Blackburn Point Bridge

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001. 9 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1943.

From the record

“The Blackburn Point Swing Bridge is a swing bridge near Osprey, Florida, United States built over the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. The bridge and another bridge connect Casey Key to the Florida mainland.”
Wikipedia article Blackburn Point Swing Bridge, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 103 National Register listings published here for Sarasota County · listed in 2001 · category: Structure.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
Address. Blackburn Point Rd. at Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, Osprey, 34229
When was it listed? March 2001
Category. structure
Census division. Osprey-Laurel-Nokomis
National Register reference number. 01000290 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Then and now

1943 to 1988

The ground this property stands on, surveyed 45 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet covering Blackburn Point Bridge, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet covering Blackburn Point Bridge, surveyed 1943

Fires near this property

82 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 82 fires within 5 miles of Blackburn Point Bridge between 1992 and 2020, burning about 645 acres in total. 33 started naturally. 1 was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Natural	33
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	18
Equipment and vehicle use	8
Debris and open burning	7
Recreation and ceremony	5
Misuse of fire by a minor	4
Railroad operations and maintenance	4
Arson/incendiarism	1
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1
Smoking	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
6 September 2001	Natural	under an acre	Florida Forest Service	not named
22 September 2003	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Florida Forest Service	2003-15-1104
11 September 1998	Natural	1.0 acres	Florida Forest Service	not named
9 August 2020	Natural	7.0 acres	Florida Forest Service	RANCH RD 2 (58)
6 August 2002	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2.0 acres	Florida Forest Service	not named
22 August 2005	Natural	2.0 acres	Florida Forest Service	58-IBIS PASTURE FIRE-0414
12 August 2005	Natural	1.0 acres	Florida Forest Service	2005-15-0401
9 July 2002	Natural	5.0 acres	Florida Forest Service	not named

Every fire recorded in Sarasota County

Mines and quarries near this property

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Blackburn Point Bridge: 1 unknown. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Dot Sarasota - Cow Pen Slough Mine	Sand	Unknown	Sand

Every working recorded in Sarasota County

Storms near this property

6 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Osprey, the town this property stands in, in 6 storm reports between 1994 and 2020: 4 thunderstorm wind, 1 hail, 1 flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
June 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Osprey	$500,000	Thunderstorm winds did $100,000 damage mostly to the roof of a restaurant and to covers on adjacent marina.
March 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Osprey	$150,000	Power lines were reported down at Tamiami Trail and MacEwen Drive in Osprey. Additionally, a member of the public reported that in a nearby neighborhood, The Oaks, 3 pool cages were destroyed, aluminum poles holding nets protecting tennis courts from a golf course were ripped out of the ground, a large palm tree was uprooted, and several other homes sustained minor unspecified damage. The damage appeared to follow a narrow path, and may have been caused by a gustnado.
July 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Osprey	$50,000	Broadcast media reported straight line winds removed a section of roofing from a shopping center on US 41 and Holland Street in Osprey. As a result of the roof damage, rain water got into the building and caused further damage.
March 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Osprey	$25,000	Thunderstorm winds downed a large tree, power lines and several large tree limbs along South Creek Drive in Osprey. A few pool cages, metal facia and roof shingles were also damaged by the thunderstorm winds in Osprey.
June 2020	Flood	Osprey	-	River overflowing with yard flooding.
March 1998	Hail	Osprey	-	Nickel sized hail was reported on U.S. Highway 41 six miles north of Osprey.

Every storm recorded in Sarasota County

Maps showing this location

9 surveys

United States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.

1943 USGS Laurel quadrangle1:24000
1944 USGS Laurel quadrangle1:31680
1956 USGS Tampa quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1959 USGS Tampa quadrangle1:250000
1960 USGS Tampa quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1972 USGS Tampa quadrangle1:250000
1973 USGS Laurel quadrangle1:24000 - 3 printings
1979 USGS Sarasota quadrangle1:100000
1988 USGS St Petersburg quadrangle1:250000

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Lucienne Nielsen House	0.4 miles	2007
Waters and Elsa Burrows Historic District	1.5 miles	2012
Osprey School	1.5 miles	1994
Nokomis Beach Pavilion	4.0 miles	2013
Johnson Chapel Missionary Baptist Church	4.4 miles	1997
Sanderling Beach Club	4.8 miles	1994

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 01000290 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Sarasota County	All 103 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.