Our Key West logo carries the Florida alligator above "Florida Territory — Est. 1845," the shared retro emblem of our Florida towns, drawn in worn black-and-white like an old woodcut crate label. The 1845 date marks Florida statehood, and the alligator is the through-line that links Key West to every other Florida town we make. The detail that makes this one Key West is the island itself — the Conch Republic at the end of the Overseas Highway, the Southernmost Point, and Mile Marker 0 where the road, and the country, finally run out.
For its first decades Key West got rich off disaster. Ships ran aground on the coral reef offshore with such regularity that salvaging the wrecks — "wrecking" — became a licensed, court-supervised industry, and the men who hauled cargo off the reefs made the town, by the 1830s, the wealthiest city per capita in the United States. Salt ponds, sponging, and sea-turtling followed. Those fortunes built the first grand houses of Old Town and gave Key West a worldly, seafaring character it never lost.
Why People Visit Key West
Key West rewards travelers who want history, water, and a freewheeling island culture rather than only a beach — the Southernmost Point, the Conch Republic, the literary and presidential houses, and a compact Old Town you can walk end to end. People come for the sunset at Mallory Square and the bars of Duval, for the Hemingway and Truman landmarks and the wrecking-era treasure, and for an easygoing day at Mile Marker 0 where the Overseas Highway, and the country, finally run out of road.
