Cedar Key Florida: History of the Island and Pencil Mill Town

How Atsena Otie Key Named Cedar Key

Before the town, there was the island. Augustus Steele bought the military structures on Atsena Otie Key in 1843 for $227, along with title to its 167 acres. That island became the nucleus of the first organised settlement in the Cedar Keys. Atsena Otie means cedar island in the Creek language—the cedar that gave the whole group of keys its name. The town that followed was built on the wood that grew there and the water that carried it away.

Cedar Key's Pencil Mill History: From Sawmills to Slats

Cedar milling made the town. The Eberhard Faber mill, set up in 1865, cut red cedar slats for pencils. By 1886 the 17 sawmills at Cedar Key were turning out nearly half a million board feet a week. The Eagle Pencil Company also cut here. Cedar Key supplied the wood the world wrote with. Both mills cut pencil slats until the 1896 hurricane and fire damaged them so badly that they closed soon after. For three decades, this was not a quiet fishing village. It was an industrial port whose product went into classrooms and offices everywhere.

The 1896 Hurricane That Destroyed Cedar Key's Mills

The storm that ended it came in 1896. Locals still call the surge the tidal wave. It hit Atsena Otie Key, the island first settled. More than thirty-five houses on the high ground survived the storm surge. The mills on Way Key did not fare as well; the hurricane and fire damaged the Eberhard Faber and Eagle Pencil plants so badly that both closed soon after. The industry did not rebuild. The town did not recover its population. The water that had carried the cedar out had, in one night, carried the reason for the town away with it.

Cedar Key Ruins and Historic Sites: What's Left Today

The physical traces are thin but findable. On Way Key, the Eagle Pencil Company site at 3rd and G Streets is a patch of ground where cedar slats and pencil boxes were made. Nothing marks it but the address. Across the water, Atsena Otie's high ground still holds those houses that survived the tidal wave. The island is accessible only by boat. No bridge, no ferry, no regular service. You bring your own hull or you do not go.

Cedar Key Population and Demographics Today

The census numbers tell a story the town's quiet streets do not. Population: 756 people. Median age: 68.4 years. Of 819 total housing units, 450 are vacant and 269 are held for seasonal or recreational use. The people who do live here are educated—49.7 percent hold a bachelor's degree or higher—and the median household income is $69,226. The median home value is $331,100; the median gross rent is $918. The unemployment rate is 4.2 percent. Not a ghost town. A town repopulated by a different kind of resident, one who came for the water, not the work.

Cedar Key Seafood Festival: When to Visit Seahorse Key

The one day the old islands open up is in October. The Cedar Key Seafood Festival, run by the Lions Club, draws more than 100 arts and crafts exhibits, live music, a Saturday parade at 11am, and food. It is also the rare chance to reach Seahorse Key, a historic island three miles out that is otherwise closed to the public.

Atsena Otie has no such public day. You can see its high ground from a boat, or you can swim ashore and walk the shell paths yourself, past the houses that outlasted the storm that killed the industry. The water that made this town is still here. The cedar is gone, the mills are gone, the workers are gone. What remains is a town of 756, most of its houses empty most of the year, waiting for October, when the boats run and the old island gets visitors again.