Academic Activities in Key West, FL

Located in the historic Key West Bight, discover this state-of-the-art museum with hands-on exhibits, raw footage, unique artifacts, and the only scale model of Fort Jefferson at Dry Tortugas National Park. As you travel through this interactive timeline of Key West history, uncover the history of sponging, turtling, fishing, cigar making, and tourism that put Key West on the map. Touch a genuine silver bar from the Spanish Galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha that sank full of gold, silver, and emeralds during a hurricane off of Key West in 1522. Get to know Henry Flagler, John D. Rockefeller’s partner in Standard Oil, in the original paymaster’s railway car from the Florida East Coast (FEC) Railway. Inside the Maggie Atwell House, see the only remaining wooden structure built by the FEC, learn about the backbreaking work of building the railroad over the open ocean and the mosquito infested mangrove swamps of the Florida Keys.

Learn about an important part of Florida’s history at the Key West Shipwreck Treasure Museum. Explore the wreckage of Spanish galleons and the remnants of cargo ships. Go back in time to the 19th century, when excavating shipwrecks off Key West was a thriving industry. You’ll learn from interactive displays, watch informative video presentations and see real artifacts salvaged from these vessels.

This guided walking tour will take you to the real places that Hemingway lived, worked and played, including where he watched and refereed boxing matches, where he kept his boat the Pilar, the bookstore where his books were sold, his first apartment in Key West where he finished writing “A Farewell to Arms”. Along the way you will have three food samplings, before visiting where he took the train, fished and charted boats in the Key West Harbor, and finally where he spent a lot of time drinking- Sloppy Joe's. Numerous other historical sites that Hemingway frequented while he lived in Key West will also be visited on this incredibly authentic tour.