50 Fun Facts About Key West

Key West holds which geographic distinction among cities in the contiguous United States?

It sits about 130 miles southwest of Miami and roughly 95 miles north of Cuba at the end of the Florida Keys.

Key West's original Spanish name, Cayo Hueso, literally means what?

Legend says the island was littered with the bones of earlier native inhabitants who used it as a communal graveyard.

Key West is the county seat of which Florida county?

The county covers most of the Florida Keys and part of the Everglades; the city's motto is 'One Human Family'.

Which famous roadway has its southern terminus in Key West?

Mile-marker numbering on the Overseas Highway starts at 0 in Key West and runs up to 106 at Key Largo.

What is Key West's main commercial street, running from the Gulf to the Atlantic?

It is only 14 blocks long, which makes 'walking the Duval crawl' from one body of water to the other a local ritual.

Which Spanish conquistador led the first recorded European expedition past Key West, in 1513?

No settlement followed; the island passed between Spanish and British control for three centuries with almost no permanent residents.

Before selling Key West to John Simonton in 1821, to whom had Juan Pablo Salas already sold it for a sloop?

General John Geddes lost the dispute; Simonton had friends in Washington and secured clear title.

When Lt. Matthew Perry planted the U.S. flag on Key West in 1822, what new name did he give it?

The name honoured Navy Secretary Smith Thompson; the harbour became Port Rodgers. Neither name stuck.

Sitting on the deep lane between the Atlantic and the Gulf, the 19th-century island was the 'Gibraltar of the' what?

That strategic value is why the U.S. Navy has kept a base there ever since.

By the 1830s, which industry made Key West the wealthiest US city per capita?

Ships kept piling onto the reef, and salvage courts in Key West awarded the wreckers a share of every cargo saved.

Which side held Key West throughout the American Civil War, even though Florida seceded?

Fort Zachary Taylor and the naval base kept it in federal hands, and it became a haven for escaped enslaved people.

Refugees from Cuba's Ten Years' War made Key West a major producer of what in the late 1800s?

The Great Fire of 1886 destroyed 18 factories, and many owners decamped to Ybor City in Tampa instead of rebuilding.

Which U.S. warship sailed from Key West to Havana in 1898, where it blew up?

Crewmen are buried in Key West and the Navy's inquiry into the blast was held at the Key West Customs House.

The Overseas Railroad that reached Key West in 1912 extended which tycoon's railway?

Critics called it 'Flagler's Folly'; the Standard Oil co-founder rode the first train into town himself, aged 82.

Which airline, founded in Key West in 1926 to fly passengers to Havana, grew into America's flag carrier?

Within a year it held the U.S. Post Office contract for the Key West–Havana mail route.

The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane wrecked the Overseas Railroad. What replaced it?

The state bought the roadbed and bridges for $640,000, and old rails were painted white and reused as guardrails.

Which US president spent 175 days at the Key West 'Little White House'?

He made 11 visits, hosting cabinet members for fishing and poker; the town renamed Division Street in his honour.

Which inventor lived in the Little White House during World War I, perfecting underwater weapons?

He reportedly worked up 41 underwater weapons in six months; the first presidential visitor to the house was Taft in 1912.

In 1982 Key West staged a mock secession from the United States, declaring itself what?

The stunt protested a Border Patrol roadblock on the only road out; Independence Day is still celebrated every April 23.

How did the newly declared micronation of Key West 'wage war' on the United States in 1982?

It surrendered after one minute and applied for a billion dollars in foreign aid; the roadblock was removed soon after.

A native-born Key Wester is called a 'Conch'. What is a 'Freshwater Conch'?

The nickname came from Bahamian settlers, who supposedly vowed to 'eat conch' before paying the Crown's taxes.

What does the famous concrete buoy at South and Whitehead Streets claim, though not quite accurately?

Whitehead Spit and Ballast Key both lie farther south, and its '90 miles to Cuba' overstates the gap; it is still the most photographed spot in the Keys.

Which of these did Hemingway write while living at 907 Whitehead Street, 1931 to 1939?

He also finished 'The Snows of Kilimanjaro' and 'Green Hills of Africa' in the writing studio above the carriage house.

The cats that still roam the Hemingway House are famous for what physical trait?

They descend from a six-toed ship's cat named Snowball; many still carry the polydactyl gene.

What did Hemingway press into the wet cement beside his new swimming pool after hearing how much it cost?

'Take the last penny I've got,' he supposedly said; the pool was the first in the Keys and Pauline had paid for it herself.

Hemingway's nickname 'Papa' came from a fishing crowd that included Joe Russell, better known by what name?

Russell's bar, Sloppy Joe's, has hosted a Hemingway look-alike contest every July since 1980.

Which playwright drafted 'A Streetcar Named Desire' at Key West's La Concha Hotel in 1947?

Unlike Hemingway's grand house, Williams's home at 1431 Duncan Street was a modest bungalow in New Town.

Mallory Square is famous for a nightly celebration of what?

It begins two hours before sunset every day; when a cruise pier opened in 1984, an ordinance ordered ships out of port before it started.

Fantasy Fest, Key West's costumed street party, is held in the last week of which month?

It was started in 1979 to fill the slow season; floats carry an elected Conch King and Queen.

Why is the filling of a genuine Key lime pie pale rather than green?

The pie probably descends from a 1931 Borden condensed-milk brochure recipe; the 'Aunt Sally' invention story dates only to 1995.

In 2006 Florida officially designated Key lime pie as what?

Its three classic ingredients are Key lime juice, egg yolks and sweetened condensed milk, on a graham-cracker crust.

Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, the largest of its kind in the Americas, is made of what?

More than 16 million bricks went into a fort that was never finished; it later served as a prison for Lincoln-conspiracy doctor Samuel Mudd.

Which prisoner was held at Fort Jefferson for setting John Wilkes Booth's broken leg?

Dry Tortugas National Park is reachable only by boat or seaplane and gets about 63,000 visitors a year.

Treasure hunter Mel Fisher, based in Key West, found the wreck of which 1622 Spanish galleon in 1985?

The 'Atocha Motherlode' was valued at about $450 million, including 40 tons of gold and silver and some 114,000 pieces of eight.

What was Mel Fisher's occupation before he became a treasure hunter?

He opened California's first dive shop, 'See Da Sea', and lost his son Dirk in a boat accident during the Atocha search in 1975.

Jimmy Buffett's 1977 song most associated with Key West's laid-back image is named after which cocktail?

It reached No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became the name of a business empire; the Key West library even holds a Buffett letter.

Diana Nyad claimed to complete a marathon swim ending in Key West in 2013. Where did she start?

She was 64 and on her fifth attempt; Susie Maroney had made the crossing in 1997 inside a shark cage.

The tiny Key deer, North America's smallest, is mostly found on which Florida island?

It is an endangered subspecies of white-tailed deer that swims easily between islands and has little fear of people.

The Cuban sandwich likely originated in cafés serving cigar workers in Key West and which other city?

Tampa's version adds salami; the two cities keep a friendly rivalry over which is authentic.

From 1830 to 1861 Key West was a major U.S. producer of which commodity, harvested from receding tidal pools?

Union troops shut the industry after Confederates smuggled the salt south; an 1876 hurricane finished it off.

Roughly how many ships passed through Key West's harbour during World War II?

The Navy also built the first freshwater pipeline down the length of the Keys to supply its bases.

Which president visited Key West in November 1962, a month after the Cuban Missile Crisis?

He often cited the island's closeness to Cuba in speeches and had first visited in March 1961.

When the Great Havana Hurricane of 1846 destroyed Key West's original lighthouse, who was running it?

She had taken over from her late husband in 1832 and served 32 years; fourteen people sheltering in the tower died in the storm.

What roughly was Key West's population at the 2020 census?

That is about a third of everyone living in the whole Florida Keys.

Key West's Old Town neighbourhood of Bahama Village is named for immigrants of what heritage?

Bahamians had been visiting the Keys since the 1700s to fish, catch turtles, cut timber and salvage wrecks.

The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane was the first of only four storms of what strength ever to hit the contiguous US?

The others were Camille, Andrew and Michael; hundreds of veterans building the highway died in work camps in the Upper Keys.

What is the official motto of the city of Key West?

The city is among Florida's most diverse and hosts two annual pride festivals.

What is the name of the roughly one-acre patch that forms Key West's highest ground, about 18 feet up?

The island averages only about eight feet above sea level, which is why the 2005 Wilma surge flooded 60% of its homes.

Which president stayed at Key West's Little White House while recovering from a 1955 heart attack?

Jimmy Carter later visited the house twice with his family, in 1996 and 2007, long after leaving office.

What was the first cruise ship to adopt the Port of Key West, in 1969?

It tied up at Pier B, then owned by the US Navy; the city's own Mallory Square terminal did not open until 1984.