Craig Key

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Craig Key is an island in the middle Florida Keys.

U.S. Route 1 (or the Overseas Highway) crosses the key at approximately mile marker 72, between Lower Matecumbe Key and Fiesta Key.

[edit] History

The island was formerly known as Poor Craig's Key for Mr. R.W. Craig who was the owner of the island. His wife, Dorothy Thiot Craig, helped him run the island and served as postmaster. Their descendants are still Florida residents. [Roland and Dorothy Craig had twin daughters, Susie and Sally, born in 1934. They attended Coral Way Elementary School in Miami in the ‘40s after the family moved to Miami.]

Poor Old Craig (Roland Craig) tied himself to a piece of railroad track during the hurricane of 1935. [One story has it that Roland wrapped himself in a piece of tarpaulin and tied himself to the rails of the FEC railway track beneath the steam engine that had backed cars down the keys hoping to save the several hundred CCC camp workers trapped by the storm. The tarpaulin is said to have saved him from the sand blasting effects of the estimated 200 mile per winds of the hurricane. Others in the train engine above were said did not have fared as well.] It saved his life and hangs in Ripley's Believe it or Not! Museum. His family was safe in Miami. Roland rebuilt the island after the hurricane.

President Herbert Hoover moored his yacht there when he visited the keys.

A post office was established there in the late 1920s. It operated until destroyed by Hurricane Donna in 1960.

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