After years of hurricane beatdowns, the iconic Southernmost Point Buoy marker in Key West, a twenty-ton technicolor hunk of concrete that’s arguably Florida’s most photographed spot, has crumbled into disrepair. Tourists that lined up, sometimes waiting hours for selfies, now arrive to a fenced-off area closed to the public, with the marker sheathed in plywood, whitewashed, and under repair.
Perched on a seawall at the corner of South Street and Whitehead Street since 1983, the landmark never actually was located at the southernmost tip of the United States—that honor belongs to a nearby Navy base. But that’s a story for another day.
The history of the marker dates back to 1982, when the City of Key West posted wooden signs touting its “southernmost” location and the ninety-mile stretch to Cuba. Spring breakers kept stealing them. A massive twelve-by-seven-foot, brightly painted concrete pillar fixed that problem. (While it’s humanly impossible to hoist the monolith, vandals did attempt to torch it in 2022—arrests and fines followed.)
“It’s the Mount Rushmore of Key West,” says Paul Menta, the appointed Speaker of the House for the Conch Republic. (Key West unofficially declared independence from the United States in 1982.) He says nearly 85 million photos have been snapped at the buoy. “You don’t mess with that.”
There is no set date for the site to reopen, according to City of Key West spokesperson Alyson Crean. The city is working on repairing the seawall, drainage, landscaping, and walkways, and in the meantime they have built a smaller replica a block away on Duval Street for the selfie-snapping masses. “The new location is much more popular with our visitors,” Crean says.
But try telling that to the disappointed hordes of bleary-eyed tourists who arrive in the early morning hours after one too many at Captain Tony’s, Sloppy Joe’s, Hog’s Breath, or the Chart Room, only to discover a construction zone and directions to the new site.
“Key West just isn’t the same without it—can’t wait to see the iconic southernmost buoy back where it belongs,” griped one commenter on social media.
“It was a magical day driving through the Keys,” said another. “But then I got to the southernmost point of the USA … undergoing construction and unavailable for pictures. That was the whole reason I went to Key West! I gave up and got the heck out of there!”
But worry not. The city has a crack crew on the job, and the red, yellow, and black buoy is coming back—sometime.
For now, tourists can take comfort in the fact that the replica buoy is an artful recreation of the original, which was designed by locals Henry Del Valle and Danny Acosta. “He looked forward to the storms,” recalls Rafael Medina, Acosta’s artist grandson and a Key West native. “When they rolled through, the city put up barricades around the buoy, and people would ask him for autographs. It was a big thing. But he was just a man painting a buoy.”
Acosta’s grandfather carefully trained Medina to repaint it when needed, but the city never called. “That’s the real story,” he says. “But they did a heck of a job on that mock buoy—it’s clean and crisp. They know what they’re doing.”
