Roads, Rivers and Rails
Water
Before rail lines, the easiest way on travel into the interior of Florida Peninsula was by water. Steamships plied the navigable waters of Central Florida transporting people and goods. Although the St. John's River from Jacksonville to Sanford was the main transportation artery, boats also plied other Central Florida lakes, rivers and streams. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries canals were dredged to link lakes and streams, creating beautiful chains of lakes such as those found in Winter Park and Maitland. Many times canals and channels simply widened already existing connections between bodies of water.
