By 1925 Barron Collier's Florida holdings surpassed the 1 million acre mark. Other events that year, minor by comparison, included Collier buying the old Hotel Punta Gorda; starting a bus service that was eventually sold to Trailways; and the road from Punta Gorda to Fort Myers being paved^4* - all leading up to another Collier-led event culminating on April 25, 1928, and taking place off the island. It's the official ceremony marking the opening of the Tamiami Trail. An accomplishment that looked impossible a few years back. Not long after county money ran short, Barron Collier agreed to finish the highway that its supporters were hoping would go from Tampa to Miami. It was in 1923 that prospects of getting the road to go beyond the Everglades had dimmed. Until Barron Collier stepped in, it was not just the lack of money but also manpower that was getting the best of the endeavor. So this day is significant in that it marks a new beginning and hopefully an end to the horror stories from people who had to change flat tires a dozen times just to get between Venice and Englewood, or the motorists mired in the mud and stuck there until some Good Samaritan came along with a plank to set them free. Or coming upon a car with the wheel off the axle and knowing you too are doomed to get stuck if you dare to get around it. All that comes to an end with the official opening of the Tamiami Trail today - not to mention all the tarpon fishermen and new tourists who will happily not have to take the old muddy road now happily less traveled.

4* Other footnotes during that period include, a) 1925, the Scopes Monkey Trial began in Tennessee, b) 1926, Punta Gorda was the spring training site for the Baltimore Orioles, c) 1926, five guide stilt-houses were blown away by a hurricane, d) 1927, the first public demonstration of television was given - certainly a clue to the ultimate end to the slow-news-day. e) For most of 1926 The Marx Brothers starred in an Irving Berlin, George S. Kaufman Broadway musical comedy about the Florida Land Boom.