What is it, a crossover for the Indians, a pedestrian walkway or a cattle crossing?
It towers across State Highway 70, a dingy white concrete bridge-like span that seems to go nowhere. It was constructed to allow passage across State Highway 70. It sits lonely and lost with fencing wrapped around the ends to keep people out. The north side has a wide sidewalk and is peppered with signs that say no motor vehicles. There are a few entrance ways to a sparse number of homes that line the path. None of these go near the tower structure.
Apparently, people have been calling into the talk radio station asking questions. According to the FDOT this happens every few years when new residents arrive and they don’t know the history. Why is it there? What’s it for? How much did it cost to build? Who built it? When was it built? I guess the listeners have come up with many questions but no firm answers. People have said it was a crossing for the Indians to visit the ancestors or that the road is in the middle of a cemetery. Others have said it is a pedestrian walkway to cross over and go to the fairgrounds and that during boom times the County expected a large amount of subdivisions in the area. Another thought, could it be a crossing for the cattle to get to the stock yard auctions?
I thought this would make an interesting story since, I too, had passed under this structure and wondered what it was there for and who uses it. So with pad and pen in hand, I set off to visit the Florida Department of Transportation in Ft. Pierce. I met some very interesting and helpful people and we shared quite a few laughs about my questions. The employees were extremely helpful and even gave me a site plan. (Copy of plan) There was some interesting information on the plan. The structure is called a “shared use path bridge.” Inquiring minds want to know, shared with what? If this were a pedestrian pathway, wouldn’t there be a sidewalk on the south side of the road going to the fairgrounds? There is no sidewalk that I could find. So does that mean it isn’t a pedestrian pathway? More questions that need answering.
The local FDOT sent me to the Ft. Lauderdale office with my questions. Barbara, the public information officer, promised to get back to me and see if there was a closer local office where I could find the archeological study for the road, how much the structure cost, what it was and why they put it where they put it. Hopefully, sooner rather than later. Well, I held off finishing this story and made several phone calls and I have yet to receive a return phone call. I could not figure out why the public information officer would not help me until I went to Vero Beach and was given paper work about my story involving the Train to Nowhere. They are all inter-connected through the FDOT. I gave this lady my blog address and I guess the story scared them off.
Next, I tried the engineering department at the County and got sent to the public information officer. If you need information or just want to write the county line sees the public information officer. That’s what the “snooze” news does, “regurgitated press releases” is what I call them. These people either are not familiar with the Government in the Sunshine Law or they know it inside out and have been given “marching orders” to stall and delay any citizen’s request for information. After forty years in nursing and having been raised with the saying, “if it ain’t wrote, it ain’t done”, I always ask for the hard copy paperwork.
There is a movement out there to find any way they can to keep the citizens from seeing the truth. Last time I read the law, it said, “whoever has care, custody and control of the document must produce it upon request of a citizen. That doesn’t happen nowadays. They want the request in writing (not necessary), they will say it’s part of a lawsuit (not a valid reason, it’s public information and you are entitled to it), or they have to go to the archives to find it. This means, as I was told by the St. Lucie county manager’s assistant, the county manager has to go through the information first. That means they examine it and remove what they don’t want you to see. Anyway, this subject is so important I need to do a column on it. So back to my war story.
My husband, Leo, decided a field trip was in order to go and see the scene of the crime ourselves. So off we went. I stopped at the local convenience store out there and the man told me the structure was a pedestrian walk way. My husband insisted we saw a cemetery with a wrought iron fence around it. So we were off and running the roads, up one side of the highway and down the other side, no luck. Then we went down the road alongside the store and it hit me. I remembered meeting this gentlemen and he regaled me with old time cattle stories. How he bought land for $0.10 an acre during the depression off the courthouse steps and how they got the cattle from one side of the state to the other.
I recognized the name but I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions.
I did some research on my own to try to get to the bottom of the question about Indian burial grounds. I know that if the general public finds out there are Indian burial grounds out there they sneak in and raid them and disturb the elders rest. Since I have Indian blood in me and I respect my ancestors I will not be answering that question. So I hate to disappoint my readers but I feel I would disappoint my family more if I wrote about this subject.
On to the next question, is it a cattle crossing? I was serious in a laughing matter with the workers about a push button and a sign that said cattle crossing. Sounds like a whole lot cheaper solution than the $2.7 million people believe that structure cost. While I was teasing about it being a cattle crossing, it could be true. I don’t think cows need a sidewalk to go out the back gate and up and over the structure and there is no side walk on the south side going to the fairground. Who would need to get their cattle to market early?
They would not be able to stop rush hour traffic, so the cattle could cross the road, hence, the shared bridge pathway. Now, if a certain cattle baron owned property and wanted to get his cattle to auction market this would be the way to go.
Putting something like a hospital or fairground in the area solves a public need and also raises the prices of property. In Ft. Myers, they built a hospital and then the four investors sold the property to each other creating an inflated price for land. The price of land is regulated by the property appraiser and the sale of land in an area is looked at to help determine the appraisal price, which determines the value of land being sold. Sort of like insider trading only it’s called land kiting or land flipping. I’m not saying this happened here just pointing out how it happened over on the other side of the state. The U.S. Attorney Douglas Malloy caught wind of their various land flipping deals and they went down in flames.
Well the story doesn’t end here. In fact, it gets more and more interesting but I’m having a difficult time getting to the bottom, excuse me, the crossing of the structure. There are more unanswered questions and I need to do a lot of digging, so stay tuned. Meanwhile, if anyone has any information and/or wants to contribute, please call or e-mail. The information is on the front page.
