The Seven Mile Bridge: Tenth Longest Bridge
The Seven Mile Bridge is the world’s tenth longest bridge. It is a famous bridge in the Florida Keys, in Monroe County, Florida,United States. It connects Knight’s Key (part of the city of Marathon, Florida) in the Middle Keys to Little Duck Key in the Lower Keys. Among the longest bridges in existence when it was built, it is one of the many bridges on US 1 in the Keys, where the road is called theOverseas Highway.
There are two bridges in this location. The older bridge, originally known as the Knights Key-Pigeon Key-Moser Channel-Pacet Channel Bridge, was constructed from 1909-1912 under the direction of Henry Flagler as part of the Florida East Coast Railway’s Key West Extension, also known as the Overseas Railroad.
This bridge was badly damaged by the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, and subsequently refurbished by the United States Federal Governmentas an automobile highway bridge. It had a swing span that opened to allow passage of boat traffic, near where the bridge crosses Pigeon Key, a small island where a work camp for Flagler’s railroad was located.