Cedar Key Florida In A Time Capsule

The Cedar Keys, with some evidence of native cultures dating back to the Deptford Period, about 500 B.C., was first mapped in 1542 by a Spanish cartographer and called "Las Islas Sabines", The Cedar Islands. But it was not until 1839, when a command under General Zachary Taylor established a military depot on Atsena Otie Key, that the area began to attract settlers.

The Town of Cedar Key was first established on the barrier island of Atsena Otie in the 1840's. Augustas Steele, who had purchased the island, was named postmaster of the new town. It was the same year that Florida became a state and Levy County was created and named for David Levy Yulee, the first U.S. Senator from the state.

Senator Yulee was responsible for bringing the first cross-Florida railroad from Fernandina Beach to Cedar Key in 1861. The War Between the States interrupted progress and the Cedar Keys became a major location for blockade running and salt production. After the war, in 1869, the town was incorporated as "The City of Cedar Key".

Lumber was the primary industry, although fishing and cotton shipping were also important. Sawmills and pencil factories dominated the town in the 1880's. Shipping by rail and sea made Cedar Key an important port city until 1886, when the port of Tampa began to draw shipping away from Cedar Key. The town began to decline. About 2500 people lost their jobs when the mills closed and an 1896 hurricane and tidal surge devastated the area.

At the turn of the century fishing, sponge hooking, and oystering had become the major industries and remained so until the mid-twentieth century when the tourism industry began to grow as a result of interest in the historic community.

The Florida Site Master File lists 139 buildings and archaeological sites. These are on the National Register of Historic Places as an Historic District. These sites range from Indian middens and an aboriginal cemetery to residential and commercial structures, primarily from the last quarter of the nineteenth century. There is a significant concentration of "tabby", or poured shell reinforced concrete, buildings in the historic district as well as a number of historic sites ranging from a railroad trestle and dock to sawmills, pencil factories, and boat wrecks.

Because of its isolation and history of decline after the railroads opened to Tampa and Miami, the town has been "physically frozen in time" and offers a rare glimpse of the architectural development of 19th and early 20th century Florida coastal towns.

The Cedar Key Historical Society has prepared a "walking tour" guide and capsule history of 36 of the 139 historical site locations.

Today, tourism and the commercial clam industry are the number 1 economic means for the area.