The United States acquired the island of Key West through neither military conquest nor diplomatic treaty. In good American fashion, it was purchased with private funds.
The island was uninhabited except by foliage and flamingos when John Whitehead spotted it while sailing from Nassau in 1819. It had little to recommend it—not even a source of fresh water—except a deep harbor, fortuitously placed between America's Eastern Seaboard and the busy gulf port of Mobile, Alabama.
