The Historic Key West Aquarium: Touch Tanks & Shark Feedings

During the early 1930s, the Great Depression hit Key West harder than almost any community in America. The cigar industry had migrated to Tampa, the military base had scaled back operations, and over 80% of the island's population was on federal relief. The city declared bankruptcy in 1934, effectively turning municipal governance over to the federal Emergency Relief Administration.

Federal administrator Julius Stone devised a bold revitalization plan: transform Key West into the premier tropical resort destination of the United States. Key to this strategy was constructing the Key West Aquarium, completed in 1934 using local coral rock and WPA labor. It was celebrated nationwide as one of the first open-air aquariums in the world, allowing visitors to view marine life illuminated entirely by natural Florida sunlight.

Unlike mega-aquariums with distant glass walls, the Key West Aquarium emphasizes tactile, intimate encounters. At the central touch tank, marine educators guide visitors in safely holding docile creatures from the Florida Keys flats: knobby sea stars, giant conchs, horseshoe crabs (whose blue blood is vital to modern medical science), and pencil urchins.

The headlining event is the guided shark feeding tour, held four times daily. A marine biologist steps onto the feeding platform over the large outdoor pool holding nurse sharks, lemon sharks, and cobia. Visitors learn about shark sensory systems, conservation threats, and feeding habits. Brave guests—especially children—are given the opportunity to pet the tail of a docile nurse shark resting along the shallow edge.

The aquarium serves as a rehabilitation facility for rescued sea turtles that have suffered boat strikes or entanglement. In the turtle tank, you can observe loggerhead, green, and Kemp's ridley sea turtles recovering under the care of staff biologists.

Additional exhibits include a 50,000-gallon Atlantic reef tank displaying giant groupers, moray eels, permit, and tarpon, as well as an educational display dedicated to invasive lionfish—a venomous Indo-Pacific predator threatening native Caribbean reef ecosystems.