When the report was released in 1969, the report began by stating: "Development of the proposed jetport and its attendant facilities will lead to land drainage and development for agriculture, transportation, and services in the Big Cypress Swamp which will inexorably destroy the south Florida ecosystem and thus the Everglades National Park."Īlarmed by what the research suggested and the threat to an end of their traditional way of life, a coalition of hunters, conservationists and citizen activists, including, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and the newly formed Friends of the Everglades, pressured the port authority to find another location for the jetport. Also known as the Leopold-Marshall Report. Five times larger than JFK International Airport, it was to be the largest airport in the world.Įnvironmental Impact Report of the Big Cypress Swamp. There would also be a 1,000-foot-wide corridor linking the airport to both coasts consisting of a new interstate highway and monorail high-speed mass transit system. As a result, Dade County Port Authority purchased 39 square miles of remote swamp land 48 miles away from Marco Island (and just six miles north of the Everglades National Park boundary).Īs work began in 1968, the ambitious Everglades Jetport was intended to have six runways.
However, aeronautical engineers understood that aircraft breaking the sound barrier over populated areas would not be tolerated, although supersonic airliners were considered the way of the future. Spurred by increasing growth and the rapidly expanding population of South Florida in the 1960s, the state wanted to build a jetport that would support the growing community through futuristic aspirations of aircraft capable of carrying up to 1,000 passengers each, and capable of flying coast-to-coast in supersonic time. "The future development of Marco Island received a tremendous boost recently with the start of construction of a mammoth jetport, the biggest ever, anywhere just 48 miles away."
Early advertising for the planned jetport.
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