Coconut Keys

The Keys you don't see in the brochures.

Strange stories. Forgotten places. Local characters. Hidden history. Life below the waterline. The things that disappear, survive, wash ashore and somehow become part of the Florida Keys.

A different way to cover the Keys.

Everyone knows the postcard version of the Florida Keys. Coconut Keys is interested in everything behind it. The forgotten building. The fisherman who has been here for fifty years. The strange thing found in the mangroves. The hurricane nobody remembers. The place that disappeared. The story everyone knows — but nobody has actually investigated.

The Coconut Keys Files

Eight ways we see the islands

01 / THE MILE

The Mile

One mile marker at a time. The people, places, businesses, arguments, memories and mysteries hiding between Mile 0 and the end of the road.

02 / THE OTHER KEYS

The Other Keys

The Florida Keys tourists rarely see. Working neighborhoods, back roads, forgotten communities, local hangouts and the lives behind the postcard.

03 / THE ARCHIVE

The Archive

Vanished businesses. Old photographs. Lost buildings. Forgotten people. Strange artifacts. Stories from the Keys that almost disappeared.

04 / BELOW

Below

What exists beneath the surface: reefs, wrecks, seagrass, marine life, underwater archaeology, debris and the changing world beneath our boats.

05 / THE INDEX

The Index

Original data about life in the Keys: housing, costs, development, population, insurance, infrastructure and the real price of paradise.

06 / KEYS WEIRD

Keys Weird

Odd happenings. Unexplained objects. Unusual characters. Bizarre disputes. Stories that could only happen somewhere in the Keys.

07 / THE CHARACTERS

The Characters

The people who give the islands their personality. Fishermen, artists, mechanics, business owners, eccentrics, old-timers and accidental legends.

08 / THE FILES

The Files

Public records, development, permits, ownership, government decisions and the stories buried inside documents nobody else bothered to read.

Coconut Keys Investigation

What was here before?

Every week, Coconut Keys investigates something that has disappeared. A restaurant. A marina. A house. A business. A neighborhood. A person everyone remembers.

We go backward through photographs, public records, newspapers, maps and the memories of people who were actually there.

Stories with a longer shelf life.

Not just another news feed

Then / Now

One location photographed across decades. What changed, what survived and what disappeared.

One Object

A lobster trap, old sign, boat part or mysterious artifact becomes the starting point for a story.

One Person

Spend a day with someone whose life reveals something larger about the Keys.

One Question

Take something everybody says about the Keys and investigate whether it is actually true.

One Mile

Go deep instead of wide. Everything happening within one tiny piece of the island chain.

One Mystery

A forgotten photograph, abandoned building, strange object or local story nobody has fully explained.

We cover the Keys people inhabit, not just the Keys people visit.

Coconut Keys is an independent publication focused on original local reporting, history, community, culture, environment and the unexpected stories that make the Florida Keys what they are.