Conch Republic & Florida Keys Hats

On April 23, 1982, Key West declared independence. The protest was aimed at a Border Patrol blockade on US 1 at the top of the Keys, whose searches produced a 19-mile traffic jam. Mayor Dennis Wardlow read the secession declaration from the top of a pickup truck, and the new Conch Republic symbolically declared war, surrendered and requested one billion dollars in foreign aid. Every year the anniversary ends with a Conch Republic victory over the Coast Guard in Key West Harbor. These hats are written in the voice of the proud citizen. Key West residents claim dual citizenship, American and Conch, and a freshwater conch is an honorary citizen who has lived there seven years. Keys disease is the local name for the laid-back, flip-flops-everywhere attitude that visitors catch when they start to go with the flow. The free-roaming chickens are protected by law, and when the sunset's last color slips away, people really do applaud. Plain badges carry the place names, and the rest turn the micronation into one citizen's claim, from a Ministry of Sunset Affairs to a secession nobody noticed. This page is the Keys themselves, distinct from Florida Hats and from Parrothead & Margaritaville, which is Buffett fandom. Every design is custom embroidered on an unstructured dad hat. Wear one to the dock, or give one to the citizen in your life.