Skip to main content

Clearwater Memorial Causeway (Florida State Road 60)


The Clearwater Memorial Causeway is a component of Florida State Road 60 located in the city of Clearwater.  The Clearwater Memorial Causeway connects Clearwater Beach to the rest of the city of Clearwater via the waters of Clearwater Bay.  The modernized Clearwater Memorial Causeway opened to traffic during August 2005 and features two concrete girder spans.  The Clearwater Causeway was originally opened during 1927 and was partially carried by a drawbridge.  




Part 1; the history of the Clearwater Memorial Causeway

The original Clearwater Causeway opened to traffic on November 11, 1927.  The original Clearwater Causeway was a two-lane drawbridge span.  The original Clearwater Causeway does not appear to be part of any pre-1945 Florida State Road (it may have been part of Florida State Road 314).  The Clearwater Memorial Causeway be seen on the 1943 United States Geological Survey map of Clearwater departing west from US Route 19 via Cleveland Street. 


The original Clearwater Causeway can be seen in an undated postcard photo. 


The Clearwater Causeway appears on the 1956 Shell Oil Company Map at the western terminus of post-1945 Florida State Road 60.  


The original Clearwater Causeway appears signed as Florida State Road 60 on a photo dated to 1960.  


The Clearwater Causeway drawbridge was rebuilt as an elevated four-lane span during 1963.  The original drawbridge was converted to a fishing pier.  Florida State Road 60 approached the second Clearwater Causeway drawbridge westbound via Gulf to Bay Boulevard and Cleveland Street.  The second Clearwater Causeway drawbridge can be seen in an undated photo by Pinellas Memory.  


Construction the modern double concrete girder Clearwater Causeway Bridges began during 2001 and was completed during August 2005.  The second Clearwater Causeway drawbridge was converted to a fishing pier at the end of Cleveland Street.  Florida State Road 60 west realigned onto one-way couplets along Court Street and Chestnut Street through downtown Clearwater.  The modern Clearwater Causeway Bridges can be seen on the 2012 United States Geological Survey map of Clearwater.  




Part 2; a drive on the Clearwater Memorial Causeway

 Pier 60 can be found at the mutual terminus of Pinellas County Route 183 and Florida State Road 60 on Clearwater Beach.  Pier 60 opened during June 1962 as an extension of Clearwater Municipal Pier.  Clearwater is one of the largest communities in the Tampa Bay area and incorporated as a city during 1891.  





Florida State Road 60 eastbound departs Clearwater Beach via Causeway Boulevard. 




Florida State Road 60 eastbound departs Clearwater Beach via a short bridge onto to the Clearwater Causeway.  




Florida State Road 60 eastbound follows the Clearwater Memorial Causeway and crosses the 2005 concrete girder span over Clearwater Bay to Chestnut Street in downtown Clearwater.  












Eastbound Florida State Road 60 follows a one-way alignment on Chestnut Street and intersects US Route 19A Myrtle Avenue.  Westbound Florida State Road 60 is carried through downtown Clearwater by Court Street.  




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Interstate 40's Tumultuous Ride Through the Pigeon River Gorge

In the nearly 60 years Interstate 40 has been open to traffic through the Pigeon River Gorge in the mountains of Western North Carolina, it has been troubled by frequent rockslides and damaging flooding, which has seen the over 30-mile stretch through North Carolina and Tennessee closed for months at a time. Most recently, excessive rainfall from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 saw sections of Interstate 40 wash away into a raging Pigeon River. While the physical troubles of Interstate 40 are well known, how I-40 came to be through the area is a tale of its own. Interstate 40 West through Haywood County near mile marker 10. I-40's route through the Pigeon River Gorge dates to local political squabbles in the 1940s and a state highway law written in 1921. A small note appeared in the July 28, 1945, Asheville Times. It read that the North Carolina State Highway Commission had authorized a feasibility study of a "...water-level road down [the] Pigeon River to the Tennessee l

Mines Road

Mines Road is an approximately twenty-eight-mile highway located in the rural parts of the Diablo Range east of the San Francisco Bay Area.  Mines Road begins in San Antonio Valley in Santa Clara County and terminates at Tesla Road near Livermore of Alameda County.  The highway essentially is a modern overlay of the 1840s Mexican haul trail up Arroyo Mocho known as La Vereda del Monte.  The modern corridor of Mines Road took shape in the early twentieth century following development of San Antonio Valley amid a magnesite mining boom.  Part 1; the history of Mines Road Modern Mines Road partially overlays the historic corridor used by La Vereda del Monte (Mountain Trail).  La Vereda del Monte was part of a remote overland route through the Diablo Range primarily used to drive cattle from Alta California to Sonora.  The trail was most heavily used during the latter days of Alta California during the 1840s. La Vereda del Monte originated at Point of Timber between modern day Byron and Bre

Route 75 Tunnel - Ironton, Ohio

In the Ohio River community of Ironton, Ohio, there is a former road tunnel that has a haunted legend to it. This tunnel was formerly numbered OH 75 (hence the name Route 75 Tunnel), which was renumbered as OH 93 due to I-75 being built in the state. Built in 1866, it is 165 feet long and once served as the northern entrance into Ironton, originally for horses and buggies and later for cars. As the tunnel predated the motor vehicle era, it was too narrow for cars to be traveling in both directions. But once US 52 was built in the area, OH 93 was realigned to go around the tunnel instead of through the tunnel, so the tunnel was closed to traffic in 1960. The legend of the haunted tunnel states that since there were so many accidents that took place inside the tunnel's narrow walls, the tunnel was cursed. The haunted legend states that there was an accident between a tanker truck and a school bus coming home after a high school football game on a cold, foggy Halloween night in 1