Florida

The Sunshine State has a rich maritime history spanning more than five centuries. Tragically, part of that history includes thousands of ships that have met their fates in Florida waters.

Potentially more than 5,000 shipwrecks reside off Florida's 1,200 miles of coastline, with hundreds more lost in the state's interior rivers. In and of itself, the Florida Keys archipelago, consisting of approximately 1,700 islands stretching 200 miles, is littered with the remains of close to 1,000 shipwrecks. In fact, many features of the Florida Keys were named after various shipwreck events, such as Fowey Rocks, which earned its name after the 1748 wrecking of the British warship HMS Fowey, and Alligator Reef, where the schooner USS Alligator met her demise in 1822. Florida's Shipwrecks utilizes captivating images to illustrate dramatic stories of danger and peril at sea, introducing readers to a fascinating cross-section of Florida's shipwreck history.

Families watched in horror as walls of water swept away homes and businesses, and men held onto saplings for their lives while the winds howled.

The destruction was beyond belief. Buildings on Atsena Otie were swept away so completely that only cracked stone foundations remained, and the forests of red cedar that gave the islands their name and livelihood were flattened. Resulting in dozens of deaths and millions of dollars in damage, Hurricane Number 4 in 1896 changed the Cedar Keys forever and set the city on a path to the present. Historian Alvin F. Oickle, drawing on firsthand accounts and extensive archival research, tells the story of ordinary Floridians who were faced, like so many before and so many since, with nature's fury.