Visit Key West, Florida, and you'll hear plenty about the Conch Republic. Shops sell its souvenir passports, and every spring the town throws it a birthday party. It sounds like a joke, and in a way it is. But it started with a very real protest, and it got real results.
Here's the short answer. On April 23, 1982, Key West declared its "independence" from the United States to protest a U.S. Border Patrol roadblock that was choking off traffic to the Florida Keys. The city called its new micronation the Conch Republic. The stunt drew so much publicity that the roadblock was soon removed, and the Conch Republic lives on as a beloved tourism booster.
The Roadblock That Started It All
In 1982, the Border Patrol set up a roadblock and inspection point on U.S. 1 just south of Florida City, at a spot where traffic from the only two roads linking the Keys to the mainland comes together. Vehicles were stopped and searched for drugs and illegal immigrants. Traffic backed up, and residents and tourists were badly inconvenienced.
The Key West City Council complained again and again that the delays were hurting the Keys' tourism industry. When their complaints went unanswered and an attempt to get a court order against the roadblock failed, the city decided to try something different.
A One-Minute War
On April 23, 1982, Mayor Dennis Wardlow and the council declared Key West independent. Since many locals were nicknamed Conchs, the new nation became the Conch Republic, and Wardlow was proclaimed prime minister.
The republic immediately declared war on the United States. The opening move was symbolic: breaking a loaf of stale Cuban bread over the head of a man dressed in a Navy uniform. One minute later, the Conch Republic surrendered and applied for one billion dollars in foreign aid.
It was tongue-in-cheek, but it worked. The faux secession brought national attention to the Keys' problem, and the roadblock and inspection station were removed soon afterward. It also opened up a whole new kind of tourism for the Keys.
Water Balloons and Conch Fritters
The republic didn't stay quiet. In September 1995, an Army Reserve unit planned a training exercise simulating an invasion of a foreign island, and chose Key West without telling local officials. The Conch Republic "mobilized" and attacked a Coast Guard cutter with water balloons, conch fritters, and stale Cuban bread. The Coast Guard answered with fire hoses. The Army unit later apologized and held a surrender ceremony.
During the federal government shutdown of 1995 and 1996, the republic sent a flotilla of boats to Fort Jefferson in Dry Tortugas National Park, hoping to reopen it with privately raised money. In 2006, a Conch Republic official even claimed an abandoned span of the Seven Mile Bridge. A spokesman for Governor Jeb Bush replied that the bridge belonged to all Floridians and wasn't for sale.
A Sovereign State of Mind
Today, the Conch Republic calls itself a "Sovereign State of Mind." Every April 23, Key West celebrates Conch Republic Independence Day with a week-long festival. The republic sells souvenir passports, though some people have evidently bought them thinking they were real travel documents.
Its late secretary general, Peter Anderson, said the goal was simply to bring more "humor, warmth and respect" to the world. Not bad for a nation born from a traffic jam.
