USS Maine Memorial
Do you know where the Battleship USS Maine Memorial is located? Do you have a clue where a number of its tragic crew members that died on that fateful night in Havana, Cuba’s harbor are buried? I guess some might say Havana since that’s where it was sunk but they too would be wrong… it’s right here in the Historic Key West Cemetery!
The sinking of the USS Maine Battleship has long since said to be the powder that sparked the beginning of the Spanish-American War! If you can believe it, in 1898 the USS Maine was only our Nations 2nd Battleship! The Maine had been sent to Havana, Cuba in January 1898 to protect the US interests there and then 3-weeks later on February 15th at 9:40 pm it was gone in a horrific explosion killing 274 men leaving only 89 survivors. Long being a source for conspiracy theories the US at that time blamed Spain who at that time controlled Cuba and touched off the final remaining spark that ignited the Spanish-American War. Did you know that the Spanish-American War lasted ONLY 10 WEEKS! I’ve included two photos below of the USS Maine in the harbor before and after that fateful day in 1898.
You can find this Historic part of the Spanish-American War here at Key West’s Historic Cemetery surrounded by a wrought iron gate topped by spears and battle axes of all things. I promise, you can’t miss the giant bronze sailor standing guard of his lost souls as seen in the photo above. The photo below shows flags on some of the graves during this past Memorial Day honors at the cemetery… I was there, it was very emotional and moving to say the least! The cemetery is open from dawn to dusk and is of course FREE.
