving excellent coffee since 1991. The large eyeball logo makes the location hard to miss. If you are traveling by and need a pick-me-up, they open at 6 a.m.
While driving over the island, a series of bridges will appear: Saddlebunch No. 2, Saddlebunch No. 3, Saddlebunch No. 4 and Saddlebunch No. 5. It is a peaceful stretch of the highway with unobstructed views of just how low-lying these islands can be. Sometimes, tall white egrets or taller white herons stand in shallows that don’t reach their knobby knees.
Sprays of land are covered in little green trees with loping red roots. They are mangroves, an essential species in coastal tropical and subtropical environments like the Florida Keys. Mangroves are island builders – especially red mangroves. The red mangrove has a distinctive system of prop roots that grow ever-outward and has earned it the “walking tree” nickname.
The prop roots trap debris. Over time, the detritus slowly rises, breaks the surface, dries out, and forms land while the walking tree keeps trekking. Mangroves use special adaptations, allowing them to live in brackish and saltwater environments. In the meantime, other flora take root, including black and white mangroves.
The roots of the red mangrove use a filtration system to exclude most of the salt extracted from the water. Black and white mangroves have specialized glands that push the salt out through the backs of their leaves. Lick them; they are salty.
Mangroves also work to stabilize environments, mitigate effects of storms and erosion, and act as a buffer between land and sea. The ecosystems mangroves create are some of the planet’s most productive and biologically diverse. They mark every island in the archipelago, including the island on the other side of the Shark Key Bridge, Shark Key and the line of railroad fill that connects to Big Coppitt Key, where, after a turn or two, the Geiger Key Fishing Camp is waiting.
