No Name Key
Encyclopedia
Florida Keys
The Florida Keys are a coral archipelago in southeast United States. They begin at the southeastern tip of the Florida peninsula, about south of Miami, and extend in a gentle arc south-southwest and then westward to Key West, the westernmost of the inhabited islands, and on to the uninhabited Dry...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It is 3 miles from US 1
U.S. Route 1
U.S. Route 1 is a major north–south U.S. Highway that serves the East Coast of the United States. It runs 2,377 miles from Fort Kent, Maine at the Canadian border south to Key West, Florida. U.S. 1 generally parallels Interstate 95, though it is significantly farther west between...
and sparsely populated with only 43 homes. It is a fairly small island in comparison to its neighbor, Big Pine Key, which lies about a half mile to its west. It is accessible by a concrete bridge that connects the small island with Big Pine Key and was the terminus of a car ferry that existed before the present Overseas Highway
Overseas Highway
The Overseas Highway is a highway carrying U.S. Route 1 through the Florida Keys. Large parts of it were built on the former right-of-way of the Overseas Railroad, the Key West Extension of the Florida East Coast Railway. Completed in 1912, the Overseas Railroad was heavily damaged and partially...
was built on the remains of Flagler's Overseas Railroad
Overseas Railroad
The Overseas Railroad was an extension of the Florida East Coast Railway to Key West, a city of almost 30,000 inhabitants located 128 miles beyond the end of the Florida peninsula...
.
No Name Key is known for not being connected to the power grid. Residents mostly use solar energy supplemented by diesel or gas generators which has limited development of the key. Only recently have plans been approved to give the residents the option of being connected to the electrical grid.
Its native residents include the endangered Key Deer
Key Deer
The Key Deer is an endangered deer that lives only in the Florida Keys. It is a subspecies of the White-tailed deer .-Physical description and behavior:...
..
Paramilitary uses
In 1962-1963 No Name Key was the headquarters of a group of anti-Castro activists known as the Interpen, or Intercontinental Penetration Force, led by a prior-service Marine named Gerry Patrick HemmingGerry Patrick Hemming
Gerald Patrick "Gerry" Hemming, Jr. was a former U.S. Marine, mercenary and Central Intelligence Agency operative associated with attacks against on Cuba in the 1960s.-Early background:One of eleven children, Hemming born in Los Angeles, California on March 1, 1937...
, who had worked with the Castro forces in Cuba in 1959-1960.