Brick Highways of Orlando: The Fading of Highway 22
During the 1910s and 1920s brick roads connecting towns throughout Florida were all the rage. The few remaining today are fading fast.
One hundred years ago in 1916 brick highways were considered state-of-the-art. The now antiquated seeming paving material was a revolutionary advancement over the past methods, which were largely dirt or shell paths perhaps topped with a layer of pine needles. When Florida’s notorious afternoon showers came around, these thoroughfares turned into a muddy slough.
The brick paving party was kicked off in Orange County in 1913 when voters approved a $600,000 bond. The network of snaking dirt roads connecting Central Florida’s many small towns began to be converted to brick, largely by prison labor. The prominence of brick pavers lasted just two decades.
In the days before Highway 50, the main east-to-west route in the western Orlando area became known as State Road 22 or Winter Garden Road. Its path roughly followed State Road 438 going east from Oakland before taking a southward cut through Ocoee. From there it cut south and east, eventually meeting what is now Old Winter Garden Road through Orlovista until it finds Washington Street near the Paramore district in Orlando.
