KEY WEST — The folk song Cayo Hueso is played often in the car of the Conch Republic’s longtime prime minister.

It’s a favorite of his grandkids, who giggle during the verse about grandpa leading Key West’s secession from the United States:

Dennis Wardlow took some bread, and broke it on a sailor’s head

Then surrendered to the admiral. What a story that is to tell.

Today, the Conch Republic — the fictitious country founded with humor to protest the feds treating Keys citizens like foreigners — turns 25.

The republic’s existence has been as colorful as its birth: crashing the historic 1994 Summit of the Americas with the late Mel Fisher showcasing shipwreck treasure; issuing a souvenir passport that may have been used by a 9/11 terrorist; going to war with the Nature Conservancy; and annexing the abandoned Seven-Mile Bridge where 15 Cubans landed in 2006 and were sent back to Cuba.

The country has its own sunburst flag, passports, stamps, money, royalty and frivolous 10-day independence celebration, which began Friday with a flag-raising ceremony at Fort Zachary Taylor.

More at the Miami Herald

Spyro Gyra
“Cayo Hueso”

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