One of the premier passages along the Overseas Highway is crossing the Seven Mile Bridge. The views are spectacular and should be experienced in the daylight.
Sunset reveals stunning sights, too, whether you are driving across the new bridge or strolling along the old one. For the most part, it is a chance to sit back and enjoy some of the best views the highway has to offer.
There are two Seven Mile Bridges — the old railroad bridge and the modern highway bridge. The original Seven Mile Bridge, built to accommodate the Key West Extension of the Florida East Coast Railway, consisted of four bridges. It was not called the Seven Mile Bridge but by the names of the four distinct bridge sections. The first three spans, Knights Key (6,803 feet), Pigeon Key (5,935 feet), and Moser Channel (13,947 feet), were built using concrete piers reinforced with three-quarter-inch steel rods.
Steel girders, weighing more than 40 tons each and measuring 80 feet long, were lowered across the piers to create the foundation on which the railroad tracks were later attached. The fourth section, the Pacet Channel Viaduct (9,035 feet), employed a different design, utilizing a series of concrete arches to support the tracks — hence its distinction as a viaduct.
The bridges and the rest of Henry Flagler’s railroad became temporarily obsolete following the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane. The Category 5 hurricane took more than 500 lives.
It also destroyed 40 miles of railroad track and ended the run of Henry Flagler’s Over-Sea Railroad.
As a result of the storm, the right-of-way followed by Flagler’s train was sold to the state. In 1937, many of the former railroad bridges were widened to accommodate automobile traffic, including the four spans of what became known as the Seven Mile Bridge. The railroad rails were repurposed to serve as guardrails for the highway bridges. The bridge and the new and improved highway opened to traffic on March 29, 1938 — July 4 marked the highway’s official reopening.
Construction on the modern bridge began in 1979, and it officially opened to traffic on May 24, 1982. Technically, the new Seven Mile Bridge is 35,862 feet long and 1,098 feet short of its seven-mile claim.
During the drive across it, the five-acre Pigeon Key will appear underneath the old railroad bridge. On early Spanish charts, it was identified as Cayo Paloma. Paloma is the Spanish word for pigeon, and the story suggests the island was once home to large flocks of pigeons. The namesake bird was the distinctive white-crowned pigeon — indigenous to South Florida and the Keys, the Bahamas, the Greater and Lesser Antilles islands, southeastern Mexico and Central America.
In 1907, railroad engineers surveyed Pigeon Key; they determined it to be the ideal location for a construction campsite. Railroad workers built three dormitories, a large mess hall, a warehouse, offices, a bakery, a commissary and an infirmary tent.
The day before the passenger train carrying Henry Flagler traveled across Key West and steamed into the southernmost terminal for the first time, the Jan. 21, 1912, edition of the Indianapolis Sunday Star printed a story mentioning Pigeon Key: “The camps are in charge of a resident or division engineer with the one at Pigeon Key presently the most active. At high tide, Pigeon Key is about two acres in extent and perhaps three acres at low tide. There are four bunkhouses, each designed to hold 64 men; one of them for the foremen, who are housed apart from the laborers. Each has a reading room with good lights. Good mattresses are provided on standard double-decked bunks, with plenty of clean bedclothes; all laundry work being done by the company. Once a week all beds are washed and thoroughly disinfected to keep any parasites from getting a start.”
Pigeon Key and the rest of the F.E.C. right-of-way were sold to the state after the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane ended the railroad’s run. Eventually, Monroe County was given possession of the island, where, today, the old wooden railroad buildings stand like a sort of ghost town — but a living one. The island was listed as a National Historic Landmark in 1990. The Pigeon Key Foundation was formed to “protect the island’s long-standing history from the Henry Flagler era” two years later.
Visiting the island is like stepping back in time. The buildings are some of the oldest structures found outside of Key West. At least one dates back to 1908. One of them contains a small museum filled with photographs, artifacts and stories about the building of Flagler’s railroad and the people who once called the island home. Guided tours are available. For more information about the Pigeon Key Foundation and touring the island, visit www.pigeonkey.net.
After passing Pigeon Key, there is a gap in the Moser Channel section of the old Flagler bridge. When it was still operational, the gap was connected by a section that could swing open to allow boats to pass between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. In 1994, the missing section was destroyed by missiles fired from a fighter jet during the filming of the Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis thriller “True Lies.”
The movie employed a bit of Hollywood magic. In real life, the span had been removed after the old bridge closed to automobile traffic. What exploded was a replica, a bridge designed to be a stunt double — kaboom!
While the Seven Mile Bridge, both old and new, and the brilliant blue water views are the real attraction, a little bit of love must be saved for the Australian pine tree famously growing on the Pacet Channel Viaduct section in the area of MM 41. It is Fred the Tree. The Florida Keys celebrity managed to dig its roots into the crumbling remains of the railroad bridge three or four decades ago and never gave up. It also played a role in the 2024 remake of the movie “Road House,” starring Jake Gyllenhaal.
The bridge’s west end is at Little Duck Key, where the highway enters the Lower Keys.
