Key West Shipwreck Museum
About Key West Shipwreck Museum
The Key West Shipwreck Museum (formerly Shipwreck Historeum) is located in Key West, Florida, United States. It combines actors, films and actual artifacts to tell the story of 400 years of shipwreck salvage in the Florida Keys. The museum itself is a re-creation of a 19th-century warehouse built by wrecker tycoon Asa Tift. Many of the artifacts on display are from the 1985 rediscovery of the wrecked vessel Isaac Allerton, which sank in 1856 on the Florida Keys reef and turned out to be one the richest shipwrecks in Key West's history, having resulted in the Federal Wrecking Court's largest monetary award for the salvage of a single vessel.
The museum guide portraying Tift tells the story from his point of view as he explains how this unusual industry provided for the livelihood for the entire island of Key West at a time when it had the largest population in the state.
Guests can climb the 65' lookout tower.
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Nearby museums
Make a day of it. 4 more museums are within a mile of Key West Shipwreck Museum; the closest, Key West Art Center, is practically next door.
