Our Key Largo logo carries the Florida alligator above "Est. 1845," the year of Florida statehood — the shared retro emblem of our Florida places, drawn in worn black-and-white like an old citrus-crate label. The alligator is storm-tested toughness, the through-line that links Key Largo to every Florida town we make; what makes this one Key Largo is everything around it — the long green island, the reef, the renaming, and the road south.
The island's greatest treasure was underwater all along. Off Key Largo runs the Florida Reef — the only living coral barrier reef in the continental United States and among the largest reef systems on Earth. In 1960, after years of alarm at coral looting, the state created John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park — the first undersea park in the United States, named for the Miami editor who fought for it. Since 1965 the park's emblem has been the bronze Christ of the Abyss, standing in twenty-five feet of water off Key Largo Dry Rocks with arms raised toward the surface light.
Why People Visit Key Largo Florida
Key Largo is the Diving Capital of the World and the first of the Keys: the gateway island where the Overseas Highway begins, home of the first undersea park in the United States, the Christ of the Abyss beneath the reef, and the only living coral barrier reef in the continental U.S. — with the Everglades across the bay and Key West waiting down the road.
