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Mile 82.0 Upper Matecombe Key - Islamorada



The name Islamorada is frequently translated from Spanish as "purple isles."

However, history recounts that as Henry Flagler built the railroad through the Keys, the train would only stop at towns that had names! To justify a station, William J. Krome (who was the Chief Construction Manager) is said to have christened the village "Islamorada" after the "Island Home" schooner owned by the pioneering Pinder family.

In 1908, the new Islamorada train station and Islamorada post office opened for business. Little did they suspect that the most devastating occurrence in Islamorada's history would be the soon to come Labor Day Hurricane of 1935.



The storm packed winds exceeding 200 miles per hour and created turbulent seas that sent a 17-foot tidal wave across Islamorada, killing hundreds of veterans and local residents. Two years later, after the railroad ties and other debris were removed, a Hurricane monument was erected at Mile Marker 81 in Islamorada. The railroad went bankrupt and was sold to the State of Florida which after a few years, turned the railroad bed into the old State Road 1. Of course Henry Flagler did not live to see this happen. He died May 20, 1913.



This monument was carved from a lump of coral quarried at Windley Key. This quarry is now the Windley Key Fossil Reef Geological State Park which with luck, I will get to today if I can go walking for real. Of course, I will be thinking of sunshine and of fishes like this one: