Dry Tortugas National Park

Monroe County · South Florida & the Keys

Sixty-four thousand seven hundred acres of which more than ninety-nine parts in a hundred is water, about sixty-eight miles west of Key West.

QUESTIONS THAT NAME THIS PLACE

ABOUT THIS PLACE

Seven small keys break the surface: Loggerhead at sixty-four acres, Garden Key at forty-two, Bush Key at thirty, and Long, Hospital, Middle and East Keys. Some have vanished and come back with storms. Juan Ponce de Leon came by in 1513, took sea turtles here and called them Las Tortugas; the Dry was added later because there is no fresh water on any of them. Fort Jefferson stands on Garden Key, begun in 1847 and never finished, built of more than sixteen million bricks and the largest brick masonry structure in the western hemisphere. The Union held it through the Civil War and used it as a prison afterwards; Doctor Samuel Mudd, who set the leg of John Wilkes Booth, was held here until his pardon in 1869. It became a national monument in 1935 and a national park in 1992. Visitors come by ferry or seaplane from Key West, and eight primitive campsites sit on Garden Key. Fewer than ninety thousand people came in 2025

GETTING THERE

Get Directions ↗Official place website ↗

MOVING TO MONROE COUNTY?Fourteen services. One business each.

Attorneys, movers, insurance, title companies, roofers and nine more — one listed business per service in Monroe County.

See local help in Monroe County →

Keep comparing

Return to the Things to Do choices in Monroe County.

Back to Monroe County