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Top Trips for Key West, FL See all Trips»
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In 1820, the island was bought from the Spanish for $2,000, quite a substantial sum in those days, and the purchaser was John Simonton, an Alabama businessman, whose name and descendants live on here and remain a powerful influence in the area.
With a long history of looting and pillaging outlaws, pirates were eventually driven out and the island's mixed population of English Bahamians, Southerners and transplanted northerners rose to 2,700, many of them happily engaged salvaging the cargoes of wreaked ships.
In the 1850s, however, a lighthouse was built, putting a bit of a damper on the wrecking business, and the town's industry began to change. A devastating fire destroyed the town in 1859. However, about the same time, cigar makers, fleeing war in Cuba, arrived in Key West, where they established a thriving industry. Key West's port was a hot spot, too, and by the 1880s, the city was said to be the wealthiest in the nation.
In the 1800s and 1900s, farmers found success raising pineapples on large plantations that spread across the Upper Keys. Sugarloaf, a kind of pineapple, is now the name of one Key and another is named Plantation Key. A canning plant in Key West provided pineapples to most of eastern North America in the early 1900s.
Some oranges and grapefruit were, and still are, grown, along with the exotic tamarind and breadfruit. But it was the tiny, yellow key lime that was to capture the attention of growers and become an icon of the keys.
Fishing has been a mainstay of Keys success from the earliest Indian inhabitants to today's charter and shrimp boats, the later still netting the little crustaceans so successfully that shrimp are known here as "pink gold."
As the centuries rolled by, railroad entrepreneur Henry Morrison Flagler heard about this place, figured it would have allure for winter-weary Northern travelers, and that it would make a good jumping-off place linking his Florida East Coast railroad to ships sailing to Cuba. In 1912, his Railroad that Went to Sea steamed into Key West on tracks that hopped from island to island, passing over the shallow seas. If you would like to learn more visit Flagler Station Over-sea Railway Historeum.
But then decline set in. Cigar makers departed for Tampa; the sponge industry declined. Enterprising entrepreneurs took a look at the possibilities of tourism and got things under way, but a disastrous hurricane in 1935 blew away the railroad and killed hundreds. While the railroad dubbed 'Flagler's Folly' did not survive, the roadbed on which it was set did, and went on to become the Overseas Highway—the Highway that Goes to Sea. This two-lane roadway streaks across more than 100 miles from Miami to Key West, and has become to Keys tourism what peanut butter is to jelly.
Although dampened by World War II, tourism took off in the Keys after the war and has never looked back, thriving beyond the wildest dreams of those early Conchs. Conchs (pronounced 'konks'), by the way, is a reference to the big, pink-lined shells that you put to your ear to hear the ocean's roar. Islanders born here are the only ones who can really call themselves conchs, but those who have lived here more than seven years qualify to be called 'freshwater conchs', and those who visit often enough can earn the name visitor, replacing tourist. Now there's a reason to stay a while!
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