Route #66 Indrio - Saint Lucie - Fort Drum - Osowaw Junction

This route crosses the rural interior of Saint Lucie and Okeechobee counties, linking the Treasure Coast with one of the most extensive and isolated cattle-ranching regions of central Florida. The ride begins in Indrio, near the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, and passes through former railroad communities and ghost towns such as Hilolo, Fort Drum, and Osowaw Junction, which emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with the expansion of the railway through the Kissimmee Valley.

After leaving the urban areas of Fort Pierce North and Saint Lucie, the route enters a landscape dominated by open prairies, large ranches, plantations, and secondary roads, where cattle ranching and agriculture define the character of the territory. Part of the alignment follows the historic Florida Cracker Trail, once used by cattle drivers to cross the peninsula and now a sparsely populated corridor exposed to extreme weather conditions.

Along the way, the scenery alternates between remnants of former settlements, ruins of old buildings, abandoned railway stops, and wide natural areas. In Fort Drum, a former military outpost from the Seminole Wars, the surroundings preserve historical traces, mining areas, and one of the largest natural preserves in the interior of the state, where important waterways such as the St. Johns River originate.

The route ends at Osowaw Junction, another forgotten stop on the Florida East Coast Railway, now a small agricultural community surrounded by citrus groves. The return follows the same path, completing a long and solitary journey that offers a direct view of Florida’s interior, ranching landscapes, and little-changed rural regions, far from major tourist and urban corridors.

This route can be found in Discovering Florida – Volume 3.