The Shipwreck Museum in Key West features artifacts from the richest shipwreck in Key West history. The Isaac Allerton sank in the deep water of Hawks Channel in 1856. The wreckers were unable to fully recover all valuables due to the ship’s depth, so they salvaged what they could and forgot her. She was rediscovered in 1985 by divers looking for the 1622 Spanish treasure galleon Atocha.
Key West and The Wrecking Industry
Key West is situated on a veritable shipping highway. All ships going to ports on the Gulf of Mexico, Central and South America have to pass right by Key West. From the 16th through the 19th centuries, up to 100 ships a day passed by. Unfortunately for the ships and their captains, the waters around the Florida Keys are notoriously hard to navigate due to shallow reefs, hurricanes, and less than ideal charts. These conditions resulted in an average of 1 ship per week getting stuck on a reef, or worse, sinking.
There were watch towers and boats patrolling the seas up and down the Florida Keys, looking for wrecked or stuck ships. The first one to reach a wrecked vessel would become the “wrecking master” and he would control the salvage operations. The perk of controlling the salvage was that you also were in for the biggest share of the “prize”. Material would be offloaded from the wrecked ship onto the wrecker’s ships and sent to a warehouse on the island. Once the salvage was complete, the goods would go to auction and a portion of the proceeds would be awarded to the wreckers, usually 25 – 50% of the profit.
Visiting the Shipwreck Museum in Key West
The Shipwreck Museum in Key West is on Front Street at the north end of the island, near Mallory Square, the Key West Aquarium, and the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum. If you’re on the Old Town Trolley Tour, you are in luck, you can hop off right at the museum.
The Shipwreck Museum is open from 9:00 to 5:00 every day. Admission is $17.09/8.54 for adults/children. Once inside you’re on a self-guided tour, but there are a few tour guides around if you have any questions. There’s one particularly engaging gentleman on the first floor who is full of information.
When you first step into the museum there’s a short film that you can watch about the “wreckers” of Key West and the services that they provided to wrecked ships. Not every ship was left for salvage, some were floated by removing enough cargo to lighten the load so that they could get off the reef. If that didn’t work, they would try to drag the ship off of the reef.
After you leave the cinema and enter the museum, you will feel like you’ve been transported into a 19th century warehouse. Wrecking equipment is scattered along with bounty rescued from stranded merchant ships.
The main attraction is the Isaac Allerton, a 137-foot merchant ship that sailed the waters of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. During a hurricane, her anchor lines gave way and she hit a reef and eventually sank. The wreckers were able to salvage a lot of the cargo onboard, but the Allerton was too deep for the diving technology of the time to completely salvage her. Even then with a $50,000 salvage payoff, the Isaac Allerton was the richest shipwreck in Key West’s history.
There are over two floors of salvaged goods, wrecking tools, charts of the day, coins and jewelry that have been salvaged from wrecks around Key West. There is even a salvaged solid silver bar that you can try to pick up, just don’t try to take it with you.
While you’re in the Keys, you may want to visit a ghost town only accessible by boat. Grab a kayak and paddle over Indian Key State Park, find out more about it here.
The Observation Tower at The Shipwreck Museum in Key West
After you’ve completed your tour of the museum, there is an observation tower on site that you can climb. This is one of the ways that the wreckers would spot wrecked ships from the 16th through the 19th centuries.
The tower is 65 feet and gives you tremendous views of Key West and the waters surrounding it. It’s well worth the climb for the views and the great breezes that are up there. Sounds great, but you say that you’re not visiting Key West anytime soon? You can get a partial view from their webcam right here, great breezes not included. I warn you not to look though, it’ll make you want to plan your next Key West vacation.
Dry Tortugas National Park is just a ferry ride away from the Shipwreck Museum, this should be on everybody’s bucket list!
