Exhibit About the Tamiami Trail Now On-display at Keys History & Discovery Center

Dade Collier Arch on the Trail, 1928. (Courtesy of the Collier County Museums)

Islamorada, FL – Trailblazers: The Perilous Story of the Tamiami Trail is the latest traveling exhibit to be presented by the Keys History & Discovery Center in Islamorada.

The Tamiami Trail’s history, culture, devastating impact on the Everglades and plans to mitigate that damage are all featured in this multimedia exhibit featuring photographs, historic documents, and film. This exhibit is curated by Jon Ullman, who has been building coalition and organizing activists to restore the Everglades for the Sierra Club for more than 18 years. He organized a broad-based coalition to build the River of Grass Parkway, a 6.5-mile collection of bridges across Tamiami Trail to restore water flow to Everglades National Park and Florida Bay. His advocacy on the campaign to raise U.S. 41 helped result in the first raised mile and an additional planned 5.5-mile of bridging.

On loan from the Coral Gables Museum, this exhibit first appeared there in fall of 2015. The exhibit at Keys History & Discovery Center is made possible through the generosity of Ken and Dee Meeks, long-time Islamorada residents and philanthropists. Trailblazers in on display through March 5, 2017.

The Discovery Center is a museum, theater and gift shop, offering lessons in Keys history from the First People/Indians, Spanish Treasure Fleets, Pirates and Wreckers, history of fishing in the Keys, as well as stories of Flagler’s Railway and the Great Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. A lecture series, Keys History & Discovery Center Presents, is offered from November through May.

The Discovery Center is open Thursdays through Sundays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. General admission is $12. Admission for seniors is $10 and children 13-under are free. Annual memberships with a range of benefits are available. For more information, call 305-922-2237 or visit our website at www.keysdiscovery.com.

Florida Keys History and Discovery Foundation, a 501(c)(3), not-for-profit organization, operates the Keys History & Discovery Center in Islamorada, MM 82, on the property of the Islander Resort.