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USDUNPS NRHP Registration Form Jungle Trail Indian River County, Florida Page 11 NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES CONTINUATION SHEET Section 8 Page 5 (Narrative Summary of Significance, Continued) Surveys in 1924 by the St. Lucie County engineer resulted in adjustments to the Orchid-Narrows Road, including shifting one segment to the east to follow the eastern boundary of the Deerfield Groves Company. The adjustment would accommodate plans for the expansion of the groves. The revised alignment appeared on the first official Indian River County map issued in 1926(Leisher 1926). Portions of the original Orchid-Narrows Road were eliminated with these adjustments and the segment north of Michael Creek was absorbed back into the Deerfield Groves Company. The abandoned road segment is shown on the 1949 U.S.G.S. Sebastian quadrangle map and on the Department of Transportation's right-of-way map, circa 1958-1963. Marion Hamilton, a long-time resident of the John's Island area, recounts working on construction of the Jungle Trail as a youth: When I was 16, after 1 left school, I did road work on Jungle Trail. We were filling in the dirt road which went from Wabasso to Vero Beach along the river front. It was the only way to get to Vero from the island before the Winter Beach bridge was built. A.B. Michael furnished the truck to haul the dirt from his land. St. Lucie County paid our wages. We earned about$3.50 per day. When Indian River County was formed [1925], work on the road stopped while the county was organizing. Later, it was extended from Wabasso to Sebastian Inlet. Parts of the south part were given away to people who wanted to build there [Hamilton 1989:4A]. By 1924, Quay was renamed Winter Beach and a taxing district was formed to raise funds for a wooden bridge to connect the mainland and the barrier island (Figure 2)(Stanbridge 1990). The result was a narrow, low bridge crossing from the mainland to Hole in the Wall Island, then across the tip of Pine Island. From Pine Island the bridge supported a swing span to allow boat traffic at the government cut channel. The bridge tender's house was located on the south side of the road on the barrier island, with a small tollhouse on the north side. The Winter Beach Bridge Road intersected with the barrier island road south of the old settlement of Enos. In 1946 the bridge was partially destroyed by fire and in 1947 the remaining ruins were demolished. In June 1925, the Wabasso Bridge Taxing District prepared to build a bridge in the area of the Wabasso docks (St. Lucie County Commission 1925; Stanbridge 1990). This bridge would provide a shorter route to the mainland for the increased citrus production at Orchid. The Wabasso Bridge Road on the mainland would connect directly to the Deerfield Groves Packing Houses at the Florida East Coast Railway tracks in Wabasso. On the barrier island, the Wabasso Road (now County Road 510)would end at a county beach park. In the same year, a new county was created from northern St. Lucie County, and all roads and bridge districts were transferred to Indian River County. The 1925 sectional map of Indian River County prepared by Carter& Damerow Engineers shows completed portions of the island road, labeled"county road;"the proposed alignment in Section 15, which would bring the road through the wetlands bordering the Indian River; the proposed Winter Beach Bridge connecting to State Road 510 (the old Orchid-Narrows Road); and the proposed alignment in Section 26 (to the south of State Road 510)(Figure 3). A 1926 map, prepared by the Indian River County engineer and based on the Carter& Damerow map shows the same configuration (Figure 4). The 1928 county map shows the barrier island road connected to three bridges linked to major highways on the mainland, including Old Dixie Highway, the Fellsmere-Tampa Cross Road (State Road 170), and the Atlantic-Gulf Cross Road (State Road 30, now designated State Road 60) (Figure 5). A newspaper account of 1928 indicates that an Indian shell mound provided fill for the island road north of Deerfield Groves, noting that"an extensive shell mound found by the crew of workmen clearing the right-of-way for the county road northward from the Wabasso Bridge on the peninsula will afford splendid material for surfacing the new road (Anonymous 1978)." Rouse(1951:210, 219-220)confirms that many of the shell middens and mounds on the barrier island were mined for road fill.