This route connects Boca Grande with Venice along a stretch of the Gulf of Mexico coast shaped by the historical presence of the railroad, fishing, and tourism development. The route runs through an environment where barrier islands, marshes, and estuaries have conditioned both transportation corridors and patterns of human settlement.
Boca Grande, located on Gasparilla Island, played a significant role in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a phosphate export port, which led to the construction of railroad and port infrastructure. Although industrial activity disappeared, its imprint remains in the organization of the territory and in certain elements of the landscape.
The itinerary continues northward through coastal areas and communities developed later, many of them associated with tourism and seasonal residence. Sections of former railroad lines converted to new uses and coastal roads allow observation of the transition from a productive coastline to one oriented toward leisure.
The route ends in Venice, a city whose growth was linked to the railroad and to planned urban development during the twentieth century, known for its architecture, urban layout, and relationship with the sea.
The complete route and its historical context are part of Discovering Florida – Volume 2.
