What is today Tavernier was originally inhabited by the Calusa and Tequesta Native Americans, with the Tequesta occupying the area around Biscayne Bay and the Calusa inhabiting Southwest Florida. In 1513, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon discovered and mapped the Florida Keys and named the islands Los Martires because they looked like suffering men from a distance. During Florida's First Spanish Period, the Keys remained isolated from imperial administration as Spain focused its colonial efforts in Central and South America. In 1774, British cartographer Bernard Romans created a detailed map of the Keys, including Tavernier, which he mapped as Key Tabona. The Tavernier vicinity offered a favorable anchorage for Bahamian fisherman and wreckers because of its location near hazardous Carysfort Reef, and all of Tavernier's earliest settlers originated in the Bahamas. No settlement occurred in Tavernier during Florida's Territorial Period, although Key West began to grow as sponging, turtling, and wrecking became prominent in the economy of the Lower Keys. The Tavernier community began in the late 1800s on the oceanfront at Planter, northeast of the present town center, where a small settlement grew around the Samuel Johnson farm and a post office was established in 1891. Surrounded by water, the community used both land and sea resources and was served by sailing vessels such as the Island Home, once captained by Samuel Williams, carrying products and passengers to and from mainland ports and Key West. By 1895, the remainder of oceanfront Tavernier had been homesteaded by founders Robert Albury and Amos Lowe. Hurricanes, a pineapple blight, and new development around the F.E.C. Railroad contributed to Planter's decline. Planter's post office closed in 1910, and a Tavernier post office opened near the railroad depot in 1911. In 1928, Hubert S. "Mac" McKenzie moved to Tavernier and began gradually developing commercial enterprises that provided services, supplies, and employment. Many of those businesses and descendants of Tavernier's founding families still remain in the town, and much of Tavernier's center has been designated a historic district by Monroe County to help preserve it.