Duck Key, Florida

Duck Key, Florida, Duck Key is a census-designated place and unincorporated improve in Monroe County, Florida, United States, on an island of the same name in the middle Florida Keys.

The CDP also includes the neighboring island of Conch Key.

Duck Key is positioned oceanside of U.S.

Norie, in his Piloting Directions for the Gulf of Florida, The Bahama Bank & Islands (1828) states: "Duck Key - Some two miles (3 km) long, low, rocky, & veiled with mangroves; some small patches of good territory with a little timber.

This island formerly saltworks but they were transferred latterly to Key West, owned by Mr.

Like most of the Keys, Duck Key was unnamed on early Spanish charts.

It was encompassed as one of the "Key Vaccas", or Cow Keys.

It took George Gauld to name it Duck Key in his chart of 1775.

Gauld names the west end of "Duck Key" as a fresh water origin in his "Of the Watering Places on the Florida Keys." Key Vaca and four small islands were granted to Don Francisco Ferreira by a Spanish Land Grant in 1814.

Therefore, Duck Key was part of one of two Spanish territory grants in the Keys, Key West being the other.

In absolute property a Key situated among those called the Florida Keys, and is also known as Key Baca and also four small islands which are situated in the vicinity.

Duck Key belonged to Ferreira.

The Overseas Highway near Duck Key, Florida, 2015 Duck Key was excluded from some of the legal discussions as Ferreira had sold Key Vaca to Isaac Cox for $3,000 on September 4, 1824, (Deed book E, St.

Johns County, Florida) which was $1,000 more than the selling price of Key West.

Three years later, Cox sold Key Vaca (all five islands) to Charles Howe of Indian Key fame for $1,500.

However, another case of the Spanish owners selling territory twice as they did Key West, Ferreira also sold Duck Key to Sol Snyder on June 11, 1823.

Grassy Key, Key Vacca, Hog Key and Knight's Key owners fought territory title battles until 1899.

There are references to salt ponds on Duck Key in the early 1800s.

It is believed that salt manufacturing was the goal for Charles Howe's acquiring Duck Key in 1827.

The following titled persons to be the judges of the election, which will be held the first Monday in May, next for a - Delegate to Congress on Indian Key, the store of Thomas Gibson - judges: Charles Howe, Joseph Prince and Thomas Gibson.

It is about 30 miles from Indian Key to Duck Key and Indian Key had the only store next to Key West; therefore, was it possible for him to be living on Duck Key? As this required considerable construction, a simpler health was used at Duck Key.

John Lee Williams in his 1837 Territory of Florida wrote: "Duck Key is a narrow rocky islet, including some fine salt ponds.

The Charles Howe of Indian Key was born August 12, 1801 in Massachusetts and married his first wife, Ann Cole on April 20, 1825, had three children, Sarah, Edward and Charles Jr., and he died January 27, 1873 in Hadley, Mass.

Passed Duck Key, where much cash was expended on forming a salt pond ..." Regardless, there were salt ponds on Duck Key and later Charles Howe obtained controlling interest in the salt works in Key West in 1843, then sole ownership after the hurricane of 1846.

Duck Key took a herculean leap forward in 1951.

By 1952 a wooden bridge connected Duck Key to highway U.S.

On January 2, 1953, the million dollar causeway from US 1 to Duck Key was officially opened for vehicle traffic.

The earliest remaining structure and a dominant focal point on Duck Key is the resort's Administration Building which is assembled in a West Indian style.

This charming architectural prize rests peacefully just off Duck Key Drive and the entrance to Hawk's Cay.

Surrounded by a green jungle of tropical trees, palms, and banana plants, the building gives a feeling of solidity and permanence as though it must have been on the island since the days of wreckers in the Florida Keys.

According to Otto, all the homes were to have "earth-colored tile roofs, with wide overhanging eaves like so many older homes encountered at Key West, Jamaica and other Caribbean islands." Lucille, Newkirk's wife, was instrumental in the selection of Morris Lapidus as the architect for the hotel on Duck Key.

Duck Key is described as a site "transformed into five interconnected islands with sites for plush homes, hotels, and apartements.

The Singh Company of Key West, well known for the Truman Annex, entered the Upper Keys in the middle 1990s and began Hawk's Cay Village.

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