Following the devastation from hurricanes Idalia, Debby and Helene over 13 months, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named Cedar Key one of 11 of America's most endangered historic places in 2025.
Representatives from the trust, as well as the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation, Cedar Key Historical Society, and local, county and state government gathered in the newly renovated Cedar Key Historical Society Museum to celebrate the momentous designation.
State Sen. Stan McClain, R-Ocala, attended the announcement. He said while the designation doesn't directly financially support the Big Bend town, it could open the door for Cedar Key to receive funding to preserve its history.
" One of the things I want to do is support what the mission of Cedar Key leaders here kind of want to do and how they see, and I'm just here to help support that," McClain said.
Beginning in 1988, the privately funded nonprofit organization began listing endangered historic places across the country. Nominations for a historic place can be submitted by anyone, and the trust evaluates nominations based on "significance, local support for preservation, the urgency of the threat, and the potential solutions to that threat, including the broader impact that an endangered designation might have on saving and activating the place," according to the trust's website.
Cedar Key Mayor Jeff Webb said he hopes national attention will bring those dollars to his town.
" We have vision; we have plans; we have desires, but we don't have funds. We're a small town. We have a small community," Webb said. "What we need is national-level partners to come and join us so that we can do what we need to do to protect our town for the future."
The theme of the day was preserving "Old Florida," the feeling that small coastal towns like Cedar Key hold onto – a slower pace, a tight-knit community and a waterside economy that spans generations.
Alice Phillips has owned the Cedar Key Bed and Breakfast for more than 22 years. The building was constructed in the 1890s.
" People that live here are fiercely protective of keeping it Old Florida," she said. "So to have it nationally recognized and being able to preserve it, I think is amazing. It's a real blessing."
Old Florida to her means going back to a nostalgic feeling of the way Florida was before development and urbanization took over many of the beaches and cities.
" Going back in time the way things used to be when people knew how to be able to take time out and relax and just chill from the world," Phillips said.
Phillips said that while her business was spared from most storm damage due to its higher elevation, Helene wiped out her backyard, including a shed she built in Florida cracker style with barn wood.
Jim Lindberg, policy director for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, said the organization wanted to highlight communities that represent the "full American story."
" Here in Cedar Key, such a small community, relatively isolated, that's the kind of community we really wanted to call attention to because they really need the assistance and they have such special heritage and it's so fragile," Lindberg said.
" A number of sites on our list over the years – and we've been doing this now for 38 years – have used this listing to secure substantial financial assistance and other kinds of support that have helped them save their places."
Cedar Key, with a population of about 700, is an island community at the western terminus of State Road 24 in Levy County. That's 3 miles into the Gulf of Mexico (America), about 130 miles north of Tampa.
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