Discover 6 hidden attractions, cool sights, and unusual things to do in Key Largo (United States). Don't miss out on these must-see attractions: African Queen, Key Largo Baptist Church, and Jewfish Creek Bridge. Also, be sure to include Caribbean Club in your itinerary.
Below, you can find the list of the most amazing places you should visit in Key Largo (Florida).
Table of Contents
African Queen
Boat. African Queen was the name of two boats used in the 1951 movie The African Queen starring Humprey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. It was filmed in the Belgian Congo on a tributary of the Congo River, and on the Nile in the Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda. Two boats were utilised, one in each location. One of the boats is now located in Key Largo, Florida and on February 18, 1992, was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The other is located in Jinja, Uganda.[1]
Address: U.S. Hwy 1 at mile marker 100, Key Largo
Key Largo Baptist Church
Church
Address: 835 Largo Rd, 33037-3107 Key Largo
Jewfish Creek Bridge
Beam bridge in North Key Largo, Florida. The Jewfish Creek Bridge is a beam bridge in the Florida Keys. Spanning both Jewfish Creek and Lake Surprise, it carries the Overseas Highway between the Florida Keys and the Florida mainland. The bridge is 65 feet tall and opened in 2008, replacing a small drawbridge.[2]
Caribbean Club
Bar in Key Largo, Florida. Caribbean Club on Key Largo, northernmost of the Florida Keys, was developed and built by auto parts and real estate promoter Carl Graham Fisher in 1938.
Carl Fisher, considered a genius as a promoter, had conceived the Lincoln Highway, the first road across America, in 1913. Fisher had helped develop the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Miami Beach and had at one time been worth an estimated $100 million. He lost his fortune in the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression. One source indicates that during the years before his death, Fisher was living in a modest cottage on Miami Beach.
His last project was the development of the Caribbean Club on Key Largo as a fishing club for men who were far from wealthy. Eight years after his death, the Caribbean Club became famous as a purported "on location" filming site for the 1948 film Key Largo starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. In fact, only that film's initial exterior shots were filmed in the Florida Keys, and the rest was filmed in the Warner Bros. studio. After Fisher's death, the club was turned into a casino. In 1990, the Orlando Sentinel reviewed the sources of the rumours about the filming of "Key Largo" in an article titled "Who Cares if Bogie and Bacall Never Set Foot Here". At that time, the property was described as a motel with "modest rooms and cottages".
By 1948, the property was owned by the Krone family in 1948; it was extensively damaged by fire in 1955 and it was rebuilt in a different style. The Caribbean Club was acquired by Ruth and Lefty Whitehurst in 1963; fire again caused damage in 1971 and repairs were completed. As of 2021, the business was operated by the couple's children and grandchildren. The family's website was reporting that exterior shots for "Key Largo" were filmed here.[3]
Address: 104100 Overseas Hwy, 33037 Upper Keys
Saint Justin Martyr Catholic Church
Church
Address: 105500 Overseas Hwy, 33037-3099 Key Largo
Snake Creek Bridge
Bascule bridge. Snake Creek Bridge is a bascule bridge in the village of Islamorada in the Florida Keys. The single-leaf steel bascule bridge carries the Overseas Highway over Snake Creek, connecting Plantation Key and Windley Key. It is located near mile marker 86.
The bridge was completed in 1981 when a number of new bridges were being built to modernize the Overseas Highway. It is the third bridge that has existed at this location. The first bridge, which carried the Overseas Railroad, was built in the early 1900s. A second bridge built in the 1920s next to the railroad bridge carried the first Overseas Highway (State Road 4A), though the highway would later be shifted to railroad bridge in the 1940s, which was retrofitted for automobile use.
The Snake Creek Bridge is notable for being the only remaining drawbridge operating in the Florida Keys. It gained this distinction in the late 2000s, when the Overseas Highway's drawbridge over Jewfish Creek was replaced by the current Jewfish Creek Bridge in 2008, and the closure and abandonment of the Boot Key Harbor drawbridge in Marathon in 2009.[4]