Key West, Florida

From the top of the Keys at Key Largo through Marathon, Islamorada, Big Pine Key and into Key West, the diversions are as diverse as those who seek them. Pet a shark, sit in the sun, roar across the waters, visit mangrove swamps, swim in the ocean, swim with a dolphin, drink like a fish, eat like a trencherman, visit old churches, scuba dive, shop 'til you drop, revel in resort amenities, or romance by candlelight.

Outdoor Activities

Whether you choose to tour on a glass-bottomed boat or snorkel or scuba tank, an underwater world of amazing beauty awaits in John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, one of the best diving sites in the world and home to 78 square miles of coral reefs. Hiking trails and a visitor's center with a floor-to-ceiling aquarium are among the other diversions of this not-to-be-missed park.

At the Theater of the Seas, you can swim with dolphins, sea lions or stingrays or become a trainer for a day, putting creatures of the sea through their paces. In the Middle Keys, the Dolphin Research Center offers another opportunity for swimming with dolphins.

At the Windley Key Fossil Reef State Geologic Site on Windley Key, you can see what a coral reef looks like when it's left high and dry, and visit middens left behind by the earliest Native American residents of the keys, who clearly knew a good thing when they saw it. Looe Key Reef is home to a beautiful coral reef, and Bahia Honda State Park offers sand dunes, waters as clear as a teardrop, and views that go on forever.

For an offshore adventure, explore Indian Key State Historic Site, ferrying over on the twice-daily ferry or paddling your own canoe—well, kayak—to the island, where you will learn of murder and mayhem on this 10.5-acre islet. Or try a visit to the 280-acre Lignumvitae Key State Botanical Site, a hardwood forest that was the home and gardens of a millionaire who put it all together in 1919 in such style that the site is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Museums

The Keys has a long and fascinating history and you can learn more about it at the many museums scattered amongst the islands. The Custom House Museum provides a detailed history of Key West's history. Fort East Martello Museum and Gallery is dedicated to Key West historical artifacts. The museum also has exhibits dealing with the daily life for earlier Key West inhabitants.

If you would like to know about specific portions of the island history, then Key West Shipwreck Historeum is the place to go. At the museum, you learn about how some islanders would dive for shipwrecked goods. Learn about the ill-fated Henry Flagler's railroad at Flagler Station Over-Sea Railway Historeum. If you want to know more about how the Bahamians influenced the Key West culture, the Lofton B. Sands African-Bahamian Museum provides fascinating artifacts, such as letters and clothing.

Theaters

If you would like to enjoy the theater while in the Keys you have plenty of options. The historical Waterfront Playhouse has a modest theater and shows quirky and well-known productions, including Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Best Man. Another small theater that produces professional productions is Red Barn Theater. If you are in Marathon, the Marathon Community Theater produces small productions featuring local talent.

Festivals & Street Fairs

Depending on when you go to Key West, there are annual festivals and fairs that shouldn't be missed. The German Oktoberfest has reached Sumerland Key that holds a parade, live music and of course plenty to drink and eat. If you come in December enjoy the beautiful and often humorous Key West Lighted Boat Parade. Key West in transformed into a pirates heaven for a day during Pirates In Paradise. In July the Hemingway Days Festival can't be beat.

One of the best annual events is the Conch Republic Independence Celebration. The festival is a ten day celebration of when the Florida Keys briefly seceded from the United States. The United States Border Patrol was treating the Keys unfairly and in protest the Keys seceded and humorously declared “war.” After a minute and without any prompting the Keys surrendered and jokingly asked for foreign aid. The festival celebrates how the Border Patrol stopped the unfair treatment and the celebration features drag races, music concerts, a parade, and a “battle” against the US Border Patrol.

Calusa Indians and other tribes found their way to these islands, recognizing them as hunting grounds, both on land and in the warm seas where shellfish, turtles and marine life of all kinds thrive. Generations later, the Spaniards, who discovered and settled most of the Florida, arrived. Most notable was adventurer Ponce de Leon, who first set eyes on the Keys on May 15, 1513. He and his sailors dubbed the islands Los Martires, the martyrs, in salute to the rocks that, from a distance, looked like suffering men.

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!