Photos from Sanderson, Florida

Photo credits: Justin Cozart, Costa Loannidis, me

I was in Sanderson in 2003, playing hooky from a conference I had in Jacksonville. Here's one of the exit signs from I-10:

Cozart, summer 2003

(Florida originally numbered their interstate exits sequentially, but there's been so much new development in the state that in 2001 they finally converted to numbering their exits corresponding to mile markers [like most other states]. But for the sake of people following old maps, they also mark the old exit numbers - that's what the "Old 46" sign means.)

Sanderson is a very small town - population 700. Not much to photograph; unfortunately the post office was a modern (and uninteresting) building:

me, Oct. 2003

That's coming into town on eastbound US 90. Below is the sign for westbound traffic:

me, Oct. 2003

Just ahead from there is an historical marker, the text for which I photographed:

me, Oct. 2003

The photo below is looking south on Baker county road 127. Note the white building on the far side of the tracks: that's the general store - more about it later. I took this photo just before I had to stop for a slow-moving train...

me, Oct. 2003

...I could've made it across the tracks easily, but the guy in front of me stopped before the gates even came down! I wondered if maybe he was on the job and wasn't in a hurry to get back to the office. Or maybe you just do things like that in a slower-paced small town...

Anyway, the reason I took that photo is because of the old blue US 90 sign. Florida used to further differentiate their US highways with colored shields, and there are still a few remnants around. To learn more about this, please visit Robert Droz' Florida in Kodachrome page.

I can't remember exactly what the lighting conditions were, but for some reason I felt compelled to use a foreground flash for that shot. It illustrates why you should try to avoid flashes when shooting highway signs. But amazingly, I found on the web another photo of this same sign assembly:

Loannidis, summer 2003

Straight ahead about a mile on CR 229 is an interchange with I-10 (the one photographed above). Right (west) on US 90 also has an interchange in about 2 miles; eastbound US 90 parallels I-10 all the way into Jax. Here's a highway mileage sign for Sanderson:

Loannidis, summer 2003

That's quite old; for years the standard has been white lettering on green signs.

Sanderson may be a small town, but there are people with ties to the community who have contacted me regarding this webpage. Someone who grew up there informed me that the "good" (old) post office building is still standing, one block west of the 229/90 sign shown above. Also, the general store mentioned above used to belong to her great-grandmother! From what I observed, it's still the unofficial gathering place (or, more accurately, it's the only place where I noticed any activity whatsoever!)

Sanderson FL is about 50 miles west of the east end of US 90. Oddly, about 1600 miles west of this point, there is also a Sanderson in Texas. Get this: it's also on US 90, and it's only about 185 miles east of the highway's west end. Some of my family passed through there in 2003, and picked up a brochure with some really cool artwork:

Another family member was there in 2005, and picked up this bumper sticker:

You can view more artwork - as well as some photos from Sanderson TX - on my US 285 page.

Page created 05 November 2003; last updated 01 December 2005.