The Key West city authorities established the Key West Cemetery in 1847, after the highly disastrous hurricane that hit the island on October 11, 1846. Stephen Mallory, a port inspector and prominent attorney informs that the effects of this hurricane were really terrible at that time. The island was nearly washed away completely and the previous graveyard located on the southern part of the island on a high sand ridge was also washed away by the hurricane. The sand dunes were located near the West Martello Towers on Whitehead Point. The buried and dead remained scattered in many areas of the island, with bodies hanging from trees. The hurricane destroyed all other burial grounds of the islands also.

This forced the local authorities to establish a new cemetery for the island and they bought a tract of 100 lot in the middle of the town for $400 in 1847. The Key West Cemetery covers 13 acres and is bounded by Angela Street, Olivia Street, Frances Street, Passover Lane, and Windsor Lane. The main gate is located on Passover Lane. The gridded central section of the cemetery is delineated as family plots and the northern section contains numbered quadrants for general public.

Later, the authorities of Key West added another 233 lots in the southern part of the family plots. They created a separate cemetery for Catholics along Francis Street in an area of 300 sq. ft. They also permitted a Jewish cemetery in the southern area of the property in a small section. Recently, the authorities dedicated an African Memorial Cemetery in 2009 beside the West Martello Tower. This has been done to honor the slaves, who arrived dead from the sea voyage to the ‘New World’ and who were buried before the civil war of the U.S.

Estimates reveal that around 100,000 people remain buried in this Key West Cemetery, while the present residents of the island number only around 30,000. The cemetery is also part of the Key West Ghost Tours around the Old Town of Key West that take tourists interested in such ghost tours. This cemetery contains a variety of burial methods and artistic styles. The people who buried prominent and wealthy people shipped exclusive monuments to be installed in their cemeteries. Whether you visit the Key West Cemetery as a general tourist spot or as part of a Ghost Tour, it is definitely worth seeing when you visit Key West.