Key West Shipwreck Museum

The Key West Shipwreck Museum centers on a replica ninety-eight-foot wooden lookout tower rising above the harbor. It recreates the industry of wrecking, which built the town’s nineteenth-century economy. In eighteen fifty-six, wreckers recovered cargo worth over four hundred thousand dollars from the Isaac Allerton alone. Captain Asa Tift, a prominent wrecking magnate, maintained his business records here. He turned his lucrative salvage operations into the cornerstone of Key West society, turning local ship captains into the wealthiest men in Florida.