Elliot Key, Biscayne Bay National Park, Ledbury Key and North Key Largo

Elliott Key is a state park located in Biscayne Bay which features a visitors center, rest rooms, camping facilities and a harbor on the bayside of Elliott Key.

The reefs offshore this barrier island are teeming with fish, lobsters and healthy coral populations. Just south of Lewis Cut on the ocean side is an inner reef known as Bache Shoal. Here the reef rises sharply from 20 to less than 3 feet. Look carefully for distortion of mixing water -- there are fresh water springs here. Just to the southwest of Bache Shoal the remains of the cement barrel wreck can be found. This 1850s ship was bound for Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas beyond Key West loaded with cement. The wreck lies with her bow pointed southwest just west of Hawks Channel on the grass bottom. It's 11 feet deep around the wreck and cement barrels are only three feet below the surface in the wreckage. Lobsters, tropical fish and eels are found among the corals now formed around the ship's rotting timbers.
Formerly named Ledbury Key after a ship of that name was driven ashore here in 1760. Charles M. Brookfield, who purchased 20 acres of the key during the Great Depression for $160.00 stated that the key was renamed for an early surveyor, Mr. Elliott. If this is so, he was an early surveyor indeed, for the chart of William DeBrahm (1772) shows Eliot Island. An 1872 survey map drawn by M.A. Williams shows Elliott's Key. According to an article in the 1975 issue of Tequesta, DeBrahm named Elliott Key for Gilbert Elliot, who was Lord of the Treasury at the time. Elliot Key is a popular day and term yacht charter destination because of its clear waters and location in proximity to Miami and Key Largo. Elliot key is the host site for the infamous annual Columbus Day Regatta.