One of the most remote historic sites in America is Fort Jefferson, in Dry Tortugas National Park. It’s 70 miles by boat or seaplane west of Key West, Florida, the southernmost point in the contiguous United States.
One of the oldest and largest 19th-century masonry forts in the United States, the hexagonal Fort Jefferson takes up most of the low-lying, coral cay island of Garden Key. An aerial view truly presents the site’s far-flung locale. Little but deep blue and turquoise water surrounds it: Narrow Loggerhead Key is three miles away, on which sits the Dry Tortugas Lighthouse, and three other tiny sand specks named Hospital, Middle, and East Key.
