Cuba was always close, and in 1868 the cigar industry crossed the Straits. Cuban makers brought their trade to Key West, and for a generation the island was a cigar capital, its factories turning out millions of hand-rolled cigars and its streets filling with a Cuban community whose San Carlos Institute still stands on Duval Street as "La Casa Cuba." A great fire in 1886 and years of labor trouble eventually sent much of the industry north to Ybor City in Tampa, but the Cuban-American heritage stayed rooted on the island.
For a time the island was the end of a railroad. Henry Flagler pushed his Florida East Coast Railway across open water from key to key, and in 1912 "Flagler's Folly" reached Key West — an engineering marvel that linked the island to the mainland for the first time. The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, a Category 5 storm, destroyed the line and took hundreds of lives, many of them World War I veterans working in the Keys. The roadbed was rebuilt for cars, the Overseas Highway opened in 1938, and U.S. 1 now runs the length of the Keys and ends here, at Mile Marker 0.
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.
