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The city of Key West is on an island of the same name at the westernmost tip of the Florida Keys. It is also the southern terminus of U.S. 1.
In Pre-Columbian times Key West was inhabited by the Calusa people. The first European to visit was Ponce de Leon in 1521. As Florida became a SpanishThe Kingdom of Spain is a country located in the southwest of Europe. It shares the Iberian Peninsula with Portugal, Gibraltar and Andorra. To the northeast, along the Pyrenees mountain range, it borders France and the tiny principality of Andorra. It inc colony, a fishing and salvage village with a small garrison was established here.
The name "Key West" is derived from a " false friendFalse friends are pairs of words in two languages that look or sound similar but stem from unrelated sources and differ in meaning. False cognates, by contrast, share a common root but have come to have different meanings. The problem Such words—both fals" anglicization of the Spanish languageThis article is about the international language known as Spanish. For other languages spoken in Spain see Languages of Spain Spanish is an Iberian Romance language, and the third or fourth most spoken language in the world. It is spoken as a first langua name of the island, Cayo Hueso, meaning "Bone Island".
In 1763Events February 10 French and Indian War: The 1763 Treaty of Paris ends the war and France cedes Canada to Great Britain. 15 February the Treaty of Hubertusburg puts an end to the Seven Years' War between Prussia and Austria and their allies March 1 Charl when Great BritainGreat Britain (often abbreviated as Britain is an island lying off the western coast of Europe, comprising the main territory of the United Kingdom. Great Britain is also used as a political term describing the combination of England, Scotland, and Wales, took control of Florida, the community of Spaniards and Native AmericanNative Americans (also Indians Aboriginal Peoples American Indians First Nations Alaskan Natives or Indigenous Peoples of America are the indigenous inhabitants of Americas prior to the European colonization, and their modern descendants. This term compris were moved to HavanaThis article is about the Cuban city. For other places named Havana, please see Havana (disambiguation Havana ( Spanish: San Cristobal de La Habana is the capital of Cuba and, with a population of 2. 1 million, the largest city in the Caribbean. History C.
Florida returned to Spanish control 20 years later, but there was no official resettlement of the island. Informally the island was used by fishermen from CubaAlternate meanings: see Cuba (disambiguation The Republic of Cuba is an archipelago in the northern Caribbean, in between the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. To the north are found the United States and the Bahamas, to the west M and from the British Bahamas, who were later joined by others from the United States after the latter nation's independence. While claimed by Spain, no nation exercised de facto control over the community there for some time.
In 1815 the Spanish governor in Havana deeded the island of Key West to Juan Pablo Salas of Saint Augustine, Florida. After Florida was transferred to the United States, Salas sold the island to US businessman John Simonton for $2,000 in 1821. Simonton divided the island into plots and sold some of them. There was already a town on a part of the island, with the inhabitants recognizing the authority of no nation. Simonton lobbied the U.S. Government to establish a naval base on the island, both to take advantage of the island's strategic location and to bring law and order to the town. In 1823 Commodore David Porter of the United States Navy West Indies Anti-Pirate Squadron took charge of Key West, which he ruled (but, according to some, exceeding his authority) as military dictator under martial law.
Major industries in Key West in the early 19th century included fishing, salt production, and most famously salvage. A number of the inhabitants worked salvaging shipwrecks from nearby Florida reefs, and the town was noted for the unusually high concentration of fine furniture and chandeliers which the locals used in their own homes after salvaging them from wrecks.
During the American Civil War, while Florida joined the Confederate States of America, Key West remained in US hands thanks to the Naval base.
In the late 19th century salt and salvage declined as industries, but Key West gained a thriving cigar making industry.
Many Cubans moved to Key West during Cuba's unsuccessful war for independence in the 1860s and 1870s.
Key West was the last of the series of Keys connected to the Florida mainland by a series of railroad bridges completed in 1912, as the Overseas Railway extension of Henry M. Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway. The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 destroyed many of the railroad bridges, and drowned hundreds of Flagler's workers. The United States Federal Government then rebuilt the rail lines as an automobile highway, completed in 1938, which became an extension of United States Highway 1. The portion of US 1 through the Keys is called the Overseas Highway . Because Key West can be accessed by land, the southern point of the island is marked as the southernmost point of land on the United States mainland.
Ernest Hemingway lived in Key West for many years, and graces the front of Sloppy Joe's bar t-shirts.In the 1980s Key West briefly declared its independence as a protest over a Federal roadblock of the Overseas Highway; see Conch Republic.