About how long is the island of Key West?Answer: About 4 miles. Source: Wikipedia: Key West
Conch was first a slang name for which people?Answer: Bahamians of European descent. Source: Wikipedia: Conch (people)
Duval Street crosses Key West from one body of water to another. Which two?Answer: The Gulf and the Atlantic. Source: Wikipedia: Key West
The English word key, for a low island, comes from which Spanish word?Answer: Cayo. Source: Wikipedia: Florida Keys
In 1513 Juan Ponce de León gave the Florida Keys a name of his own. What did he call them?Answer: Los Martires, the martyrs. Source: Wikipedia: Florida Keys
In Key West, who is a Freshwater Conch?Answer: Someone born elsewhere who has lived there seven years. Source: Wikipedia: Key West
It is said that Conch families once put a conch shell on a pole in front of the house. What did it announce?Answer: A baby had been born. Source: Wikipedia: Key West
Key West is closer to Havana than to which Florida city, 130 miles away by air?Answer: Miami. Source: Wikipedia: Key West
Key West is low and flat. What is its highest ground, about 18 feet above the sea and roughly an acre in size, called?Answer: Solares Hill. Source: Wikipedia: Key West
Key West is the seat of which Florida county?Answer: Monroe. Source: Wikipedia: Key West
What is the motto of Key West?Answer: One Human Family. Source: Wikipedia: Key West
Which nickname did Key West earn in the 1820s for its place beside the deep shipping lane between the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico?Answer: Gibraltar of the West. Source: Wikipedia: Key West
Show all 60 questions (48 more)
Wreckers, forts and lighthouse keepers 12
A hurricane in 1846 destroyed both the Key West light and the light on Sand Key. What stood in for the Sand Key light until new towers were built?Answer: A ship fitted out as a lightship. Source: Wikipedia: Key West Lighthouse
At midnight on January 13, 1861, Captain John Brannan moved his 44 artillerymen into Fort Taylor. What was unusual about the move?Answer: He had no orders to make it. Source: Wikipedia: Fort Zachary Taylor
Barbara Mabrity kept the Key West light for 32 years. Why was she dismissed in the early 1860s, at the age of 82?Answer: She had spoken against the Union. Source: Wikipedia: Key West Lighthouse
From 1830 to 1861 Key West was a major American source of salt. How was the salt won?Answer: From the sea, in tidal pools. Source: Wikipedia: Key West
In 1968 volunteers began to dig in long-abandoned parts of Fort Taylor. What did they find buried there?Answer: Civil War cannons and ammunition. Source: Wikipedia: Fort Zachary Taylor
In the middle of the 19th century, about how often did a ship wreck on the Florida Reef?Answer: Almost once a week. Source: Wikipedia: Wrecking (shipwreck)
John Whitehead urged his friend John Simonton to buy Key West. How had Whitehead come to know the island in 1819?Answer: He was stranded there after a shipwreck. Source: Wikipedia: Key West
Juan Pablo Salas was deeded Key West in 1815. Once Florida had passed to the United States, what did he do with the island?Answer: He sold it twice, to two buyers. Source: Wikipedia: Key West
Legend says wreckers lured ships onto the reef with false lights. What do the hundreds of admiralty cases heard in Key West show?Answer: No captain ever claimed a false light had misled him. Source: Wikipedia: Wrecking (shipwreck)
On the Florida Reef, what was the first wrecking captain to reach a stranded ship called?Answer: The wreck master. Source: Wikipedia: Wrecking (shipwreck)
Why was the tower of the Key West lighthouse raised by twenty feet in 1894?Answer: Trees and taller buildings had begun to hide the light. Source: Wikipedia: Key West Lighthouse
Wreckers in the Keys were bound to save a stranded ship's passengers and crew. What were they paid for saving people?Answer: Nothing. Source: Wikipedia: Wrecking (shipwreck)
The railroad that went to sea 12
Along the Overseas Highway, what does a street address ending in an odd number usually tell you?Answer: The place is on the ocean side of the road. Source: Wikipedia: Overseas Highway
How fast were trains allowed to go on the long bridges of the Overseas Railroad?Answer: 15 miles an hour. Source: Wikipedia: Overseas Railroad
How long is the modern Seven Mile Bridge?Answer: A little under seven miles. Source: Wikipedia: Seven Mile Bridge
In the railroad years, how did Key West get much of its drinking water?Answer: Trains of tank cars brought it from the mainland. Source: Wikipedia: Overseas Railroad
In which year did the first train roll into Key West, with the railroad's builder aboard in his private railcar?Answer: 1912. Source: Wikipedia: Overseas Railroad
The Labor Day hurricane of 1935 washed away miles of track in the Keys. Why did the railroad never rebuild?Answer: It was bankrupt and could not pay. Source: Wikipedia: Overseas Railroad
Mile markers along the Overseas Highway count up from zero. Where is mile marker zero?Answer: In Key West. Source: Wikipedia: Overseas Highway
Until 1954 drivers paid a toll on parts of the Overseas Highway. What did it cost?Answer: A dollar a car and 25 cents a passenger. Source: Wikipedia: Overseas Highway
What did doubters call the Overseas Railroad while it was being built?Answer: Flagler's Folly. Source: Wikipedia: Overseas Railroad
When the old Seven Mile Bridge was turned over to cars, what were its guardrails made from?Answer: The railroad's own rails, painted white. Source: Wikipedia: Seven Mile Bridge
Which great project, announced in 1905, made the builder of the Overseas Railroad keen to reach Key West?Answer: The Panama Canal. Source: Wikipedia: Overseas Railroad
Which oil and railroad magnate built the Overseas Railroad across the Keys to Key West?Answer: Henry Flagler. Source: Wikipedia: Overseas Railroad
Old Town: houses, sunsets and a republic 13
A well-known gravestone in the Key West Cemetery carries which message?Answer: I told you I was sick. Source: Wikipedia: Key West Cemetery
After Harry Truman's unexpected re-election in 1948, Key West renamed Division Street. What is it called now?Answer: Truman Avenue. Source: Wikipedia: Harry S. Truman Little White House
Beside the Southernmost Point buoy stands a small cement hut. What did it house in 1921?Answer: A telephone cable to Havana. Source: Wikipedia: Southernmost Point Buoy
The buoy at South and Whitehead Streets claims the southernmost point. Which place is truly the southernmost point of the contiguous United States?Answer: Ballast Key. Source: Wikipedia: Key West
How did the new Conch Republic "declare war" on the United States in 1982?Answer: By breaking stale Cuban bread over a uniformed man's head. Source: Wikipedia: Conch Republic
John James Audubon painted the white-crowned pigeon with a tree from the yard of today's Audubon House. What is the tree called?Answer: The Geiger tree. Source: Wikipedia: Audubon House and Tropical Gardens
On April 23, 1982 Key West declared itself the Conch Republic. What had set off the protest?Answer: A Border Patrol roadblock on the highway. Source: Wikipedia: Conch Republic
What happens at Mallory Square every evening of the year?Answer: The Sunset Celebration. Source: Wikipedia: Mallory Square
What is set into the concrete beside the pool at the Hemingway House?Answer: A penny. Source: Wikipedia: Ernest Hemingway House
What stands across Whitehead Street from the Ernest Hemingway House?Answer: The Key West Lighthouse. Source: Wikipedia: Ernest Hemingway House
Which inventor lived in the future Little White House for six months during World War I, giving his time to the Navy?Answer: Thomas Edison. Source: Wikipedia: Harry S. Truman Little White House
Which is the farthest south that the public can go on the island of Key West?Answer: The beach at Fort Zachary Taylor. Source: Wikipedia: Key West
Which president rode the new Overseas Railroad into Key West in December 1912, the first president to visit the house later called the Little White House?Answer: William Howard Taft. Source: Wikipedia: Harry S. Truman Little White House
Reef, deer and the Dry Tortugas 11
Bush Key in the Dry Tortugas used to be called Hog Island. Why?Answer: Hogs were raised there to feed prisoners. Source: Wikipedia: Dry Tortugas National Park
The Dry Tortugas hold the only nesting colonies in the contiguous United States of several seabirds. Which of these is one of them?Answer: The masked booby. Source: Wikipedia: Dry Tortugas National Park
Fort Jefferson stands on Garden Key, nearly 70 miles west of Key West. What is it mostly built of?Answer: Brick. Source: Wikipedia: Fort Jefferson
How did the ancestors of the Key deer reach the Florida Keys?Answer: They crossed a land bridge in the last ice age. Source: Wikipedia: Key deer
The Key deer is the smallest deer in North America. About how tall does a buck stand at the shoulder?Answer: About 30 inches. Source: Wikipedia: Key deer
The Key lime is named for the Florida Keys. Where is the tree native?Answer: Southeast Asia. Source: Wikipedia: Key lime
The Sand Key lighthouse of 1853 stands on screw piles. What did a hurricane in 1856 do to the island under it?Answer: It washed away all of it above water. Source: Wikipedia: Sand Key Light
What color is a Key lime when it is fully ripe?Answer: Yellow. Source: Wikipedia: Key lime
Which is the largest island of the Dry Tortugas, where the tall Dry Tortugas lighthouse stands?Answer: Loggerhead Key. Source: Wikipedia: Dry Tortugas National Park
Which strip of water lies between the Florida Reef and the Keys?Answer: Hawk Channel. Source: Wikipedia: Wrecking (shipwreck)
Why are the Dry Tortugas called dry?Answer: They have no fresh water on the surface. Source: Wikipedia: Dry Tortugas National Park
How this list was compiled: Written for this site; nothing was copied from another list. Every answer was read on October 15, 2026 in the English Wikipedia article linked beside its question (Key West, Florida Keys, Conch (people), Wrecking (shipwreck), Fort Zachary Taylor, Key West Lighthouse, Overseas Railroad, Overseas Highway, Seven Mile Bridge, Ernest Hemingway House, Harry S. Truman Little White House, Mallory Square, Audubon House and Tropical Gardens, Key West Cemetery, Conch Republic, Southernmost Point Buoy, Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas National Park, Key deer, Key lime and Sand Key Light; text under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license); the questions, wrong choices and explanations are in our own words. Left out on purpose: population figures and ranks, current office-holders, living people, sports teams, companies and brands, storm and wreck tolls, weather records, and the island's bars. Levels are our estimate: easy is fair for any table, medium suits people who know the island, hard will stump most tables. Licence: own work
How it works
This Key West trivia stays on the island and the road to it: wreckers racing to stranded ships, a railroad laid over open water, a grudge set in concrete, a buoy that is not quite southernmost, and deer that swim.
Read the full guide
Trivia questions for Key West, Florida, round by round
The island, its names and its Conchs starts on easy ground: the county, the main street, the motto. Wreckers, forts and lighthouse keepers is the 19th century, when salvage made the town rich. The railroad that went to sea follows the line across the water and the highway that took over its bridges. Old Town: houses, sunsets and a republic walks Whitehead Street to the buoy, and Reef, deer and the Dry Tortugas sails west to Fort Jefferson.
Questions and answers
What is Key West known for?
Sunsets at Mallory Square, the house where Ernest Hemingway lived in the 1930s, Harry Truman's Little White House, Duval Street and the painted buoy near the island's southern tip. In the 19th century the town grew rich on salvaging wrecked ships.
How far is Key West from Cuba?
A little over 90 miles at the closest points; the buoy rounds it to 90. Havana itself is about 106 miles away.
Why is it called Key West?
Its Spanish name is Cayo Hueso, which means bone cay: the island is said to have been strewn with the bones of earlier inhabitants. Key comes from cayo, a small island.
How was this Key West trivia checked?
Each answer was read on October 15, 2026 in the Wikipedia article linked under its question: Key West, the Florida Keys, the Overseas Railroad and 18 more.
What are some easy Key West trivia questions?
Which county is Key West the seat of? What color is a ripe Key lime? Where is mile marker zero of the Overseas Highway? Monroe County, yellow, and Key West itself.