While ghost towns are all the craze, ghost islands get little attention. These islands are just as worthy of exploration, if not more so, as there is an added element of remoteness. At Pigeon Key, one of the several hundred Key islands off Florida's east coast, explorers will find the remnants of a world long gone, when America was embracing the interconnectedness that came with the railway boom.
The History Of Pigeon Key
At the turn of the 19th century, well before the world was marred by the First World War, wealth was still, for the most part, being expended within the United States, which means that instead of donating to global causes, philanthropists would invest in local infrastructure. Florida's resident tycoon at the time, Henry Flagler, had a vision that would democratize the state's Key islands. No longer would visitors require boats to island-hop, as Flagler had resolved to put his financial weight behind a railway project that would connect all the major Florida Keys to the mainland.
Flagler's project was to be an extension of the Florida East Coast Railway and allow train passengers to travel from the southernmost town in Florida, Homestead, to Key West, the westernmost of the Florida Keys. The idea behind the railroad project was to bolster trading infrastructure, as commerce between the United States and Cuba was booming, and Key West was the closest deep-sea port to the Panama Canal, through which an immense volume of trade passed every day. Once completed, the railroad could theoretically transform Key West into a major commercial port and allow cargo to be transported directly to the mainland.
There were a couple problems, however. First, the railroad would to span over a hundred miles of ocean. To complete this gargantuan task, materials, workers, and supplies had to be imported on a daily basis. Pigeon Key was used as a labor camp for railroad workers, with about 400 workers living on the island during its construction. Due to the remoteness of the island and the Keys in general, there were no locally available sources of water or food, which meant that the survival of the workers was entirely dependent on the smooth running of daily logistics operations.
This led to the second problem. Unlike the commercial ports of California, Florida's East Coast is notoriously vulnerable to storms, cyclones, and hurricanes. While the project was eventually completed, and Flagler was applauded for his efforts, the railroad failed to achieve its ultimate goal of capitalizing on maritime commerce in the Gulf of Mexico.
First Abandonment
The year 1935 was catastrophic for the Gulf Coast of the United States. In one year, there were several cyclones and hurricanes that broke records for being the most vicious and intense storms ever recorded. Of course, Pigeon Key, along with all the Keys, bore the brunt of the storms. The Labor Day Hurricane, the third one of the year, was the cruelest in terms of barometric pressure and necessitated that the island is abandoned.
Unfortunately, the call for evacuation came too late, and the storm was already in full swing by the time the workers boarded the train to escape the island. The winds and pressure rocked the cars so much that the entire train was derailed. The train plunged into the tumultuous ocean, sinking into the deep blackness. On that dark day, 432 men lost their lives, many of them former residents of Pigeon Key.
With the advent of this catastrophe, it became apparent that the Keys would never become a port. In any case, the destroyed railway tracks could never be repaired, so the entire project was scrapped. This first abandonment foreshadowed the fate of the island.
Second Abandonment
With no potable water or edible food on the island, housing full-time railroad staff on Pigeon Key was a burden on the state's budget. Additionally, with fresh embargoes on Cuba, the dream of maritime trade in the Florida Keys was abolished, and the Overseas Railroad as a concept lost its primary function, never to be attempted again. While the railway was abandoned, the Old Seven-Mile Bridge that it ran on remained.
In the 1980s, the US 1 Route Bridge was opened, which circumvented Pigeon Key by a few miles. Cars would use this new bridge to travel across the Keys, leaving the Seven-Mile Bridge, as well as Pigeon Key, to accumulate guano and graffiti. However, since the old bridge was an architectural wonder, and recognized as such on the National Historic Register, the Bridge was officially opened for pedestrians and cyclists. Today, visitors can walk across the bridge to enter Pigeon Key, which has undergone some renovations to commemorate the railway workers who once lived there and perished in the surrounding ocean.
Buildings have been restored, and a museum has been erected to preserve the eccentricities of what life on the island was like in the early 20th century. To reduce its burden on the state's budget, the island was transitioned to a solar-powered grid, which further symbolizes its remoteness. Without serving any function or being located on the way to somewhere else, and without the need for electrification, Pigeon Key is truly cut off from the mainland, a ghost island in the truest sense of the term.