The Mel Fisher Maritime Museum in Key West

The Mel Fisher Maritime Museum is located at 200 Greene Street in Key West, Florida. The building, originally a naval storehouse known as Building 48, served as a warehouse, administrative offices, and a U.S. Navy Post Office. Today, it serves as a museum, a lab, and a nationally recognized research facility. It houses an extensive collection of artifacts from 17th-century shipwrecks, including the Henrietta Marie, Nuestra Señora de Atocha, and Santa Margarita, as well as items from the Conquistador-era galleon The Santa Clara (1564) and The Guerrero & Nimble.

As a 501(c)3 non-profit charity organization, the museum is named for its founder Mel Fisher, though his fortune is not financially linked to the institution. The second floor features a rotating gallery, which has included exhibits on Cuban Rafters and Balseros arriving in hand-crafted vessels, as well as displays on Caribbean piracy and the preservation of underwater items. A fully operating Conservation and Archaeology lab allows guests to enter daily for a private Lab Tour to see various stages of artifact conservation, a process that can take weeks or years depending on the item.

One notable item in the museum's history was a solid gold bar kept in a plexiglass case as a popular tourist feature. In August 2010, two thieves, Richard Johnson and Jarred Goldman, stole the bar and sold it in pieces in Las Vegas. The FBI arrested the men in 2018 following an anonymous tip. Only a single piece of the gold bar was recovered, and both men were sentenced to prison and ordered to pay $570,195 in compensation.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons