Martin Grade Scenic Highway

Martin Grade Scenic Highway (County Road 714), known to the locals simply as “The Grade,” is a beautiful road that time seems to have forgotten. The Grade stands proudly as the western accessway to Martin County, lined with cabbage palms, maples and stately oaks that arch above the roadway to form a lush canopy over much of the corridor. The light filtering through this tunnel of trees is constantly changing with the time of day and weather, so that every drive is a dramatic new adventure. This route began as a logging trail. In the early 1900s it was also used for cattle drives by area cowboys and soon was bordered by citrus groves and cattle ranches. Over the years it has become home to generations of farmers, ranchers and others who enjoy the rural lifestyle. With Lake Okeechobee is to the west, the City of Stuart to the east, and Allapattah Flats Wildlife Management Area to the south, this area is a remnant of the impenetrable sloughs and wet prairies that once made up the Alpatiokee Swamp in the northern Everglades.