Why you may ask, would I avoid the corner of Whitehead and Southard Streets when I’m cruising around the streets of Key West?
It’s that damn buoy. The Southernmost Point Buoy, to be exact.
With Cuba just 90 miles south of this point, it’s become one of the most photographed attractions in the United States and is always humming with visitors — making it a virtual nightmare for drivers in a hurry like me. Anchored in concrete, the famous buoy marks the southernmost point in the continental United States (more about this later).
Erected by city elders as a tourist attraction in 1983, the towering black, red, and white striped buoy stands 18 feet above sea level and is one of Key West’s most visited sites. Originally marked with just a small wooden sign, the 12 foot painted concrete buoy has been sandblasted and battered by several devastating hurricanes but somehow always emerges in need of nothing more than a new paint job.
According to the historical plaque mounted at the site, and long before the iconic buoy was created, black residents used the beach immediately west of the Southernmost Point because it was adjacent to their community. They were not allowed to use the “white” beach from Duval Street to Simonton Street. In the summer of 1942, shortly after the start of WWII, the Navy placed a chain-link fence around the land so civilians could no longer use it. From that point on, the black population’s only access to the ocean became the foot of Whitehead Street, where the buoy stands today, until desegregation in the mid-1960s.
During this time, black fishermen also used the area to store boats and clean their catch, which they strung on a line and sold to locals. In the mid-1960s, you could still buy “a string of conchs” for only a couple of bucks. Conch shells became a highly desirable souvenir with the advent of the sight-seeing train in 1958. 
In the 1970s, a beloved island resident named Albert Kee and his father “Yankee” Kee became fixtures at the Southernmost Buoy selling seashells and blowing conch horns as the sight-seeing train came by. Rumor has it that one day the city will erect a statue in Albert’s honor.
Ok, now here is the rest of the story: Truth be told, the Southernmost Buoy is not the southernmost point in Key West. The island’s true southernmost point is in the Truman Annex west of the buoy. Because it is on US Navy property, only authorized Navy personnel are allowed to enter.
Another factoid for you history buffs: Florida’s real southernmost point is on Ballast Key, a privately owned island about 9 miles from Key West, which is off-limits to unauthorized visitors. And that, my friends, is the real story behind Key West’s most popular tourist attraction!
