Remembering the Past in South Florida

I've recently been working on a project to catalogue and explore South Florida's natural and cultural history, using old photographs, postcards, mementos and letters dating back to the turn of the 20th century. The project includes entries detailing landmarks in my neighborhood of Coconut Grove, Miami-Dade Parks, and early accounts of South Florida's ecosystems before they were lost or fragmented thanks to man's heavy hand.

I'd like to give you a small preview of this project with this entry detailing one of Miami's famous drives, Old Cutler Road.

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Old Cutler Road in southeastern Miami-Dade County is one of the area’s more scenic drives. The origins of this coastal route predates the building of roads in Dade County. Starting off as a bayside trail, this important thoroughfare serves as a County greenway as it connects many of Miami-Dade County’s eastern parks and natural areas including Matheson Hammock Park, the R. Hardy Matheson County Preserve, Chapman Field Park, the Deering Estate and Bill Sadowski Park. In this undated photo the viewer gets an idea of just how much more primitive and scenic this road was in Miami’s early days.

Old Cutler Road owes its name to the former town of Cutler, a farming community founded by William Fuzzard in the late 1800s. The town was named after Dr. William Cutler of Massachusetts who visited the area about 1880 and encouraged Fuzzard and others to settle here. In 1883, Fuzzard, with the help of other residents of Cutler, cut a path north and east through a wilderness of pine rocklands and hardwood hammocks to the Village of Coconut Grove. The road followed a natural limestone ridge along Biscayne Bay, and established the first overland route connecting Coconut Grove and Cutler. It was subsequently widened to a wagon trail, and was declared a public road in 1895. The road became known as Cutler Road, later as Ingraham Highway, and still later as Old Cutler Road.

Today, Old Cutler Road, which follows a somewhat altered course, maintains the appearance and atmosphere of a country road, and provides a tangible reminder of the heritage of Miami-Dade. Old Cutler Road was declared a State Historic Highway in 1974 by the Florida Legislature.

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Image: University of Miami Digital Archives