Florida Keys

Many of the Spanish vessels returning home with treasures looted from the people of central and South America never made it back to Spain. Storms and hurricanes, uncharted reefs, poor or nonexisting charts, strong currents, and the low-lying keys and reefs of the southern Florida coast took their toll. The frequency of ship wrecks along the Florida Keys was so often that "wrecking" (plundering valuables from wrecked ships) was big business for many years. Pirates also lurked among the Keys, often displaying false lights to entice the passing ships onto a lee shore.

Soon after Florida became a territory of the United States in 1821, commercial interests in Louisiana and New York began pressuring Congress for navigational aids in Florida. Ever since the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, much of the water borne commerce between the central part of the nation and eastern ports traveled down the Mississippi River, through New Orleans, and then through the Straits of Florida and up the Atlantic coast.