Key Largo Live Cam

The beautiful Florida Keys attract hundreds of thousands of visitors each year who flock to this lovely chain of islands stretching for a hundred miles off the coast of southern Florida. The Florida Keys Visitor Center, operated by the legendary Key Largo Chamber of Commerce, is located at the very top of the chain as you enter Key Largo at mile marker 106.

More than 160,000 visitors stop at our visitor center in Key Largo each year because they know they can depend on us to provide them with the latest news about places to stay, dine, relax and play throughout the fabulous Florida Keys. We pride ourselves on helping our visitors make the most of their stay in the Key Largo and the Florida Keys.

Sure, you know Key Largo as the first of the Fabulous Florida Keys and the Dive Capital of the world, but there's even more to this lovely island paradise.

There's always plenty to do in the fabulous Florida Keys! Not only do visitors enjoy daily adventures in scuba diving, snorkeling, fishing, and sightseeing, but they can take part in the numerous special events hosted by local organizations.

Shortly after Christopher Columbus discovered the New World in 1492, adventurer Ponce de Leon, in search of the illusive fountain of youth, sighted the Florida Keys on Sunday May 15, 1513. No record exists that anyone on the ship even came ashore, but later, other visitors did.

While most of eastern North America has had continuous development over the past 200 years, the Florida Keys, discovered much earlier, remained undeveloped until the middle of this century. Navy Pirate Fleet, that was established around 1822. Settlers followed while the native indian population, the Caloosa, and other mainland tribes died out.

Early settlers farmed Key Largo and the Upper Keys. Productive groves of Key Limes, tamarind and breadfruit were common, as well as fields of pineapples. The lower part of Key Largo became known as "Planters" which is now the town of Tavernier. Mosquitos, combined with almost yearly hurricane disasters kept expansion of Key Largo's small settlements of Planter, Rock Harbor, Basin Hills, and High Mangroves to a minimum.

Construction on Henry Flagler's 'railroad that went to sea', began in 1902 and was completed in 1912. I did little for Key Largo communities except to shift transportation centers from the ocean, where coastal schooners had provided the only mainland contact, to railroad stops. However, even this ceased with the destruction of the railroad by the Great Hurricane of 1935. The property was then purchased by the state for the new highway, known ever since as U.S. One or the Overseas Highway.

The Key Largo area, so close to the mainland yet so isolated from the amenities of 'civilization', has given its residents a strong sense of self reliance. Even today our water, electricity and supplies come from the mainland. Most of our businesses are locally and/or family owned and operated and include charter boats, dive shops, restaurants, lodgings and local media. The laid-back atmosphere of our present community and it's residents reflect those quiet times when early social life revolved around church-related and other secular activities, in the absence of more cosmopolitan attractions and activities.

As you enjoy the soft tropical breezes of your new home, with world-famous reefs and fishing at your doorstep, pause to reflect on those days of the not-so-distant past, when people much like you lived very simply, facing nature at its best (and worst). There were church picnics and rum-runners, and mosquitoes so thick that they blackened screens each night.