Egmont Key became an island around 11,000 years ago, separated from the mainland by the rising coastline. The
Tocobaga tribe had a persistent but impermanent presence on the island, as evidenced by the discovery of arrowheads and spear points. A
Spanish surveyor found an abandoned canoe, presumably Tocobaga, on the island in 1757. Spanish incursions and the collapse of the Tocobaga population, however, meant that their presence on the islands ended in the late 1700s. Spanish surveyors first mapped the island in the 1750's, naming it Isla de San Blas y Barreda, in honor of a Cuban official. Following the transfer of Florida to the British in 1763, a mapper commissioned by the English returned to Tampa Bay, and named the island Egmont, in honor of the Lord Egmont, who was at the time the First Lord of the British Admiralty. In 1847, concerns with hazardous navigation at the mouth of
Tampa Bay led to the construction of the first lighthouse, but the
Great Gale of 1848 swamped the island and all but destroyed the original lighthouse. The lighthouse keeper reportedly rode out the storm in a rowboat tied to a palmetto. After the storm had passed, the keeper rowed to Fort Brooke and tendered his resignation. On August 15 that year, a
Fokker/Atlantic F.VIIIb/3m that was turned into a "C-2 Tri-motor",
General Machado (NC55 or 53), was operating a Pan Am flight from
Havana to
Key West, when it became lost and ditched off of the island after running out of fuel. 1 of the 5 occupants, Norman Ageton, died. The plane had been originally built as a F.VIIIb/3m for
Colonial Air Transport. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service owns and manages Egmont Key National Wildlife Refuge and entered into a cooperative agreement with Florida Park Service to cooperatively manage the entire island in 1989 and is known as Egmont Key National Wildlife Refuge and State Park. In 1974, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took over Egmont Key. In 1989 they turned the island over to the State of Florida and it became a state park. After a yearslong effort, the jail structure from Fort Dade was rebuilt and repurposed as a visitors' center for the park in the early 2000s. The structure was designed to resemble the original as closely as possible and featured
Ludowici tiles from the original manufacturer. Budgetary concerns in 2009 led to a proposal to close the park. ==Harbor pilot station==