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1990s Dry Tortugas U.S. National Park Wood Sign

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:50.00 USD Estimated At:100.00 - 200.00 USD
1990s Dry Tortugas U.S. National Park Wood Sign
Featured in this lot is this U.S. Dry Park sign from Dry Tortugas National Park circa 1990s. About 70 miles west of Key West, Florida, in the Gulf of Mexico is a national park called Dry Tortugas National Park. The park, which spans an area of about 100 square miles of both land and ocean, is made up of a collection of seven islands, including Garden Key, Loggerhead Key, and Bush Key. The islands were first found by the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León in 1513, but it wasn't until the early 1800s that sailors, who were astounded by the region's abundance of sea turtles, gave the islands the name "Dry Tortugas." The United States government started building Fort Jefferson, a sizable coastal defense, on Garden Key in the middle of the 1800s. Fort Jefferson functioned as a Union military jail during the Civil War, housing a number of notable inmates, including Dr. Samuel Mudd, who was found guilty of conspiring to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln. The fort remained in use as a military outpost following the war until it was decommissioned in 1874. President Franklin D. Roosevelt named Dry Tortugas a national monument in 1935, and was turned into a national park in 1992. The wood sign shows the U.S. National Park logo on the left side of the sign and reads, "Dry Park" across the sign in white paint. The sign features a large mounting hole in the center for easy hanging. The sign shows fair condition with wood chipping and lettering missing. The sign measures 5 3/8" L x 23 3/4" W.