In the 1920's, construction of the first highway from Tampa to Miami, the Tamiami Trail, relied on specialized walking dredges that dug canals providing rock fill for the roadbed and drainage for the finished road. Built in Bay City, Michigan, these machines could move across rough, swampy, slippery ground and among close-cut stumps where other excavators could scarcely work, following drilling and blasting rigs and averaging 80 feet in a 10 hour shift. Portable bunk houses known as Camp on Wheels moved close behind the workers, supplying food and shelter, while laborers endured swarms of bugs with small fans made from saw palmetto fronds, slept under individual mosquito nets, and coped with harsh, wet conditions that caused painful foot irritations, often wearing knee-high lacing leather boots without socks so their feet would dry faster. Despite the hard work and extreme climate, salaries ranged from only $75.00 to $150.00 a month. After land was cleared, holes were drilled and packed with dynamite to blast limestone into chunks small enough for the dredges to lift, and by the fall of 1926 Barron Collier had spent more than one million dollars on the Tamiami Trail but still had 31 miles remaining, requiring 2,584,000 sticks of dynamite to complete.