The 'Flagler of Okeechobee' Connects WPB, Glades

By Bob Davidsson
        An estimated 20,000 residents of Palm Beach, Okeechobee and the future Martin counties gathered in the City of Okeechobee on July 4, 1924 to celebrate the grand opening of a new highway connecting their Everglades farming communities to the coastal city of West Palm Beach.
        Amid the Fourth of July parade, fireworks and political speeches, one man above all was honored at the event - the guiding force and financier  of the new Okeechobee-to-West Palm Beach toll road, William James "Fingy" Conners Sr.
        Okeechobee City Mayor T.W. Conley boasted, "What Henry Morrison Flagler is to the East Coast of Florida, Conners is to Lake Okeechobee."
         Present at the milestone celebration were Florida Governor Cary Hardee (1921-25),  who signed Conners' private toll road franchise into law, and Governor-elect John Martin (1925-28), the namesake of the new county that would soon be carved out of the northern third of the Palm Beaches.
        Both governors concurred that the "William J. Conners Toll Highway" was a "great work of engineering" uniting the Glades communities with the coast.
          The June 22, 1924 edition of the New York Times announced the importance of the new highway to the State of Florida and the nation.
        "What a pioneer from New York State has done and is doing for Florida," the Times reported, "will be rewarded in the form of a public celebration on July 4 when Okeechobee City will take official notice of the opening of traffic of the Conners Florida Highway, connecting the West and East Coasts and affording a straight route from Miami or Tampa to Palm Beach for automobiles, horses or pedestrians."

William James 'Fingy' Conners Sr.
        Fingy Conners was an unlikely pioneer in the transportation history of Florida. He was born Jan. 3, 1857  to Irish-Canadian immigrant parents in the poor blue-collar First Ward of Buffalo, N.Y. By the time he was 19, both of his parents and his sister were dead.
        As a youth, Conners worked as a stevedore, unloading the grain ships that carried their products from throughout the Great Lakes to the mills and storage facilities in Buffalo. He formed a gang of young toughs like himself along the waterfront.
        According to the urban legend, Conners' left thumb was cut off during a gang ceremony. He reportedly shouted, "I lost my fingy!" Thus, he earned his nickname for life - "Fingy Conners".
        Conners first business venture was the opening of a saloon catering to the dock and mill workers. He soon expanded it to a "Labor Contracting Office" supplying (and exploiting) immigrant laborers from New York City for projects in Buffalo.
        Fingy became a force to reckon with among the city's political and business leadership. He was known as the "uncrowned king of the docks." However, when his efforts to organize Buffalo's dock workers into a private monopoly failed in the 1890s, he invested in real estate and purchased two of Buffalo's daily newspapers.
        After the turn of the 20th century, Conners made his fortune as chairman of the Great Lakes Transit Corporation, which controlled 85 percent of the packaged freight trade by ship and rail along the Great Lakes. His company also was one of the largest employers in the State of New York.
        Conners and his wife visited Palm Beach in 1917 and thereafter became seasonal residents of the Palm Beaches until his death in 1929. He purchased 4,000 acres of undeveloped muck land east of Canal Point as part of Everglades land boom.
        There were no roads connecting the Glades agricultural communities to coastal Palm Beach County. Produce was barged from Lake Okeechobee to the City of West Palm Beach via the West Palm Beach Canal (today known as the C-51).
        Conners decided to build a highway extending along the east shore of Lake Okeechobee from Okeechobee City to Canal Point (today U.S. 98), then continuing southeast across Palm Beach County to the 20-Mile Bend where a rough unpaved road existed along the West Palm Beach Canal.
        To pay for the project, Conners successfully lobbied the Florida Legislature for the approval of his private toll road in less than three hours.

The Conners Toll Highway
        The 1924 edition of the Engineers News-Record (v. 93) reported, "A private toll road is being built through the Everglades and along the shore of Lake Okeechobee to afford a cross-state connection for lower Florida. Tampa and Miami are remote from each other simply for lack of a direct connection."
        Conners' vision was to upgrade the existing 19-miles of rutted unpaved road (the future S.R. 80) with a new 33-mile toll highway starting at 20-Mile Bend with Canal Point and Okeechobee City as its destinations. He established the "Conners Toll Highway Company" to manage the project.
        Conners hired engineer R.Y. Patterson to build the highway. Constructing a paved roadway through the Everglades marshes required the use of a dredge and temporary rail system to transport shell-rock fill for the 24-foot-wide road bed.
        To complete the project, Conners purchased of 72,000-acres of land along the east shore of Lake Okeechobee for $700,000. He cut his expenses by selling farm property along the new route. The total cost of the project surpassed  $1.8 million.
        Work on the highway began on Oct. 16, 1923. Conners hard-driving engineer completed the first leg of the highway to Okeechobee City in just eight months, in time for the July 4, 1924 grand opening celebration.
        In 1925, Conners received a contract from the State of Florida to continue building a paved highway extension from Okeechobee City to Sebring. This included the replacement of a ferry crossing with the construction of the "Hardee Memorial Bridge" spanning the Kissimmee River.
        For the first time, a direct cross-state roadway existed between Tampa and Southeast Florida. The estimated drive from West Palm Beach to Tampa, via the existing central Florida route, was reduced from 11 hours to four hours.
        Three toll booths were set up at the 20-Mile Bend and Canal Point in Palm Beach County and south of Okeechobee City. The fees were $1.50 per car and 50 cents per passenger on the state's private toll highway. For agricultural haulers, the toll averaged .03 cents per mile.
        It didn't take long for local pride in the new Glades-to-East Coast highway to turn to resentment over the issue of  tolls. An average of $2,000 per day filled  the private coffers of Fingy Conners. Commissioners began fielding complaints in both Palm Beach and Okeechobee counties. Local politicians lobbied their legislators to remove the tolls.
         However, Fingy Conners continued to profit from his toll highway until his death on Oct. 5, 1929. Following the stock market crash, the Conners Toll Highway Company sold its investment to the State of Florida for $660,000. The tolls were permanently removed on June 10, 1930.
        An official "Conners Toll Highway Historical Marker" was erected in 1986 by the Glades Historical Society, in cooperation with Florida Department of State, along U.S. 98, north of Third Street, in the community of Canal Point.
*NOTE: Read additional articles below or archived in Older Posts.
(c.) Davidsson. 2020.