Courtney Campbell Causeway — Tampa, Florida

The Courtney Campbell Causeway carries State Road 60 across Old Tampa Bay between Tampa in Hillsborough County and Clearwater in Pinellas County. A 2019 road history on Gribblenation describes it as carrying FL 60 west from Rocky Point in Tampa over Old Tampa Bay to Clearwater. It began life in 1934 as a private toll road called the Davis Causeway and has carried its current name since 1948.

On the Tampa end, the causeway is tied to two public places: the Rocky Point area and Ben T. Davis Beach, a City of Tampa beach named for the man who built the original road. The causeway is also the subject of current Florida Department of Transportation work, including a resurfacing project on the Tampa end that began in September 2026.

The road was a private venture. Patch reported in 2013 that work started on the Davis Causeway in 1927 and that the toll road, built by Capt. Ben T. Davis as a more direct route between Clearwater and Tampa, was completed in 1934. Gribblenation adds that the causeway opened in January 1934 with a 25-cent toll, cost $900,000 to build and was the longest structure of its kind at the time of its completion.

The Davis Causeway stayed in private hands for its first decade. Gribblenation notes that it appears on a 1939 Florida state road map as a privately held toll road. In 1944 the Federal Public Works Administration and the Florida State Road Department bought the causeway for $1,085,000. The federal agency then turned its share over to the State Road Department, which took over maintenance and removed the toll. In the 1945 state road renumbering, the Tampa to Clearwater crossing was assigned State Road 60.

The 1948 renaming honored a Pinellas County figure who had pushed for repairs. Patch reports that the causeway was in serious disrepair when the state moved to pay for improvements in 1948, an effort spearheaded by Courtney W. Campbell, for whom the roadway was then named. Campbell, a Clearwater Beach resident originally from Chillicothe, Missouri, started a law practice in Tampa in 1923 and served on the Florida Road Board from 1942 to 1947, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress as cited by Patch.

Campbell later served one term in the U.S. House, from 1953 to 1955. Before politics, Patch notes, he worked in Tampa as a lawyer and also as a developer, banker and citrus grower. He also envisioned the link between Pinellas and Manatee counties that became the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, first built in 1954. Patch reports that the park space along the Courtney Campbell Causeway was developed at his urging in the late 1940s during his time on the State Road Board, and that he was part of a group that established what became Fort De Soto and Phillippe parks in Pinellas County.

The new name was not universally welcomed on the Tampa side of the bay. According to Patch, the naming was controversial, and hundreds of Hillsborough residents signed a petition asking for a marker honoring Ben T. Davis to be placed along the road. Today the Davis name survives at the Tampa end of the causeway in Ben T. Davis Beach.

Patch traces a series of repairs and rebuilds after the state takeover. The bridge was closed for 10 days in 1971 for repairs, after which a 6,000-pound weight limit was placed on vehicles. In 1972 a $5.4 million project built a new parkway. In 2005 the road was designated a scenic highway, and Gribblenation notes that FL 60 becomes a signed Scenic Highway approaching the Pinellas County line.

A trail followed. Patch reported in 2013 that work began in the summer of 2012 on a $14.6 million pedestrian and bicycle pathway along the south side of the causeway, beside the eastbound lanes. The segment was designed as a 12-foot-wide path with a 45-foot-tall bridge over Old Tampa Bay and a length of 3.9 miles, with completion expected in September 2013 according to FDOT. Clearwater city leaders passed a resolution supporting the name Courtney Campbell Trail.

The approach from Tampa has changed as well. Gribblenation reports that the original access to the causeway ran along Columbus Drive from Dale Mabry Highway, and that most of that road west of Dale Mabry has been razed for the expansion of Tampa International Airport. Today FL 60 leaves Interstate 275 as a short freeway past the airport and the south end of the Veterans Expressway.

Ben T. Davis Beach sits on the causeway just west of Rocky Point. The City of Tampa lists it at 7740 W Courtney Campbell Causeway, with metered parking at $2.50 an hour. It is one of four beaches the city manages along the shores of Tampa Bay, along with Picnic Island, Cypress Point and Davis Islands, all open from sunrise to sunset. Gribblenation describes the beach name as a call back to the original builder of the causeway, the same Ben T. Davis whose company dredged the 1934 road.

Traffic on the causeway is heavy. Patch reported in 2013 that more than 50,000 drivers used the Courtney Campbell Causeway every day, some of them commuters from South Tampa. Gribblenation also observes that raised sections of the causeway bridge allow boats to pass underneath between the Tampa and Clearwater shores.

FDOT is working on the Tampa end of the causeway in 2026. The department's SR 60 repaving project covers 1.788 miles from west of the Ben T. Davis Beach entrance to east of Bayport Drive in Tampa. Construction started on September 24, 2026, at a cost of $7.1 million, with completion estimated for fall 2027. Along with the main lanes, the work includes frontage roads and ramps on both sides of SR 60, signage and pavement markings, signals, lighting, pedestrian features and guardrail replacement, with lane closures scheduled at night. FDOT lists Preferred Materials, Inc. as the contractor and states that access to driveways, sidewalks and side streets along this stretch of SR 60 in Tampa is to be maintained during the work.

A longer-range study covers the whole crossing. FDOT's SR 60 and Courtney Campbell Causeway Project Development and Environment study spans 9.5 miles from CR 611 (McMullen Booth Road) in Pinellas County to west of SR 589, the Veterans Expressway, in Hillsborough County. Its stated purpose is to provide additional capacity, bicycle and pedestrian improvements, and hardening improvements along the corridor between Tampa and Clearwater.