Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Military Trail began as a path blazed by soldiers
As part of our Sound Off South Florida project, we do our best to answer reader-submitted questions about life, culture and history in South Florida. We’ve previously tackled such inscrutable issues as why South Floridians don’t use turn signals and why the Sunshine State doesn’t have much in the way of solar energy.
Occasionally, we get a question focused on past events, like “Which came first, University Drive or University Hospital?” or “What’s the history behind Palm Beach County’s Munyon Island?” — the latter of which includes the traditional Florida pastimes of snake oil sales and grifting.
And it’s in this historical vein that reader Hank Johnson wrote in to ask, “How did Military Trail get that name? The rumor was it was built for the military to use far enough away from the coast to avoid naval bombardment. If so, why isn’t it a Federal highway?”
First off, we can dispense with the idea that Military Trail was built by the military in an effort to avoid naval bombardment. The road is about three to five miles from the beach along most of its length. The big guns on World War II battleships had an effective range far exceeding that, and Military Trail would be in the medium range of naval bombardment even at the beginning of the 20th century.
In actuality, Military Trail — which travels north-south from Pompano Beach, where it connects to Andrews Avenue, to Jupiter, where it ends at Indiantown Road — started out literally as a trail blazed by the military. It dates back to the Second Seminole War, which was fought between 1835 and 1842. The Seminoles fought using guerrilla tactics, raiding and then disappearing into the Everglades,
territory unfamiliar to the invading soldiers.
According to a paper written by archaeologist and researcher for the Town of Jupiter Richard Procyk, to counter the Seminoles’ tactics, the commander of American forces in the area, Gen. Thomas Jesup, split his forces up in an attempt to surround the Native Americans and draw them out into a fight. After a series of battles in December 1837 and January of 1838, the Seminoles fled south of Loxahatchee. To keep them penned in, the army built Fort Jupiter in 1838.
Jesup then ordered 233 volunteers from Tennessee to cut a trail from Jupiter to the New River. The men were led by Major William Lauderdale. With them was a contingent of soldiers dedicated to constructing trails and defensive works from a regiment commanded by Lt. Robert Anderson. The group took four days to cut a 60-mile path. When they finally reached the New River, they established Fort Lauderdale. And while the major has a city named after him, Anderson earned his own place in the history books — 22 years later, he was placed in charge of U.S. forces around Charleston, South Carolina, in 1860. After the state seceded in December of that year, he pulled his troops out of the city and into Fort Sumter, which he subsequently surrendered after a Confederate bombardment, kicking off the American Civil War.
As for the trail blazed by Lauderdale and several hundred other soldiers, it’s in about the same spot as today’s Military Trail, though the commute takes considerably less time, even with all the traffic.