Transformative Transportation: The Early Twentieth-Century Railroad on the Southwest Florida Frontier

The Venice Train Depot is a case study for an archaeology of transportation, an examination of new places and more rapid travels over the modern period. The goal of this approach is to capture the dynamics of landscapes, agency, and movement. There have been productive discussions of transportation networks and national integration; methodological discussions have noted the need to account of the movement of things in the analysis of the material record. The case study exposes the dynamics of change for the Florida frontier in the twentieth century focused on the construction of a railroad line and station in Venice, Florida.