'The Great Developer' Brought Civilization to a Swamp

Patterson’s challenge was to try to build a highway on soft muck over normally inaccessible route where foundation and drainage conditions were unknown. But he was up to it. For the east-west route, he excavated the canal bottom for wet marl. Rocks compressed muck to half its five- foot depth; on this he laid the 24-foot roadbed. For the lake shore route — much of it under water — he threw up a tight mix of sand and muck, then spread over it a deep layer of crusher-run rock, a high grade lime rock from the St. Lucie canal, and topped it with an oil application. To haul the rock from the canal, three-foot gauge rails were laid on the center of the roadbed, side tracks were put down every two miles, with telephones that could connect to eight locomotives. This enabled the dispatcher to keep operations running round-the- clock. This triple-frenetic pace saw the last rock dumped on June 23, 1924; the remarkable feat took only eight months.

Engineering News-Record declared the Conners Highway as one of the fourteen outstanding engineering achievements in North America for 1924. The area was jubilant — and so was Fingy. A celebration was in order and it duly took place in Okeechobee City the following July 4th. Airplanes performed stunts over West Palm Beach, dropping 30,000 leaflets publicizing the ribboncutting. Okeechobee City was festooned with decorations while cowboys, Indians and celebrities were joined by a caravan of 2,000 cars coming in on the new road. “The barriers of America’s last frontier . . . fell here today,” declared the Palm Beach Post, mixed with other statewide press accolades. For Fingy himself, it was his “happiest day.”

Needless to say, the road prospered with a daily average toll take of over $2,000. Fingy also cleaned up by selling lake shore and farm land — with sales of up to a million dollars a month the first year, following a nationwide promotional campaign. He would thereby handily survive the boom’s bust in 1926; most of his land would be sold by the time he died on Oct. 5, 1929.

The region prospered, too, and folks around the lake would long remember the wonderful “damn-fool thing” he did for them — at least they would every time they glanced at the comic strips and saw Fingy’s redoubtable alter ego — Jiggs himself.