Marathon, A wide spot on the "Highway that went to Sea", Also known as U.S Highway 1 and located in the fabulous Florida keys, had very few inhabitants at the end of the world.
Marathon had been a thriving little town before the labor day hurricane of 1939. It washed out the railroad bridges and tracks. The residents of Monroe county pledged their money due to them from the gasoline taxes and completed the highway from Miami to Key West. This was a toll road and fees received for toll would eventually pay off the mortgage.
Then war was declared, and since Marathon depended on the tourist and the sport fisherman for its livelihood, business men were very concerned about the situation. However, the economic situation improved, immediately after declaration of war.The Navy started laying the water pie line from Florida City to Key West. The telephone company expanded its facilities and the rural electrification plant was enlarged. The Marines moved into Marathon to protect the bridges, and not an empty room could be found. All vehicular traffic supplying the Naval air base at Boca Chica and the Naval base in Key West had to pass thru Marathon.
Residents of Marathon maintained a "Round the clock" sky watch from the top of a tower that was built atop a high water tank in the rear of Marathon Sundry Store. At that time they were called "Plane Spotters" and a direct wire was connected with the Coast Guard to facilitate reporting unidentified planes.
Later a Coast Guard Base was established and an air field two miles long was built and used as a training field in connection with the Boca Chica air field.
After World War II, many men who had been stationed in Marathon came back, married the girls they had met while in the service and are now making their homes here.
Since then Marathon has grown by leaps and bounds, and its population has increased ten-fold.
In September of 1960 Marathon was again visited by a hurricane. This one was named "Donna". Eighty percent of the buildings were either completely destroyed or very badly damaged. There were no causalities and only a few minor accidents. In less than four months time, the town was rebuilt and very few evidences of the storm can be seen.
We now have a first call post office, a bank which has more then doubled its deposits in three years and now is doubling its floor place. Eight churches, three schools, a convention hall that seats six hundred people, two golf courses, a weekly newspaper, a movie theater, bowling alley, thirty large motels, ten filling stations,ten trailer parks, a dry cleaning establishment, four laundries, three furniture stores, four large groceries, two dentists, eight doctors, ten real estate brokers, five men and women ready to wear, four radio and TV repair shops and sales,five lawyers, two architects, tow surveyors, eight large restaurants and night clubs, yacht club and country club, three drug stores, cement mix plant, building supply companies, construction companies, wholesale shrimp and fish houses and many others too numerous to mention.
On March 25th the ground was broken for a thirty-five bed hospital to cost six hundred thousand dollars. It is expected to be ready to open early in 1962.
We also have a volunteer fire department that is rated third in the state, as well as a volunteer ambulance and rescue corps with members in call twenty four hours a day.
This is Marathon.
