Cedar Key, Florida: A Self-Guided Walking Tour

Cedar Key History: From Fort No. 4 to Pencil Mills

Nobody settled the Cedar Keys for the scenery. Permanent occupation began in 1839, when the US Army under Zachary Taylor built Fort No. 4 on Depot Key as a depot and hospital and made it headquarters of the Army of the South. The Army abandoned the base in 1842. That same year Congress passed the Florida Armed Occupation Act, opening the Cedar Keys to settlement — and on 4 October 1842, a hurricane drove a 27-foot storm surge across the keys, destroying Cantonment Morgan and wrecking much of Depot Key.

Augustus Steele claimed Depot Key under the Armed Occupation Act in 1843, renamed it Atsena Otie Key, and built summer cottages there for Florida and Georgia planters. Atsena Otie means cedar island in the Creek language — the cedar that named the whole group of keys. The Cedar Key post office was established in 1845, with Steele as its first postmaster.

Then came the mills. Cedar milling made the town. The Eberhard Faber mill, set up in 1865, cut red cedar slats for pencils, and by 1886 the 17 sawmills at Cedar Key were turning out nearly half a million board feet a week. Both the Eberhard Faber mill and the Eagle Pencil Company cut pencil slats here until the 1896 hurricane and fire damaged both so badly that they closed soon after. Cedar Key supplied the wood the world wrote with. Then it stopped.

Who Lives in Cedar Key Today

The census puts Cedar Key at 756 people. The median age is 68.4 years. Of 819 total housing units, 450 are vacant and 269 are held for seasonal or recreational use — on any given day the town is outnumbered by its own empty rooms. Median household income is $69,226; median home value is $331,100; median gross rent is $918. The unemployment rate is 4.2 percent, and 49.7 percent of residents hold a bachelor's degree or higher. A small, old, well-educated town that is also, in large part, a place people visit rather than live.

Getting Around Cedar Key

Almost everything worth walking to sits on or near 2nd Street and Dock Street, on Way Key. Park once and stay parked.

City Park (188 2nd St) and Lil Shark Park (192 2nd St) anchor the waterfront end of 2nd. Cedar Key Museum State Park (12231 SW 166th Ct) is where you go for the long version of the story above. Cedar Key Scrub State Reserve (FL-24) and Sunset Isle RV Resort (11850 FL-24) sit out along the highway approach, and Cedar Key Railroad Trestle Nature Trail (Grove St) follows the old rail line out over the water.

Where to Eat in Cedar Key

What follows is a list of names and addresses, not recommendations of dishes. Nobody writing this has seen a menu.

The volume of reviews matters as much as the score. Steamers carries 4,362 of them; Cedar Key Island Bakery carries 101. Both numbers tell you something, and they are not the same thing.

October

The Cedar Key Seafood Festival runs each October, put on by the Lions Club: more than 100 arts and crafts exhibits, live music, a Saturday parade at 11am, and clam chowder, oysters and smoked mullet dip. It is also the rare chance to reach Seahorse Key, a historic island three miles out that is otherwise closed to the public.

If You Want More Town

Cedar Key is a day, not a week, unless you are here to fish or to sit still. Steinhatchee, 44 miles north, holds the Fiddler Crab Festival. Perry, 76 miles up, holds the Florida Forest Festival. New Port Richey is 66 miles south and runs the Chasco Fiesta; Dade City, 80 miles, runs the Kumquat Festival. Mount Dora, 100 miles inland, runs both the Mount Dora Arts Festival and the Mount Dora Craft Fair.