The Historic Armory

The Armory at 600 White Street was completed in 1903 for the local militia descended from Key West's Civil War era volunteer troops, the unit that became the Island City Guards and later the 438th Company of the Florida National Guard. It served as a training facility through both World Wars before passing into use as a community center. It is a wood-frame building, which makes it a rarity among American armories, and one of the few built anywhere in the South after the Civil War.

By 1969 the building was deteriorating. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, restoration work began in the 1970s, and management passed to the Historic Florida Keys Preservation Board in 1994. Today the building belongs to the State of Florida and is leased and managed by the Historic Florida Keys Foundation, which handles its maintenance and raises the grant funding that keeps it standing. That work has included matching grants from the Florida Division of Historical Resources and a National Park Service grant for Hurricane Irma repairs. The Armory received a Historic Florida Keys Foundation Preservation Award in 2008.

The second floor holds twelve working artist studios, operating as a group called Artists at the Armory. They hold an open studio evening in conjunction with Walk on White, the White Street gallery walk, on the third Thursday of the month from November through May, which is the easiest time to get upstairs and meet the artists at their benches.

Downstairs, Fringe Theater Key West produces its season in the first floor space. Fringe works in short runs and small houses with local casts, and tickets are handled through the KeysTix box office.

Between the two floors, the building does now what it has done for most of its life, which is give the neighborhood somewhere to gather. The Armory sits in the White Street gallery district, within walking distance of the pier and the cemetery.