Our Pick
Posted on @rawstates
Key West gets rich on wrecks
1830
Key West, Florida
Radomianin · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
The reef offshore takes ships, and federal law let the first captain to reach one claim the salvage, so Key West filled with wreckers watching from towers, and by the 1830s it was the richest city per head in the United States. Lighthouses and better charts ended it. The town then lived on sponging, then cigars, then the Navy, then tourism, in that order.
That was 1 of the hidden places.
Location: historic site
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