Between the costume contests, royal coronations, glitter, body paint, and 100,000 costumed revelers descending on Duval Street during Fantasy Fest, you may suddenly crave a moment of quiet—somewhere to recover from last night’s mojitos and maybe reflect on life (or at least catch your breath). Enter the historic Key West Cemetery, a surprising oasis of calm and curiosity tucked into the heart of Old Town. With Fantasy Fest falling so close to Halloween and the Day of the Dead , there’s no better time to explore this historic—and decidedly quirky—cemetery.
The island’s original Spanish name, Cayo Hueso, translates to “Bone Island,” and that wasn’t just poetic. Early explorers claimed to find bones scattered across the island, believed to be remnants of a Native American battlefield or burial ground. The island’s morbid moniker proved oddly prophetic when, in 1846, a hurricane struck Key West and unearthed bodies from an early cemetery located on the sandy dunes of Whitehead Point. The following year, officials moved the cemetery to its current location—on higher ground at the base of Solares Hill.
Locals like to joke that the cemetery now sits in the “dead center” of Old Town, and if you visit, you’ll find yourself walking down Passover Lane, one of several roads that border the eerily charming 19-acre plot.
With its above-ground tombs (a necessity in the low-lying Keys), statues of angels, wrought iron fences, and shady gumbo limbo trees, the Key West Cemetery feels part Southern Gothic, part Caribbean fever dream. It’s estimated that over 100,000 souls are buried here—though with lost records and unmarked graves, no one knows for sure. Some tombs are even stacked two or three tiers high due to limited space.
This isn’t a cemetery designed to spook, but it has a sultry, decaying atmosphere that might remind you of a Tennessee Williams play—equal parts beauty and menace. The sort of lurking menace and tropical decay in plays like Suddenly Last Summer and Night of the Iguana.
Key West being Key West, however, the cemetery’s spookiness is quickly tempered with oddball individuality and quirkiness. Where else could you find epitaphs like these: “I Told You I Was Sick,” “I’m Just Resting My Eyes,” and “Devoted Fan of Julio Iglesias.”
Then there’s the tale of General Abraham Lincoln Sawyer, a 40-inch-tall man who requested to be buried in a full-sized tomb—wish granted, because this is Key West, after all.
So, if you find yourself needing a breather from the bacchanal that is Fantasy Fest, take a quiet stroll through the Key West Cemetery. You’ll find history, humor, and a surprisingly tranquil break from the madness—plus, it’s the only place where the locals are truly dying to get in.
