Editing Cedar Key, Florida (section)

==History==

===Early===
While evidence suggests human occupation as far back as 500 BC, the first maps of the area date to 1542, when a [[cartographer]] from [[Spain]] labeled it "Las Islas Sabines" (which means "The Cedar Islands" in [[Spanish language|Spanish]]).<ref>{{Cite web|title=About Cedar Key – City of Cedar Key|url=https://cityofcedarkey.org/about-us/|access-date=2022-02-01|website=cityofcedarkey.org}}</ref> An [[Archaeology|archaeological]] dig at Shell Mound, {{convert|9|mi|0}} north of Cedar Key, found [[Artifact (archaeology)|artifacts]] dating back to 500 BC in the top {{convert|10|ft}} of the {{convert|28|ft|m|adj=mid|-tall}} [[midden|mound]]. The only ancient burial found in Cedar Key was a 2,000-year-old skeleton found in 1999.{{sfn|McCarthy|2006|pp=2-4}} Arrow heads and spear points dating from the Paleo period (12,000 years old) were collected by Cedar Key historian St. Clair Whitman, and are displayed at the [[Cedar Key Museum State Park]].

Followers of [[William Augustus Bowles]], self-declared "Director General of the [[State of Muskogee]]", built a [[watchtower]] in the vicinity of Cedar Key in 1801. The tower was destroyed by a Spanish force in 1802.{{sfn|McCarthy|1990|pp=102-3}} In the period leading up to the [[First Seminole War]], the [[British subject]]s [[Arbuthnot and Ambrister incident|Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert Ambrister]] used the Cedar Keys to deliver supplies to the [[Seminole]]s.{{sfn|Fishburne|1993|p=7}} The Cedar Keys may have been a refuge for [[escaped slave]]s in the early 1820s, and an entry point for the illegal [[History of slavery|slave trade]] later that decade.{{sfn|Fishburne|1993|pp=8-9}}

===Indian War===
During the  [[Second Seminole War]], the [[United States Army]] established Fort No. 4 on the mainland adjacent to the Cedar Keys. (The name "No. 4" was later applied to a boat channel next to the fort, and then to a railroad trestle and a highway bridge over that channel.) In 1840, General [[Zachary Taylor]] requested the Cedar Keys be reserved for military use for the duration of the war, and that [[Cedar Key Light|Seahorse Key]] be permanently reserved for a lighthouse.{{sfn|Fishburne|1993|pp=14, 17}} In 1840, General [[Walker Keith Armistead]], who had succeeded [[Zachary Taylor]] as commander of United States troops in the war, ordered construction of a hospital on what had become known as [[Atsena Otie Key|Depot Key]].{{sfn|Mahon|1985|p=279}} (The island's name may reflect the establishment of a depot there by Florida [[militia]] general [[Leigh Read]]. The primary depot for the U.S. Army in Florida at the time was at [[Palatka, Florida]].){{sfn|Mahon|1985|p=279}}{{sfn|Fishburne|1993|p=23}} Depot Key was the headquarters for the Army in Florida, but Fishburne states headquarters was not in a fixed place, but wherever the commander was.{{sfn|Fishburne|1993|p=21}}

Cantonment Morgan was established on nearby Seahorse Key by 1841 and used as a troop deployment station and as a holding station for Seminoles who had been captured or who had surrendered until they could be sent to the West. A [[hurricane]] with a {{convert|27|ft|m|adj=on}} storm surge struck the Cedar Keys on October 4, 1842, destroying Cantonment Morgan and causing much damage on Depot Key. Some Seminole leaders had been meeting with Army officers at Depot Key to negotiate their surrender or a retreat to a reservation in the [[Everglades]]. After the hurricane, the Seminoles refused to return to the area. Colonel [[William J. Worth]] had declared the war to be over in August 1842, and Depot Key was abandoned by the Army after the hurricane.{{sfn|McCarthy|2006|pp=7-9}}{{sfn|Mahon|1985|pp=315-7}}

===Pre-Civil War===
[[File:Island Hotel, Cedar Key, Florida (2).jpg|right|thumb|[[Island Hotel]] ]]
In 1842, the United States Congress had enacted the [[Armed Occupation Act]], a precursor of the [[Homestead Act]], to increase white settlement in Florida as a way to force the Seminoles to leave the territory. With the abandonment of the Army base on Depot Key, the Cedar Keys became available for settlement under the act. Under the terms of the act, several people received permits for settlement on Depot Key, Way Key, and Scale Key. [[Augustus Steele]], US Customs House Officer for [[Hillsborough County, Florida]], and postmaster for the [[Tampa Bay area]], received the permit for Depot Key, which he renamed [[Atsena Otie Key]]. In 1843, he bought the buildings on the island, and built some cottages for wealthy guests. In 1844, he became the Collector of Customs for the port of Cedar Key, as well as for [[Tampa, Florida]]. A post office named "Cedar Key" was established on Atsena Otie Key in 1845. The Florida legislature chartered the "'''''City of Atsena Otie'''''" in 1859.{{sfn|McCarthy|2006|pp=8-10, 15}}

Cedar Key became an important port, shipping lumber and naval stores harvested on the mainland. By 1860, two mills on Atsena Otie Key were producing "[[Juniperus virginiana|cedar]]" slats for shipment to northern pencil factories. As a result of the growth, the US Congress appropriated funds for a lighthouse on Seahorse Key in 1850. The [[Cedar Key Light]] was completed in 1854. The lighthouse lantern is {{convert|28|ft}} above the ground, but the lighthouse sits on a {{convert|47|ft|m|adj=mid|-high}} hill, putting the light {{convert|75|ft}} above sea level. The light was visible for {{convert|16|mi}}. Wood-frame residences were added to each side of the lighthouse several years later.{{sfn|McCarthy|2006|pp=13, 16, 22}}{{sfn|McCarthy|2006|pp=103-4}}

In 1860, Cedar Key became the western terminus of the [[Florida Railroad]], connecting it to [[Fernandina Beach, Florida]] on the east coast of Florida.{{sfn|Turner|2003|p=31}} [[David Levy Yulee]], U.S. senator and president of the Florida Railroad, had acquired most of Way Key to house the railroad's terminal facilities. A town was platted on Way Key in 1859, and Parsons and Hale's General Store, which is now the [[Island Hotel]], was built there in the same year.{{sfn|McCarthy|2006|pp=17-18, 22}} On March 1, 1861, the first train arrived in Cedar Key, just weeks before the Civil War began.

===Civil War era===
With the advent of the [[American Civil War]] in 1861, [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] agents extinguished the light at Seahorse Key and removed its supply of [[Whale oil|sperm whale oil]]. The defense of Cedar Key was assigned to the Columbia and New River Rifles, two companies of the 4th Florida Infantry Regiment, under the command of Lt. Colonel M. Whit Smith.<ref name="gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu">{{cite web|title=Correspondent of the Daily Morning News|url= https://gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/lccn/sn87062317/1861-07-16/ed-1/seq-3/|publisher= gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu|access-date=2018-08-21}}</ref> On July 3, 1861, four Federal [[prize (law)|war prize]] [[schooner]]s appeared off Cedar Key. The schooners, originally captured by the [[USS Massachusetts (1860)|USS Massachusetts]] off [[New Orleans]], were under the command of [[United States Navy|U. S. Navy]] Lieutenant George L. Selden, nephew of former [[Treasurer of the United States]] [[William Selden]], and manned by nineteen sailors.<ref>{{cite web|title=The schooners captured off Cedar Keys|url= https://www.newspapers.com/image/325546565/?terms=schooners%2Bcaptured%2Boff%2Bcedar%2Bkeys| publisher= Newspapers.com|access-date=2020-08-17}}</ref> Col. Smith led his two rifle [[company (military unit)|companies]] along with one six-pounder [[cannon]] twenty miles offshore on the steamer Madison and captured the schooners after firing two [[warning shot]]s. With the recovery, Col. Smith and his men liberated fifteen Confederate sailors, recovered the vessels' valuable cargo of railroad iron and [[turpentine]] and effected the first capture of a U. S. Naval officer at sea during the war.<ref name="gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu"/>

The [[USS Hatteras (1861)|USS ''Hatteras'']] raided Cedar Key in January 1862, burning several ships loaded with cotton and turpentine and destroying the railroad's rolling stock and buildings on Way Key. Most of the Confederate troops guarding Cedar Key had been sent to Fernandina in anticipation of a Federal attack there. Cedar Key was an important source of salt for the Confederacy during the early part of the war. In October 1862, a [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] raid destroyed sixty kettles on Salt Key capable of producing 150 bushels of salt a day. The Union occupied the Cedar Keys in early 1864, staying for the remainder of the war.{{sfn|McCarthy|2006|pp=24-5}}{{sfn|Turner|2003|p=34}}

In 1865, the [[Eberhard Faber]] mill was built on Atsena Otie Key. The [[Eagle Pencil Company]] mill was built on Way Key, and because Way Key had its railroad terminal built there, it surpassed Atsena Otie Key in population. Repairs to the Florida Railroad were completed in 1868, and freight and passenger traffic again flowed into Cedar Key. The "'''''Town of Cedar Keys'''''" was incorporated in 1869, and had a population of 400 in 1870.{{sfn|McCarthy|2006|pp=29-30}}

Early in his career as a naturalist, [[John Muir]] walked {{convert|1000|mi|km|-2}} from [[Louisville, Kentucky]], to Cedar Key in just two months in 1867. Muir contracted [[malaria]] while working in a [[sawmill]] in Cedar Key, and recovered in the house of the mill's superintendent. Muir recovered enough to sail from Cedar Key to [[Cuba]] in January 1868. He recorded his impressions of Cedar Key in his memoir ''A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf'', published in 1916, after his death.{{sfn|McCarthy|2006|p=28}}
{{Wide image|Cedar Key 1884b small.jpg|700px|1884 map of Cedar Key|box width|alignment|alt=alt text}}

=== Decline and restoration of wildlife ===
When [[Henry Plant]]'s railroad to [[Tampa, Florida|Tampa]] began service in 1886, Tampa took shipping away from Cedar Key, causing an economic decline in the area. Earlier, growth in population had led to the Cedar Key town limits being expanded in 1881 and again in 1884. But with the decline in the local economy, the town limits were contracted in 1890.{{sfn|Fishburne|1993|pp=138, 150}} Also in 1890, the island town was affected by the reign of terror of Cedar Keys mayor William Cottrell, who took advantage of his Florida state legislature connections and the restricted one-way road access to impose his will and conduct acts of violence. He was deposed from power only after the island was invaded by a naval ([[U.S. Coast Guard]]) boat manned with a squad of [[U.S. Marshals]], who were sent there after Custom House officers and other [[federal government]] workers requested [[federal aid]] due to being unable to discharge their duties on the islands.<ref name="nyt" /><ref name="wells2002" />

[[File:Florida - Brandenton through Clearwater - NARA - 23936569 (cropped).jpg|thumb|right|Cedar Key in 1939]]
The [[1896 Cedar Keys hurricane]] was the final blow. Around 4 am on September 29, 1896, a {{convert|10|ft|m|adj=on}} storm surge swept over the town, killing more than 100 people. Winds north of town were estimated at {{convert|125|mph}}, which would classify it as a [[Saffir–Simpson hurricane scale#Category 3|category 3]].<ref name="hurricanecity" /> The hurricane wiped out the [[juniper|juniper trees]] still standing and destroyed all the mills. A fire on December 2, 1896, further damaged the town. In following years, structures were rebuilt on Way Key, a more protected island inland, but the damage was done. Today, only a few reminders of the original town on Atsena Otie Key remain, including stone water [[cistern]]s, and a graveyard whose headstones conspicuously date prior to 1896. Also, many of the eastern red cedar trees that originally attracted the pencil company, and for which the community was named, are gone.

[[File:Cedar Key Faber Pencil Mill.jpg|thumb|Workers gathered outside E. Faber's Cedar Mill in Cedar Key, Florida, circa 1890]]
At the start of the 20th century, fishing, sponge hooking, and oystering had become the major industries, but around 1909, the oyster beds were exhausted. President [[Herbert Hoover]] established the [[Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuge]] in 1929 by naming three of the islands as a breeding ground for colonial birds. The lighthouse was abandoned in 1952, just as the tourism industry began to grow as a result of interest in the historic community, but it remains in use as a [[marine biology]] [[research center]] by the [[University of Florida]] in [[Gainesville, Florida|Gainesville]].<ref name="bansemer" />

===Present===
[[File:Historic Bodiford Drug Store at 409 2nd St. on the northwest corner of B St. in Cedar Key, Florida.jpg|thumb|Historic Bodiford Drug Store at 409 2nd St. on the northwest corner of B St. in Cedar Key, Florida. An example of [[tabby concrete|tabby]] construction.]]
The old-fashioned [[fishing village]] is now a tourist center with several regionally famous seafood restaurants. The village holds two festivals a year, the Spring Sidewalk Art Festival and the Fall Seafood Festival, that each attract thousands of visitors to the area.

The municipality was officially incorporated as the "'''City of Cedar Key'''" in 1923.<ref name=CKInc/><ref name=CedKeyInc/>

In 1950, [[Hurricane Easy (1950)|Hurricane Easy]], a category-3 storm with {{convert|125|mph|adj=on}} winds, looped around Cedar Key three times before finally making landfall, dumping {{convert|38|in}} of rain and destroying two-thirds of the homes. The storm came ashore at low tide, so the surge was only {{convert|5|ft}}.<ref name="hurricanecity" />

[[Hurricane Elena]] followed a similar path in 1985, but did not make landfall. Packing {{convert|115|mph|adj=on}} winds, the storm churned for two days in the Gulf, {{convert|50|mi}} to the west, battering the waterfront. All the businesses and restaurants on Dock Street were either damaged or destroyed, and a section of the seawall collapsed.<ref name="hurricanecity" />

After a statewide ban on large-scale net fishing went into effect July 1, 1995, a government retraining program helped many local fishermen begin farming clams in the muddy waters. Today, Cedar Key's clam-based [[aquaculture]] is a multimillion-dollar industry.{{Cn|date=May 2025}} As of 2025 Florida's clam aquaculture industry is centered on Cedar Key with 90% of production taking place there. The industry is negatively impacted by storms and [[hurricanes]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Helmer |first1=Jodi |title=Florida’s weatherbeaten clam farming community may be hanging by a thread, but it’s a strong one |url=https://www.globalseafood.org/advocate/floridas-weatherbeaten-clam-farming-community-may-be-hanging-by-a-thread-but-its-a-strong-one/ |website=globalseafood.org |publisher=Global Seafood Alliance |access-date=16 May 2025}}</ref>

A local museum exhibit displays a reproduction of one of the first [[air conditioning]] installations. The system, with compressor and fans, was used in Cedar Key to ease the lot of malaria patients.

Cedar Key is home to the [[George T. Lewis Airport]] (CDK).

[[Hurricane Eta]] made one of its two landfalls in Florida at about 4 a.m. Thursday, November 10, 2020, near Cedar Key, as a tropical storm.<ref name="FL damage">{{Cite news|last=Callaway|first=Jackie|url=https://www.abcactionnews.com/money/consumer/taking-action-for-you/storm-damage-estimate-tops-1-billion-for-florida-after-tropical-storm-eta|title=Storm damage estimate tops $1 billion for Florida after Tropical Storm Eta|publisher=ABC Action News|date=2020-11-16|access-date=2020-11-17}}</ref>

On August 30, 2023, [[Hurricane Idalia]] caused significant damage to Cedar Key as it headed towards Florida's [[Big Bend (Florida)|Big Bend]]. Although not making a direct hit on the city, the storm brought heavy rains, winds, and [[storm surge]] levels that reached a record {{convert|6.8|ft|m}} above high tide.<ref name="WUFT30Sep" /><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/hurricane-idalia-path-florida-08-30-23#h_2906eba0148fa5884efd6a1c45a46298 |title=These areas are seeing their highest water levels ever as Hurricane Idalia barrels through Florida |last=Miller |first=Brandon |date=2023-08-30 |website=CNN |series=August 30, 2023 - Idalia makes Florida landfall |at=9:09 am EDT |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240510095752/https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/hurricane-idalia-path-florida-08-30-23/index.html |archive-date=2024-05-10 |quote=Cedar Key: 6.8 feet above highest tides, eclipsing the previous 5.99-foot record set during Hurricane Hermine in September 2016. Storm surge has reached 8.9 feet.}}</ref>

On the night of September 26, 2024, [[Hurricane Helene]] caused significant to major damage to Cedar Key as it headed towards Florida's [[Big Bend (Florida)|Big Bend]]. It hit close enough to Cedar Key, to bring major floods, major wind gusts, heavy rain, and [[storm surge]] levels that reached a new record {{convert|9.2|ft|m}} above high tide, surpassing Hurricane Idalia's {{convert|6.8|ft|m}} storm surge.

===Historic district and museum===
{{Infobox NRHP
| name            = Cedar Keys Historic and Archaeological District
| nrhp_type       = hd
| nocat           = yes
| image           = Dockstreet20040530.jpg
| caption         = Dock Street in Cedar Key
| location        = Cedar Key, Florida
| coordinates     = {{coord|29|08|44|N|83|02|30|W|display=inline}}
| area            =
| built           =
| architect       =
| architecture    =
| added           = October 3, 1989<ref name="nris" />
| refnum          = 88001449
| visitation_num  =
| visitation_year = 
}}
[[Image:Cedar Key State Museum01.jpg|150px|left|thumb|Cedar Key Museum building]]
Cedar Key's importance in Florida's history, which began as far back as 1000 BC with [[pre-Columbian]] habitation of the region, was recognized on October 3, 1989, by the [[Federal government of the United States|federal government]]. At that time, {{convert|8,000|acre|km2}} in and around the town were added to the [[National Register of Historic Places]] under the title of the '''Cedar Keys Historic and Archaeological District'''.

[[File:Cedar Key State Museum plaque01.jpg|thumb|150px|left|Historic marker commemorating John Muir's visit]]
The [[Cedar Key Museum State Park]] depicts the town's 19th century history and displays sea shells and Indian artifacts from the collection of Saint Clair Whitman. Tours of Whitman's restored 1920s house are available during museum hours. As the museum photo indicates, the building was constructed to withstand the hurricane conditions that the town is subjected to periodically.<ref name="fsp" />

The naturalist [[John Muir]] visited Cedar Key in 1867 on his historic walk from [[Kentucky]] to Florida. He wrote: <blockquote>For nineteen years my vision was bounded by forests, but today, emerging from a multitude of [[tropical plant]]s, I beheld the [[Gulf of Mexico]] stretching away unbounded, except by the sky. What dreams and speculative matter for thought arose as I stood on the strand, gazing out on the burnished, treeless plain!<ref name="anniversary" /></blockquote> The John Muir historic marker was placed on the museum grounds in 1983, commemorating his visit.<ref name="anniversary" />