Key West Shipwreck Treasure Museum

The Shipwreck Treasure Museum tells the story that made Key West: in the nineteenth century the island became, by many accounts, the richest town per capita in the United States, and the money came from the reef. Ships running the busy channel between the Gulf and the Atlantic struck the coral in alarming numbers, and Key West's licensed wreckers raced out to rescue crews and salvage cargo, splitting the proceeds by court award — a legal, dangerous, and enormously profitable trade that built the mansions you see on the Conch Train tour. The museum, on Mallory Square, dramatizes that era with costumed storytellers playing wreckers and auctioneers, an audiovisual presentation, and two floors of artifacts spanning some four hundred years of wrecks — Spanish fleet treasure from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, coins, cannons, and a large collection from the Isaac Allerton, a merchant ship that went down on the reef in 1856 and whose remains were later recovered by divers. Among the highlights is a silver bar from the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de las Maravillas that visitors can lift to feel its weight. The finale is the climb up the 65-foot replica lookout tower, modeled on the towers wreckers once used to spot ships in trouble — from the top you look over Mallory Square, the harbor, and out toward the reef line, and you understand the whole business in one glance. It is compact, entertaining, and the best introduction to the island's maritime past, ideal for an hour before the Sunset Celebration next door.

The wrecking story is genuinely fascinating and rarely told this well. From the 1820s, when the US established a federal court in Key West to adjudicate salvage claims, the island's economy revolved around the reef. Lookouts in towers like the one recreated here watched the horizon; when a ship struck, the cry of "Wreck ashore!" sent crews racing in their schooners, and the first captain to reach the wreck became the wreck master, directing the salvage. Cargo — cotton, wine, furniture, machinery, anything — was brought back to warehouses on the waterfront and auctioned, with the court awarding the wreckers a share. Lighthouses, better charts, and steam power steadily reduced the wrecks through the late nineteenth century, and the industry faded; but the brick warehouses, the grand houses, and the very name of Mallory Square's surroundings still echo it. The museum's actors play this history with gusto, and children in particular get swept into the storytelling.

Visiting tips: the museum runs on a continuous cycle of presentations through the day, so you can arrive at any time and join the next show. Allow about an hour: the opening presentation, the two artifact floors at your own pace, and the tower climb, which is a stair climb with landings and not suited to those with mobility limitations or a strong fear of heights. Go in the late afternoon and you can time your exit from the tower straight into the Sunset Celebration on the square outside — the view from the top just before the crowds gather is a bonus. Tickets booked through this page are general entry; Historic Tours of America also sells combination tickets with its trolley, train, and the neighboring aquarium.

The museum is best understood as the opening chapter of a Key West maritime day. Before it, the Conch Train loop ends at Mallory Square right outside; after it, Sunset Celebration takes over the plaza. On another day, the reef snorkel trip lets you float over the coral that sank these ships, and the Dry Tortugas fort shows you the military answer to the same dangerous waters. Families who enjoy it might also add the Key West Aquarium, the island's open-air aquarium next door, which dates back to the 1930s.