Key West Historeum

Wayne and Chuck joined with me in a tour of the history of wrecking in Key West. It was June, free-for-locals month and that made the choice easy. Other locals dress up as wreckers and introduce the visitors as prospective crew members. The cast gets into their roles so be ready for audience participation unless like me you stay well at the back and out of range.The Historeum is a museum with a 65 foot tower attached which, as we shall see, gives a splendid view around Key West, as this youngster on an earlier tour had discovered for himself.The "crew member" introduced us to his boss, Asa Tift after whom the lane approaching Mallory Square is named.He led us inside the (air conditioned!) museum and told us what the meaning of "wrecking" really is. It wasn't piracy, it was legal recovery of ship wrecked boats. People made fortunes by rowing out to stranded ships and rescuing them, putting their cargo to auction and taking a large share of the proceeds. What wasn't legal was moving aids to navigation and luring ships onto the f.He told the story well, walking us through the lives lived in 19th century Key West, pointing out the treasures and assorted other goods stashed in the museum laid out like a warehouse. There was the inevitable bar of silver and discussion of piracy which involved intercepting Spanish ships on the silver route from Portobello to Havana and thence to Spain. Pirates based themselves in Isla Providencia off Nicaragua and when they were smoked out of there they moved to "New" Providence in the Bahamas and Commodore Porter based himself in the newly United States' city of Key West to smoke them out of there which he did eventually making the Straits of Florida safe for shipping. Piracy in Key West has always struck me as a myth as Key West the 1820's version has no water, no wood for ship repairs, poor protection in the harbor from the weather and is thus no use to seafarers on the lam. But the piracy myth makes for good tourism in the 21st century...

These barrels contained pottery found in the cargo of one of the wrecked ships:It was a rather nice 19th century room, cooled rather nicely with 21st century air conditioning.Key West as she then looked:And as she now looks, complete with common sense warnings for idiots unable to think for themselves, and who will hire attorneys after they act like idiots and hurt themselves:Do yourself a favor and climb the tower. It has I think even better views than The Top or the Lighthouse.