By Jake Bittle
Thousands of cars trundle down its lanes every day. Almost anyone who lives in the area can recognize its multicolored strip malls and wide gray berth instantly. But, however busy Dale Mabry Highway is, a majority of Lutz residents don’t know who Dale Mabry actually was.
Cynthia Lamb, a resident of Heritage Harbor, has lived in the Tampa area for 12 years, and says she uses the highway at least four times a day. “All I know is he was an aviator,” Lamb said when asked what she knew about the man behind the road.
Another resident of Lutz, Beth Robinson, is not familiar with the story of Dale Mabry. Robinson said that she knows very little to nothing at all about the street’s history. A Lutz resident since 1984, she uses Dale Mabry, “Every day, several times a day.”
So just who was Dale Mabry?
The highway’s namesake was a U.S. Army captain from Florida born in 1891. Mabry also piloted airships for the Army. He was on a test flight for a recently constructed army dirigible, the Roma, on Feb. 21, 1922. While flying above Norfolk, Va., the craft lost control and crashed into electrical wires, bursting into flames, according to an old Virginia newspaper called the Langley Field Times. Mabry was killed, along with 33 other people. Eight more were injured, and only three escaped unscathed.
The reason behind the crash is still not certain, but it is believed that the box rudder system (a mechanism that allowed the airship to move sharply) encountered some severe problems. The Roma was the last hydrogen-using aircraft that the Army used; every airship from then on was powered by helium. The failure of the Roma was the largest aeronautical disaster in the history of America up to that date.
The highway was named in memoriam of Capt. Mabry when it opened in 1943 during World War II. The original purpose of the road was to serve as a connector between MacDill Air Force Base in the south and Drew Field in the north. Years after World War II ended, Drew Field would go on to grow into what is now known as Tampa International Airport. Years later, Dale Mabry Highway was extended until it stretched to its current northern end point at US 41 in Pasco County, according to the Florida Department of Transportation.
Dale Mabry features all the typical characteristics of a road set in an area of suburban retail sprawl. It has traffic lights hung on wires rather than the more advanced metal mast method, exposed drainage, and in most sections no sidewalks. For these reasons, a group of New Urbanists nominated Dale Mabry Highway as an honorable mention in a selection of “The Worst Streets in North America.” New Urbanism is a movement towards people-friendly streets and walkable neighborhoods.
In addition to the highway, Dale Mabry Municipal Airport in Tallahassee (the first built in the city) and Dale Mabry Elementary School in nearby Tampa are also named to honor the demise of Capt. Mabry.
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