Clinton Square Market

The building at 291 Front Street, beside Mallory Square, is the oldest brick building in Key West. The federal government bought the site in 1833, Congress authorized a naval depot here in 1852, and construction ran from 1856 to 1861. Known then as the Number One Building, it was the Navy’s first permanent structure on the island.

Its history runs through most of what happened in the Gulf afterward. It supplied the East Gulf Blockade Squadron, the Union force based in Key West that cut off Confederate shipping, and it was still in service through the Spanish-American War. It housed the Naval Administration Building until 1923, then the headquarters of the 7th Lighthouse District, and when the Lighthouse Service merged into the U.S. Coast Guard in 1939 the building became Coast Guard headquarters in Key West. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

It is now The Shops at Mallory Square, two floors of independent retail under Historic Tours of America, which restored the building and filled it deliberately with locally owned businesses rather than national brands. Several of the tenants moved in from local artisan and farmers markets, and the spaces combine shop and workshop, so in some of them you are watching the thing being made while you decide whether to buy it.

The mix leans toward makers: handmade ceramics and pottery produced on site, candles, soap and skin care, resin artwork and original paintings, screen printing, cut flowers, ethically made Turkish towels and linens, and totes and wallets sewn from retired sail canvas. There is a Cuban Coffee Queen counter in the building, and a frozen custard shop. Several Keys galleries and studios keep space here too.

It is open seven days a week, though individual shops set their own hours, and the whole building is air conditioned, which on a July afternoon in Old Town is its own argument.