Bridge Name: | Snake Creek Bridge |
Official Name: | Snake Creek Bridge |
Carries: | (Overseas Highway) |
Crosses: | Snake Creek |
Locale: | Islamorada, Florida |
Maint: | Florida Department of Transportation |
Design: | Bascule bridge |
Open: | 1981 |
Toll: | None |
Snake Creek Bridge is a bascule bridge in the village of Islamorada in the Florida Keys. The single-leaf steel bascule bridge carries the Overseas Highway (U.S. 1) over Snake Creek, connecting Plantation Key and Windley Key. It is located near mile marker 86.
The bridge was completed in 1981 when a number of new bridges were being built to modernize the Overseas Highway.[1] It is the third bridge that has existed at this location. The first bridge, which carried the Overseas Railroad, was built in the early 1900s. A second bridge built in the 1920s next to the railroad bridge carried the first Overseas Highway (State Road 4A), though the highway would later be shifted to railroad bridge in the 1940s, which was retrofitted for automobile use.[2]
The Snake Creek Bridge is notable for being the only remaining drawbridge operating in the Florida Keys. It has held this distinction since 2008, after the replacement of the original Jewfish Creek Bridge with its current high-span bridge, and the closure and abandonment of the Boot Key Harbor Bridge in Marathon.[3] [4] [5] [6]