 THE FLORIDA KEYS
The Florida Keys is an archipelago or cluster of about 1700 islands in the extreme southeast of the United States. The Keys extend from the southeastern Florida peninsula near Miami, run south and then curve west to Key West, and out to the uninhabited Dry Tortugas. The islands lie in the Florida Straits, dividing the Atlantic Ocean to the east from the Gulf of Mexico to the west, and creating Florida Bay. At the nearest point, the southern tip of Key West is just 90 miles (145 km) from Cuba.
Key Biscayne is actually attached at the north end to the mainland, and is therefore not considered part of the Keys by some Floridians. It is, however, part of the same geological formation, atop which sits coral rock islands, as well as partly-submerged mangrove islands.
The city of Key West is the county seat of Monroe County, which covers mostly the Everglades on the mainland, and all of the islands from Key Largo south and west.
OVERSEAS RAILWAY IN THE FLORIDA KEYS
The Keys were long accessible only by water. This changed with the completion Henry Flagler's Overseas Railway in the early 1910s. Flagler, a major developer of Florida's Atlantic coast, extended his Florida East Coast Railway down to Key West with an ambitious series of over-sea railroad trestles.
LABOUR DAY HURRICANE OF 1935
One of the worst hurricanes to strike the U.S. made landfall near Islamorada in the Upper Keys on Labor Day, Monday Sept. 2. Winds were estimated to have gusted to 200 mph, raising a storm surge more than 17 feet above sea level that washed over the islands. More than 400 people were killed, though some estimates say that more than 600 died in the terrible storm.
The "Great Hurricane" is one of only three Category 5 hurricanes (Camille (1969) and Andrew (1992) are the others) to make landfall on the U.S. Coast in the 20th Century.
In 1935, new bridges were under construction to connect a highway through the entire Keys. Hundreds of World War I veterans working on the roadway as part of a government relief program were housed in unreinforced buildings in three construction camps in the Upper Keys. When the evacuation train failed to reach the camps before the storm, more than 200 veterans perished. Their deaths caused anger and charges of mismanagement that led to a congressional investigation.
The storm also ended the 23-year run of the Overseas Railway; the damaged tracks were never rebuilt, and the Overseas Highway (U.S. Highway 1) replaced the railroad as the main transportation route from Miami to Key West.
SEVEN MILE BRIDGE IN THE FLORIDA KEYS
One of the longest bridges in existence when it was built, the Seven Mile Bridge connects Vaca Key (island town of Marathon, Florida) in the Middle Keys to Bahia Honda (pronounced ba-EE-uh OWN-dah in Spanish) in the Lower Keys. True to its name, it is seven miles or about 11km long, and passes over Pigeon Key, where a turnoff allows access to the small island.
After the destruction of the railway by the hurricane, it and the other bridges were rebuilt by the United States Federal Government as an automobile highway. US 1 runs the length of the Keys, and is called the Overseas Highway there. (US 1 also runs the entire way up the eastern seaboard to Maine.)
CONCH REPUBLIC IN THE FLORIDA KEYS
In 1982, the United States Border Patrol had established a roadblock and inspection points on US Highway 1, stopping all northbound traffic returning to the mainland at Florida City, to search vehicles for illegal drugs and illegal immigrants. The Key West City Council repeatedly complained about the roadblocks, which were a major inconvenience for people traveling from Key West, and hurt the Keys' important tourism industry.
After various unsuccessful complaints and attempts to get a legal injunction against the blockade failed in federal court in Miami, on 23 April 1982 Key West mayor Dennis Wardlow and the city council declared the independence of the Keys, calling it the "Conch Republic". After one minute of secession, he (as "President") surrendered to an officer of the Key West Naval Air Station (NAS), and requested one billion ($1,000,000,000) dollars in "foreign aid".
The stunt succeeded in generating great publicity for the Keys' plight, and the inspection station roadblock was removed.
ENVIRONMENT OF THE FLORIDA KEYS
The well-known and very sour Key lime (or Mexican lime) is a naturalized species, apparently introduced from the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, where it had been previously been introduced from Malaysia by explorers from Spain. The tree grows vigorously and has thorns, and produces golf-ball-size yellow fruit which is particularly acidic (even in highly alkaline coral sand soil) and uniquely fragrant. Naturally, Key lime pie was invented here as well.
The Keys are also home to a unique species called the Key deer, protected by the National Key Deer Refuge. About 70 miles or 110 km west of Key West is Dry Tortugas National Park, one of the most isolated and therefore well-preserved in the world. The name derives from the fact that the small hump-shaped islands look like dry tortoise (tortuga in Spanish) shells from a distance.
The Keys are regularly threatened by tropical storms and hurricanes, leading to evacuations to the mainland, though locals tend to view "mandatory" as "voluntary" and "voluntary" as nothing at all. This is dangerous however, since once a storm's seriousness is realized, it is often too late for thousands of vehicles to evacuate over the two-lane causeways and low-lying islands. Hurricane Georges (pronounced zhorzh in French) was the most recent strike in 1998, hitting Key West after tearing up much of the Caribbean, before moving on to landfall in Mississippi.
The waters surrounding the Keys are part of a protected area known as the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
CULTURE AND RECREATION IN THE FLORIDA KEYS
The "hurricane bravado" is part of the Keys' laid-back atmosphere, as is the somewhat separatist "Conch Republic" attitude. Life is easygoing, with the major industries being tourism and fishing. Ecotourism is also part of this, with many visitors diving in the area's protected waters. A new ferry now takes riders between Key West and Fort Myers, due north on the mainland, along the western edge of Florida Bay.
From Wikipedia.org, the Free Encyclopedia
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The Dry Tortugas
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THE DRY TORTUGAS
FLORIDA KEYS:
The Dry Tortugas are a small group of islands, located at the end of the Florida Keys, USA, about 70 miles or 110 kilometers west of Key West which were discovered in 1513 by Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon. The islands get their name from their distinctive characteristics: Dry because none of the islands has fresh water and Tortugas because their low mound shape resembles tortoises (Spanish tortugas) sunning themselves. The islands are home to Dry Tortugas National Park, and are only accessible by boat or seaplane.
The islands are popular birding destinations due to the large seabird colony, which includes Sooty Terns, Brown Noddy, Masked Booby and Magnificent Frigatebird, and the regular occurrence of Caribbean vagrant birds.
They are not related to the Caribbean island of Tortuga, near Hispaniola.
In 1861, the United States government completed Fort Jefferson on Garden Key, and this bastion remained in Union hands throughout the Civil War. It later was used as a prison until abandoned in 1874. During the 1880s, the Navy established a base at Tortuga; and it subsequently set up a coaling and a wireless station there as well. During World War I, a seaplane base was established on the islet; but it was abandoned soon thereafter.
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